Corliss Marine-Boiler Improvements, Patent Model

This model was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office with the application for the patents issued to George H. Corliss, Providence, Rhode Island, August 26, 1862, nos. 36279 and 36281.

The model represents a pair of internally fired, fire-tube boilers of the “locomotive” type, each equipped with a steam main connected to the steam space at six different points for the purpose of diffusing the draft of steam from over the whole surface of the water in the boiler and thus prevent priming; and provided with a salt-water evaporator located in the breeching, so as to obtain heat from the hot flue gases, and connected to the surface condenser to lower the pressure on the boiling salt water to facilitate evaporation.

The purpose of the peculiar arrangement of steam pipes is to provide a method of obtaining steam free from water without the necessity of a high steam chamber, which would be a vulnerable part of a naval vessel. The theory is that the filling of any of the many tubes with water, due to the pitching of the vessel, would cause the other tubes to supply the steam to the engines and the water would not travel far in the immersed tubes.

Reference:

This description comes from the 1939 Catalog of the Mechanical Collections of the Division of Engineering United States Museum Bulletin 173 by Frank A. Taylor.

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