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Southey Producer Improvements.

13th March 1913, Page 16
13th March 1913
Page 16
Page 16, 13th March 1913 — Southey Producer Improvements.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

This Interesting Apparatus now has Modified Circulating Arrangements.

In October of last year we published a description, illustrated with certain carefully-drawn diagrams, of what was at that time the latest version of the paraffin-starting Southey producer. It is hardly necessary for us here to repeat the description then given of the process by which paraffin fuel is permanently fixed as a gas in the Southey accessory.

Our reason for returning to this subject at the present time is as follows. Certain basic alterations have now been embodied in the design. Considerable difficulty has been experienced, in the course of the experiments, in regard to the effective circulation of the large body of paraffin which it is necessary to keep in motion through the producer, in order effectively to gasify that proportion for which the engine makes systematic demand.

Taking advantage of the necessity to secure some other method of circulating the paraffin than by pumping it round and round mechanically, Mr. Southey has modified the general arrangement of the Southey producer to some extent, and in its present compact form we illustrate it herewith by a drawing which should be almost self-explanatory.

It will be seen that the well is kept flooded to a pre-determined depth with paraffin that has been admitted by an ingenious and yet simple form of float control. The fuel, in the latest producer, is then drawn up from its basin by a series of small air-spraying devices. The necessary air or inert gas, as the ease may be, is taken from. one of the engine cylinders, and as this passes through the tangential spraying nozzles, it draws up with it the fuel from the aforementioned basin. This new device, we learn, efficiently provides for the required circulation of the oil.

After first ignition has taken place—as before by electric plug, the separated globules of the liquid fuel individually burn beneath the dome of the cover, which is shown in the illustration. Such burning produces a definite proportion of fixed gas, which is drawn down through that annular space which forms a sort of jacket to the vaporizing chamber, and so is taken away to the engine by ducts.

Air is admitted by simple flap valves over the vaporizing chamber in proximity to the dome, for the support of the actual combustion of the fuel during the gasification period, and also, additionally, as the explosive mixture passes. to the engine via the induction pipe. This latter is arranged for tem

porary closure by mechanical means when lighting up is taking place. It will be seen that the principle of the Southey has not been altered in regard to the gasification of the fuel ; the partial combustion of the globules of liquid, and the resultant local inflammation secures gasifica tion of a fixed proportion of it, and it is this proportion only which is drawn over for consumption in the engine. The method employed, as we have pointed out before, involves the circulation of a relatively large quantity of the crude fuel.

The producer itself is an appara

tus which is capable of generating a fixed gas enriched with condensible vapour from any liquid fuel. it must not be confused with the several types of paraffin vaporizers and carburetters in which paraffin is warmed by various methods, and the resultant vapour—not a fixed gas, is conveyed to the engine.

Mr. Southey tells us that the analysis of the gas which is obtainable in the Southey producer from ordinary paraffin is as follows : carbon di-oxide, 5.6; oxygen, 5.6; illuminants, 6.4; carbon monoxide, .4; hydrogen and methane, 7.2; nitrogen, 74.8; total, 100. We understand that these producers in their latest form are being manufactured by Producers British Rights Ltd., at 205a, Pentonville Road, N.

Recent comparative tests between petrol and paraffin as fuels, using a standard Claudel-Hobson carburetter and one of the latest Southey gas producers respectively, yielded the following results. The engine was a fourcylinder model, with 100 mm. bore and a stroke of 120 mm. Using petrol, with a pull on the brake of 48 lb., revs. 1230, a consumption of 860 cubic centimetres of fuel was recorded in five minutes. For a similar period, using paraffin in a Southey, with the same brake pull, and 1272 revs., the consumption was 700 c.c.


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