Jacketed cylinders are those in which there is a space around the cylinder that is filled with live steam.
The object of jacketing is to prevent the loss of heat from the steam within the cylinder by radiation. The steam in the jacket should be received direct from the boiler, and should not be drawn from the jacket into the steam chest because the jacket reduces its temperature and condenses it.
The water of condensation of a steam jacket should not be allowed to accumulate in any part of the jacket, but should drain off and pass back to the boiler. To render the jacket as effective as possible, it should extend from end to end of the cylinder, the exhaust steam pipe leading directly away, so as to have as little communication with both the cylinder and the jacket as possible.
The jacket should have open communication with the boiler at all times, so as to have the pressure in the jacket at the same pressure as that in the steam chest, while the cylinder being kept hot, it will be unnecessary to blow steam through in order to warm the cylinder when starting the engine. The steam should enter the jacket at the highest point, so as to prevent the accumulation of air in the jacket. Or, if the steam is admitted at some other point, it should be so arranged as to permit its thorough circulation in the jacket. When a jacket is used, the metal of the cylinder body should be as thin as possible, because the transmission of heat through the metal is, both in time and quantity, inversely as the distance or thickness passed through.
The steam in the jacket should be as dry as possible, so that all wet steam admitted during the live steam period may be evaporated by the heat received from the steam in the jacket. The outside of the jacket should be thoroughly protected from cooling by being lagged or clothed with felt or some other material that is a non-conductor of heat.
From experiments made by Mr. Charles A. Smith, of St. Louis, it was found that the amount of variation of temperature that occurred during the stroke in a locomotive cylinder was inversely proportional to the speed of engine revolution, which shows the advantages of jacketing cylinders and of lagging them, as well as the advantage of a high rotative speed.
A lagged cylinder is one clothed, which is sometimes done with wood or metal strips, leaving an air space around the cylinder, while in others this space is filled with felt or some non-conducting material.
Experiments made by Charles E. Emery gave the following general results: The thickness of the pipes and of the non-conducting materials was kept constant.
Hair felt was the best non-conducting material of all those tested, and the value of a thickness of two inches of hair felt was taken as unity and the maximum.
The value of two inches of mineral wool as a non-conductor was 0.832 of hair felt; two inches of mineral wool and tar was 0.715. Two inches of sawdust, 0.68; two inches of a cheaper grade of mineral wool, 0.676; charcoal, 0.632; two inches of pine wood, across the grain, 0.553; two inches of loam, 0.55. This was from the Jersey flats, and almost all vegetable fibre not yet become compact. Slaked lime from the gas works, expressed decimally, with hair felt as unity, 0.48; coal ashes, 0.345; coke, only 0.277, the same as used for fuel; two inches of air space, only 0.136, which dashes a great many people’s hopes, and is as interesting as any part of the data; two inches of asbestos, 0.363; two inches of Western coke, about the same as the other coke; two inches of gas house charcoal, 0.47.