Identifier: supplementtospon02spon (find matches)
Title: Supplement to Spons dictionary of engineering, civil, mechanical, military, and naval
Year: 1879 (1870s)
Authors: Spon, Edward Byrne, Oliver Spon, Ernest Spon, Francis N
Subjects: Engineering
Publisher: London, New York, E. & F.N. Spon
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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40 horse-powerwith a boiler pressure? of 60 lb. a square in. The pressure pipes in connection with the variousmachines, extend upwards of three miles, and vary from 3 in. to 5 in. diameter along the mains. Until late years hydraulic power was used only for very slow direct action; and in packingpresses for goods, the motion was so slow as hardly to be perceptible to the eye, requiring ten totwelve minutes to raise the ram of the press 3J to 4§ ft., which can now be accomplished in less thanhalf a minute. When Robert Wilson proposed to apply direct-acting hydraulic power to the pressesused for packing cotton in India, it was considered quite unsuitable for presses with a rise of ram 750 HYDEAULICS. of 12 ft., as it was generally thought that this rise could not be obtained in less than fifteen to twenty-minutes, which would only allow of three bales at most being turned out an hour, giving noadvantage over the hand-presses at that time generally used in the cotton districts in India.
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The press Wilson adopted was made and sent out to India in 1857. Its weight is about 30tons, and it is fitted with two 11-inch rams, and a cotton box 13; ft. long by 16 in. broad, having a HYDEAULICS. 751 rise of ram of 12 ft., and capable of compressing 3^ cwt. of cotton into 8 cub. ft. in the press, with apressure of 500 tons upon the bale. The report received of the working of this press was mostsatisfactory, stating that twelve bales could be turned out an hour, and that the press could be runup in little more than one minute. This result was obtained through the medium of the horizontaldirect-acting high and low-pressure pumping engines constructed in pairs, similar to those akeadyillustrated at p. 1416 of this Dictionary, with cylinders 20 in. in diameter and 24 in. stroke, eachpair working four direct-acting pumps, the low-pressure engines pumping water up to a pressureof 1680 lb. or f ton a sq. in., and the high-pressure ones up to a pressure of 3 tons a sq. in.; thisdifferenc

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