Figure ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Curves Showing Heat Losses Due to Excess Air. Page 9 An Electrically Driven Centrifuge. 8. Tagliabue Closed-Cup Tester.. 9. The Mahler Calorimeter. 11. Bedded Impurities in a Seam of Illinois Coal. 31 38 40 45 12. Size Elements of Lump Coal and Screenings.. 46 13. Percentage of Weight of Coal Which Passes Through Various Screens 48 14. Influence of Moisture in Coal on Evaporative Power of the Fuel. 15. Influence of Ash on Fuel Value of Dry Coal..... 51 52 16. Colloidal Fuel After Standing One Year Under Water.. 17. The Oil Tanker "Nuuanu". An Oil Barge on San Francisco Bay. 19. Delivering Fuel Oil to a Mail Steamer. 20. Pump for Loading Barges with Fuel Oil.. 21. Derrick for Handling Heavy Hose on Barge. 23. Storage Tank Along the Mexican Railway. 24. Locomotive Loading-Tanks Along Lines of the United Railways of Havana Reservoir Tank with Automatic Float Valve. 26. Steel Storage-Tank for Fuel Oil... A Typical Reinforced Concrete Fuel Oil Reservoir.. 28. Concrete Oil Tanks Which Without Damage Withstood a Hurricane and Flood... 30. Temperature-Capacity Curve for Mechanical Oil Burner. 32. A Type of Spiral Heater... 33. Pumps and Heaters at City and County Hospital Power Plant, 71 72 73 74 75 78 79 81 82 83 92 115 119 120 121 43. Fuel Oil Pumping, Heating, and Regulating System for Power Boilers 47. An Oil-Burner Under a Vertical Tubular Boiler. 138 48. Oil Burning System for Scotch Marine Boilers. 139 49. Application of Oil-Burning System to the Stirling Watertube Boiler 140 50. Oil Burning System Applied to Return-Tubular Boiler. 51. A Babcock and Wilcox Oil Furnace, Patented.. 141 142 52. A Mechanical Oil Burner.. 146 56. "Coaling Ship" 57. Fuelling with Oil.. 158 163 58. Fuelling Station at Palik Papan, Dutch Borneɔ. 164 59. Fire Room of S. S. Manoa.. 165 60. Hinged Firing Front for Scotch Marine Boilers. 166 62. 61. Oil-Burning French S. S. Lieutenant de Missiessy. 63. Oil Burning Equipment as Applied to Santa Fe Locomotives... 174 64. Locomotive Firebox and Fire Pan Arrangement with Oil Burn 169 General Arrangement of the Staples and Pfeiffer System for 173 ers 175 65. The Booth Oil Burner Used as a Standard on the Santa Fe.... 177 66. Von Boden-Ingalls Burner... 178 67. Arrangement of Oil Burning Equipment as Used by The Baldwin Locomotive Works.. 70. Sketch of Oil Burning Open-Hearth Furnace. 71. Water Cooled Oil-Burner in Open-Hearth Furnace. 186 187 72. Swinging Oil Burners in Open-Hearth Furnace.. 73. Layout of Oil System.... 187 188 74. Construction of Oil Storage Tank.. 189 75. Charging an Oil-Burning Open-Hearth Furnace.. 191 76. Furnace for Case Hardening and Heat Treating Gears. 81. Oil Heaters and Pumps in California Electric Plant. 201 82. Boiler Room Showing Piping for Oil Burners in California Electric Plant 88. Oil-Driven Tractor Pulling Plows on Sugar Estate. 98. Oil-Burner Installation at San Francisco Hospital. 100. Oil-Burner Equipment Installed in San Francisco Schools.. Boiler Room of Modern 60-Room Apartment Hotel. 106. Apparatus for Gas Making by Lowe Process. 232 233 234 235 235 236 238 239 CHAPTER I PRINCIPLES OF FUEL OIL COMBUSTION Combustion is nothing more nor less than a chemical union of oxygen with some combustible material such as carbon. The decaying autumn leaf is an example of combustion. In this case the organic matter of the leaf forms a slow chemical union with the oxygen of the air. Heat accelerates all chemical unions and the greater the intensity of the heat applied, the more rapidly the elements unite. The process of the combustion of the autumn leaf is slow because insufficient heat is developed to induce rapid combustion. The explosion of black powder, dynamite or any other of the high explosives, is another example of combustion. Black powder is a mechanical mixture of sulphur, charcoal and potassium nitrate. In this mixture theoretically each particle of sulphur has beside it one particle of charcoal and one particle of potassium nitrate. Sulphur, which burns easily, is put in the mixture to generate sufficient heat for the liberation of the oxygen which is contained in the potassium nitrate. Inasmuch as all of the elements necessary for combustion, that is, heat-giving substance, combustible material, and oxygen are combined in black powder. the rate of burning is thousands of times greater than is that of the decaying automn leaf. Since sulphur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate are only mechanically mixed, it follows that in practice every particle of sulphur does not have adjacent to it a particle of charcoal and a particle of potassium nitrate. Accordingly the speed of combustion of black powder is relatively slow as compared with that of the high explosives in which the oxygen-carrying material and the combustible are chemically united so that no matter how finely the explosive may be divided, each atom is composed of the combustible and of the oxygen-giving material. The heat necessary for the union of combustible and oxygen in the high explosives is generated by an easily explosible detonator. The intense rapidity of combustion in high explosives is shown by the fact that if a pipe five miles long were filled with nitroglycerine and a blasting cap detonated at one end, the entire column would be converted into gas in about one second. From these examples it will be seen that the speed and efficiency of combustion depend upon the intimacy of the mixture of combustible material with oxygen, and that combustion may extend over a long period of time or may be instantaneous. To the engineer, combustion means the chemical union of the combustible of a fuel and the oxygen of the air at such a rate as to cause rapid increase in temperature. Fuel oil consists principally of various combinations of hydrogen whose chemical symbol is H, and carbon (C), together with small amounts of nitrogen (N), oxygen (O), sulphur (S), and water (H2O). The moisture in oil fuel should not exceed two percent because it not only acts as an inert impurity, but must be converted into steam in the furnace, which still further reduces the heat value of the fuel per pound. In the ordinary furnace all the oxygen for the combustion of fuel oil is obtained from the air which is a mechanical mixture of 79.3 parts of nitrogen by volume and 20.7 parts of oxygen. When the combustible elements of fuel oil unite with oxygen they do so in definite proportions which are always the same Carbon, hydrogen and sulphur require theoretically a certain fixed amount of air for complete burning. The formula for the complete combustion of carbon is C+O, CO,. One pound of carbon requires for complete combustion 2.66 pounds of oxygen. The dry air requirements for the combustion of one pound of carbon are 11.58 pounds. The formula for the combustion of hydrogen is 2H, + O2 = 2(H2O) (water). One pound of hydrogen requires for complete combustion 8.00 pounds of oxygen. For the combustion of one pound of hydrogen, 34.8 pounds of dry air are required. The formula for the complete combustion of sulphur is S +02 = SO2. One pound of sulphur requires for its complete combustion 1.00 pound of oxygen. For the combustion of one pound of sulphur, 4.35 pounds of dry air are necessary. The theoretical air requirements for different densities of fuel oil have been compiled by C. R. Weymouth (Trans., A. S. M. E., Vol. 30, p. 803), and are given in Table 1. It is not possible to burn oil practically with the theoretical air requirements, and sometimes in furnaces of poor design 100 |