Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 172, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1916 — USE POWDERED FUEL [ARTICLE]

USE POWDERED FUEL

INVENTION WILL SAVE RAILROADS MUCH MONEY.

Locomotives to Be Equipped With Fire Boxes Capable of'Burning Pulverized Compounds—Will Reduce Work of Firemen. The expenditure for locomotive fuel on our steam railroads amounts to nearly 25 per cent of the total cost of conducting its transportation, says Scientific American. This enormous item of expenses, coupled with the ever-increasing cost of all material, due to the high price of labor, presents a problem which has engaged the attention of locomotive engineers for a number of years. Experiments made in the way of burning solid fuel other than in grates in cement kilns and metallurgical furnaces have been successful, and pulverized coal is now extensively used for such purposes; but the difficulties inseparable from the conditions under which a locomotive has to be operated are great and it is only recently that appliances for burning powdered fuel in jqeomqtiye fireboxes have been practically developed. A paper on the subject was presented at a meeting of the New York Railroad club recently, and by the courtesy of the club we are now able to give some particulars of this important step In railroad fuel economy. .

In the first place, It may be stated that any solid fuel which in a dry pulverized form has two-thirds of its contents combustible will be suitable for steam-generating purposes. Therefore, the low value coal mine and strippit products, such as dust, sweepings, culm, slack and screenings, and even lignite and peat, are as suitable as the larger sizes and better grades of coal. As some of the products above named are now unsalable, the great saving effected by the use of the new form of fuel will be apparent; _for yie total cost to prepare pulverized coal in a properly equipped plant will be something less than 25 cents per ton. This item will be more than offset by the great difference in the cost of the grades of coal purchased for pulverizing as compared with those that would be required for burning satisfactorily in grates. ■ - The preparation of the fuel is not complicated. It must be thoroughly dry; that is to say, the moisture should not exceed 1 per cent and ground to a fineness so that it will pass through a screen from number 100 to number 200 mesh.

The first locomotive of any considerable size to be fitted up in the United States or Cafiada (and so far as known, in the world) with successful apparatus for burning pulverized fuel in suspension is a. ten-wheel type engine. This engine has cylinders 22 inches in diameter by 26 inches stroke. Driving wheels, 69 inches diameter. Boiler pressure, 200 pounds. Heating surface, 2,649 square feet. Grate; area, 55 square feet. It is equipped with, a Schmidt superheater and has a tractive effort of 31,000 pounds. It was converted into a pulverized fuel burner in the early part of 1914. The fireman’s duties will be very light compared with his work required in hand firing coarser coal in the ordinary grates. This is easily understood when we recall that the fireman of a heavy modern locomotive has to shovel coal into the firebox at. the rate of about 6,000 pounds ’an hour, or 100 pounds a minute. This laborious work cannot be done with the care necessary to secure good combustion, with the result that quantities of coal are dropped into the ashpan, the flues are rapidly chocked with soot and clouds of smoke, unburnt coal and sparks are ejected from the stack, to the annoyance of passengers and danger to property adjacent to the railway. The Improved system will change all this, for even when fuel contains 15 per cent of noncombustible matter only about 2.5 per cent is deposited in the slag or ash pan, and this deposit is noncombustible. Whereas, when coal is burned in grates about 15 per cent goes into the ash pan, and this residuum always contains more or less combustible matter. The saving in ashpan waste alone is an important item. / It is stated that the use of pulverized fuel effects a saving of from 15 to 25 per cent in coal or equivalent heat value delivered, as compared with the hand firing of coarse coal on grates. In it must be noted that there is a certain element of danger in the handling of pulverized coal that does not obtain with the more ineffective coarse coal. But, with ordinary care and the observance of certain established rules, it is comparatively easy to avoid trouble, as is shown by the records of Industrial plants using pulverized fuel.