It is scarcely requisite to mention the necessity of good material and workmanship to secure strength in a boiler, however perfect the design. If the plates are of weak and brittle iron, or imperfectly manufactured, they will never make a good boiler. Apart from the strain upon the boiler when at work, the iron has to undergo the strain of the necessary manipulation, shaping, and punching, during the construction of the boiler. If the plates forming the boiler are not well fitted to their places before the rivet holes are made, the errors have to be partially rectified by using the drift in the holes to an unwarrantable extent, and then using imperfect rivets to fill up the holes that do not correspond with each other; and the mischief is too frequently increased afterwards by excessive caulking, in the endeavour to stop the leaking which is sure to show itself. In this way a boiler is often exposed to most unequal internal strain between its several parts before it is set to work at all; and when the heat is applied to it, the mere expansion causes undue contortion, and leads to seam rips, and ultimately to disaster. Several specimens of faulty rivetting and caulking were exhibited to the meeting, and a sketch of one of them is shown in [Fig. 52].
Fig. 53.
The strength of a boiler is often very much lessened by the injudicious manner in which the mountings are fixed upon the boiler, and many explosions are the consequence of this defect. Not only are a great many holes for fittings cut out of the boiler in one line, but these holes are made needlessly large. Steam domes are often so placed as greatly to weaken the shell of the boiler, the hole cut out of the plate being made the full diameter of the dome; and in some cases the domes or steam chests have been made square or rectangular, so as to weaken the shell still more, as shown in [Fig. 53].
Fig. 54.
Manholes are often a source of danger, if not properly arranged and duly strengthened. Even in very small boilers they are often placed with the longest diameter in the longitudinal direction of the boiler, so that the shell is greatly weakened, as in the sketch, [Fig. 54], of an exploded boiler at Walsall in 1865. This boiler was 5 ft. 3 ins. long and 2 ft. 6 ins. diameter, and yet the manhole was 18 inches by 13 inches, and placed within a few inches of one end. The end was fastened in by angle iron, which was not welded, and consequently there was so little strength at the small portion of the shell between the end and the manhole that it gave way and liberated the end and the manhole lid, after which the main body of the boiler was thrown by the reaction across several streets to a great distance.
Fig. 55.
A somewhat similar injudicious arrangement of the manhole is shown in [Fig. 55], where a manhole 17 inches by 14 inches was cut out of the flat top of a steam dome only 2 ft. 6 ins. diameter, without any strengthening ring to compensate for it. The repeated strain of screwing up the manhole lid, combined with the pressure of the steam, caused the lid to force its way out through the plate and blow away. This explosion occurred at Birmingham in 1865.