Читать книгу Maxims and Instructions for the Boiler Room - N. Hawkins - Страница 27

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In the examinations held by duly appointed officers to determine the fitness of candidates for receiving an engineer’s license the principal stress is laid upon the applicant’s knowledge of the parts and true proportions of the various designs of steam boilers, and his experience in managing them.

In fact, if there were no boilers there would be no examinations, as the laws are framed, certificates issued and steam boiler inspection companies formed to assure the public safety in life, limb and property, from the dangers arising from so-called mysterious boiler explosions.

Hence an almost undue proportion of engineers’ examinations are devoted to the steam boiler, its management and construction. But the subject is worthy of the best and most thoughtful attention. Every year adds to the number of steam boilers in use. With the expanding area and growth of population, the number of steam plants are multiplied and in turn each new steam boiler demands a careful attendant.

There is this difference between the boiler and the engine. When the latter is delivered from the shop and set up, it does its work with an almost unvarying uniformity, while the boiler is a constant care. It is admitted that the engine has reached a much greater state of perfection and does its duty with very much more reliability than the boiler.

Even when vigilant precautions are observed, from the moment a steam boiler is constructed until it is finally destroyed there are numerous insidious agents perpetually at work which tend to weaken it. There is nothing from which the iron can draw sustenance to replace its losses. The atmosphere without and the air within the boiler, the water as it enters through the feed-pipe and containing mineral and organic substances, steam into which the water is converted, the sediment which is precipitated by boiling the water, the fire and the sulphurous and other acids of the fuel, are all natural enemies of the iron; they sap its strength, not only while the boiler is at work and undergoing constant strain, but in the morning before fire is started, and at noon, night, Sundays, and other holidays it is preyed upon by these and other corroding agents.

These are the reasons which impress the true engineer with a constant solicitude regarding the daily and even momentary action of the steam generator.