Gas-Engines and Producer-Gas Plants / A Practice Treatise Setting Forth the Principles of Gas-Engines and Producer Design, the Selection and Installation of an Engine, Conditions of Perfect Operation, Producer-Gas Engines and Their Possibilities, the Care of Gas-Engines and Producer-Gas Plants, with a Chapter on Volatile Hydrocarbon and Oil Engines

by Rodolphe Edgard Mathot

It will also be well to provide water-pressure gages before and after the scrubber to enable the attendant to ascertain the vacuum in the conduits and to adjust the running of the apparatus.

Purifying-Brush.—As an additional precaution against the carrying of tar to the engine, metallic brushes are often employed, these brushes being spiral in form and enclosed in a cast-iron box interposed in the gas-supply pipe immediately after the engine. The gas will be broken up into streams by the obstacles formed by these brushes and will be freed of the suspended tar (Fig. 135). These brushes should be carefully cleaned at regular intervals. The best way of doing this is to drop them into kerosene or some other suitable solvent.

Fig. 135.—Metal purifying-brush.

CONDITIONS OF PERFECT OPERATION OF GAS-PRODUCERS

These conditions depend upon the workmanship or upon the system of the plant, on the care with which it has been erected, on the nature of the fuel, on the condition of preservation of the apparatus, and upon the manner in which the producers have been working.

Workmanship and System.—The workmanship itself, which term is meant to include the choice of materials and the way they have been worked, presents no difficulty. The producers which we have discussed are very simple and offer absolutely no difficulties in their mechanical execution. As regards the system, however, especially with respect to the relative dimensions of the elements, it does not seem so far that it is possible to indicate any principle or rule capable of a rigid general application. It must be taken into account that the use of suction gas-generators has become general only in the last three or four years; the problem has therefore scarcely been adequately solved. However, some hints may be given on this subject.

Generator.—In regard to the generator, it is possible to deduce from the best existing plants the dimensions to be given to the generator relatively to those of the engine to be supplied, upon the assumption that the engine is single-acting and runs at a normal speed of