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Air Refrigerating Machine 1881
IMPROVED AIR REFRIGERATING MACHINE.
Scientific American February 19, 1881
We illustrate a machine constructed by Messrs. Hall (John Hall and Edward Hall or J & E Hall), of Dartford, (England) for use in the Australian meat trade. The engraving is very nearly self-explanatory.
The machine consists of a pair of horizontal trunk engines, mounted on the top of a condenser. To one side is bolted a compressing cylinder, 27 inches diameter and 18 inches stroke. To the other side is bolted the expansion cylinder, 22 inches in diameter and 18 inches stroke; both these cylinders are open-topped. The valves are placed in the bottoms of the cylinders, and are worked by cams on the crank shaft and levers. Air is drawn into the compressing cylinder on the up stroke, and delivered on the down stroke, into the surface condenser at a pressure of about 50 lb. to 55 lb. on the square inch. The air here parts with its heat in the condenser, and it is then delivered into the expansion cylinder, the valve of which cuts off at about one-fourth stroke. The expanded air is then delivered through a pipe into the room to be cooled. About fifty per cent of the work expended in the compressing cylinder is returned in the expansion cylinder, the difference being made up by the engine. The machine is but one of several Messrs. Hall have in hand of different patterns. The outline diagrams show the form which they recommend for ordinary use, the height being kept down to render it specially suitable for use between decks, but the machine can be made to take any form almost, and can be made of any dimensions to suit particular requirements. The condenser, or refrigerator, consists of nests of brass tubes, through which the water circulates. The tubes are of brass, half an inch in diameter outside. The ends of the tubes are accessible through the man lids shown.—The Engineer.
This air conditioning machine was of the cold air type where air is the coolant. The air is condensed in the first cylinder, then it is cooled by water in the center, some moisture is removed, then it is expanded in the second cylinder. The now very cold air is then expelled directly into area needed to be cooled.
(article from another Scientific American Article in the same decade)
The machine ... is designed to deliver about 10,000 cubic feet of cold air per hour, when running at the rate of 100 revolutions per minute, and is capable of reducing the temperature of the air from 90 deg. above, to about 50 deg. below zero, Fah., with an initial temperature of cooling water of 90 deg. to 95 deg. Fah. It can, however, be run at as high a speed as 140 revolutions per minute. The air is compressed in a water-jacketed, double-acting compression cylinder, to about 55 lb. per square inch --more or less according to the temperature of the cooling water--the inlet valve being worked from a cam on the crank shaft, to insure a full cylinder of air at each stroke, and the outlet valves being self acting, specially constructed to avoid noise in working and breakages, which have given rise to so much annoyance in other cold air machines. The compressed air, still at a high temperature, is then passed through a series of tubular coolers, where it parts with a great deal of its heat, and is reduced to within 4 deg. or 5 deg. of the initial temperature of the cooling water. Here also a considerable portion of the moisture, which, when fresh air is being used, must of necessity enter the compression cylinder, is condensed and deposited as water.
After being cooled, the compressed air is then admitted to the expansion cylinder, but as it still contains a large quantity of water in solution, which, if expansion was carried immediately to atmospheric pressure, would, from the extreme cold, be converted into snow and ice, with a positive certainty of causing great trouble in the valves and passages. It is got rid of by a process invented by Mr. Lightfoot, which is at the same time extremely simple and beautiful in action, and efficient. Instead of reducing the compressed air at once to atmospheric pressure, it is at first only partially expanded to such an extent that the temperature is lowered to about 35 deg. to 40 deg. Fah., with the result that very nearly the whole of the contained aqueous vapor is condensed into water. The partially expanded air which now contains the water as a thick mist is then admitted into a vessel containing a number of grids, through which it passes, parting all the while with its moisture, which gradually collects at the bottom and is blown off. The surface area of the grids is so arranged that by the time the air has passed through them it is quite free from moisture, with the exception of the very trifling amount which it can hold in solution at about 35 deg. Fah., and 30 lb. pressure. The expansion is then continued to atmospheric pressure and the cooled air containing only a trace of snow is then discharged ready for use into a meat chamber or elsewhere. In small machines the double expansion is carried out in one cylinder containing a piston with a trunk, the annulus forming the first expansion and the whole piston area the second, but in larger machines two cylinders of different sizes are used, just as in an ordinary compound engine. To compensate for the varying temperature of the cooling water the cut-off valve to the first or primary expansion is made adjustable; and this can either be regulated as occasion requires by hand, or else automatically. The temperature in the depositors being kept constant under all variations in cooling water, there is the same abstraction of moisture in the tropics as in colder climates, and the cold air finally discharged from the machine is also kept at a uniform temperature.