The Use of Blast-Furnace Gases in Gas Engines

Abstract

DURING the past year all the difficulties in the use of blast-furnace gases have successfully been overcome, and it is interesting to consider the rapid progress that has been made in this important development of metallurgical practice. The question was first taken up by Mr. B. H. Thwaite in 1894, and a 15 horse-power engine, worked by blast-furnace gas purified by his apparatus, was set to work at Wishaw, in Scotland, in February 1895. Since that date numerous small motors have been in operation in this country using purified blast-furnace gas driving machinery and dynamos. In the development of large motors and in their adaptation to blowing engines Belgium has taken the lead. In May 1898, Mr. A. Greiner, of the Cockerill Company, described a 200 horse-power engine in successful use at his works. The results attained stimulated experiment in Germany and in Luxemburg. The Cockerill Company, however, continued to take the initiative by starting, on November 2, 1899, the largest gas engine ever built. On May 9, 1900, Mr. Greiner described the engine to the Iron and Steel Institute, and gave the results of six months working. This was the first gas engine to run the blowing engine of its own furnace. Results of tests of this gas engine, by Prof. Hubert, of Liége, are given in an appendix to an exhaustive paper on power gas and large gas engines, read by Mr. H. A. Humphrey before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on December 14, 1900. The engine was designed by Mr. Delamare-Deboutteville, and built by the Cockerill Company. It is a single cylinder 600 horse-power engine, working on the Otto cycle, and direct coupled to a double-acting blowing cylinder. The large engine and blower shown by the Cockerill Company at the Paris Exhibition was a duplicate of the one under discussion. It was rated at 700 horse-power on blast-furnace gas, at 800 horse-power on producer gas, and at 1000 horse-power on illuminating gas. In an exhaustive paper on the subject, published by Prof. Joseph W. Richards in the current number of the Journal of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, the following list of blast-furnace gas engines now in operation is given:—