Читать книгу Twentieth Century Inventions: A Forecast - Sutherland George - Страница 7

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"Nature," remarked James Watt when he set to work inventing his improved steam-engine, "has always a weak side if we can only find it out." Many invaluable secrets have been successfully explored through the discovery of Nature's "weak side" since that momentous era in the industrial history of the world; and the nineteenth century, as Watt clearly foresaw, has been emphatically the age of steam power. In the condenser, the high pressure cylinder and the automatic cut-off, which utilises the expansive power of steam vapour, mankind now possesses the means of taming a monster whose capacities were almost entirely unknown to the ancients, and of bringing it into ready and willing service for the accomplishment of useful work. Vaguely and loosely it is often asserted that the age of steam is now giving place to that of electricity; but these two cannot yet be logically placed in opposition to one another. No method has yet been discovered whereby the heat of a furnace can be directly converted into an electric current. The steam-engine or, as Watt and his predecessors called it, the "fire-engine" is par excellence the world's prime motor; and by far the greater proportion of the electrical energy that is generated to-day owes its existence primarily to the steam-engine and to other forms of reciprocating machinery designed to utilise the expansive power of vapours or gases acting in a similar manner to steam.

The industrial revolutions of the coming century will, without doubt, be brought about very largely through the utilisation of Nature's waste energy in the service of mankind. Waterfalls, after being very largely neglected for two or three generations, are now commanding attention as valuable and highly profitable sources of power. This is only to be regarded as forming the small beginning of a movement which, in the coming century, will "acquire strength by going," and which most probably will, in less than a hundred years, have produced changes in the industrial world comparable to those brought about by the invention of the steam-engine.

Lord Kelvin, in the year 1881, briefly, but very significantly, classified the sources of power available to man under the five primary headings of tides, food, fuel, wind, and rain. Food is the generator of animal energy, fuel that of the power obtained from steam and other mechanical expansive engines; rain, as it falls on the hill-tops and descends in long lines of natural force to the sea coasts, furnishes power to the water-wheel; while wind may be utilised to generate mechanical energy through the agency of windmills and other contrivances. The tides as a source of useful power have hardly yet begun to make their influence felt, and indeed the possibility of largely using them is still a matter of doubt. The relative advantages of reclaiming a given area of soil for purposes of cultivation, and of converting the same land into a tidal basin in order to generate power through the inward and outward flow of the sea-water, were contrasted by Lord Kelvin in the statement of a problem as follows: Which is the more valuable—an agricultural area of forty acres or an available source of energy equal to one hundred horse-power? The data for the solution of such a question are obviously not at hand, unless the quality of the land, its relative nearness to the position at which power might be required, and several other factors in its economic application have been supplied. Still, the fact remains that very large quantities of the coastal land and a considerable quantity of expensive work would be needed for the generation, by means of the tides, of any really material quantity of power.

It is strange that, while so much has been written and spoken about the possibility of turning the energy of the tides to account for power in the service of man, comparatively little attention has been paid to the problem of similarly utilising the wave-power, which goes to waste in such inconceivably huge quantities. Where the tidal force elevates and depresses the sea-water on a shore, through a vertical distance of say eight feet, about once in twelve hours, the waves of the ocean will perform the same work during moderate weather once in every twelve or fifteen seconds. It is true that the moon in its attraction of the sea-water produces a vastly greater sum total of effect than the wind does in raising the surface-waves, but reckoning only that part of the ocean energy which might conceivably be made available for service it is safe to calculate that the waves offer between two and three thousand times as much opportunity for the capture of natural power and its application to useful work as the tides could ever present. In no other form is the energy of the wind brought forward in so small a compass or in so concrete a form. A steam-ship of 10,000 tons gross weight which rises and falls ten times per minute through an average height of 3·3 feet is thereby subjected to an influence equal to 22,400 horse-power. In this estimate the unit of the horse-power which has been adopted is Watt's arbitrary standard of "33,000 foot pounds per minute". The work done in raising the vessel referred to is equal to ten horse-power multiplied by the number of pounds in a ton, or, in other words, 22,400 horse-power, as stated.

Wind-power, again, has been to a large extent neglected since the advent of the steam-engine. The mightiest work carried out in any European country in the early part of the present century was that which the Dutch people most efficiently performed in the draining of their reclaimed land by means of scores of windmills erected along their seaboard. Even to the present day there are no examples of the direct employment of the power of the wind which can be placed in comparison with those still to be found on the coasts of Holland. But, unfortunately for the last generation of windmill builders, the intermittent character of the power to which they had to trust completely condemned it when placed in competition with the handy and always convenient steam-engine. The wind bloweth "where it listeth," but only at such times and seasons as it listeth, and its vagaries do not suit an employer whose wages list is mounting up whether he has his men fully occupied or not. The storage of power was the great thing needful to enable the windmill to hold its own. The electrical storage battery, compressed air, and other agencies which will be referred to later on, have now supplied this want of the windmill builder, but in the meantime his trade has been to a large extent destroyed. For its revival there is no doubt that, as Lord Kelvin remarked in the address already quoted, "the little thing wanted to let the thing be done is cheap windmills."

This, however, leads to another part of the problem. The costliness of the best modern patterns of windmill as now so extensively used, particularly in America, is mainly due to the elaborate, and, on the whole, successful attempts at minimising the objection of the intermittent nature of the source of power. To put the matter in another way, it may be said that lightness, and sensitiveness to the slightest breeze, have had to be conjoined with an eminent degree of safety in the severest gale, so that the most complicated self-regulating mechanisms have been rendered absolutely imperative. Once the principle of storage is applied, the whole of the conditions in this respect are revolutionised. There is no need to attempt the construction of wind-motors that shall run lightly in a soft zephyr of only five or six miles an hour, and stability is the main desideratum to be looked to.

The fixed windmill, which requires no swivel mechanism and no vane to keep it up to the wind, is the cheapest and may be made the most substantial of all the forms of wind-motor. In its rudimentary shape this very elementary windmill resembles a four-bladed screw steam-ship propeller. The wheel may be constructed by simply erecting a high windlass with arms bolted to the barrel at each end, making the shape of a rectangular cross. But those at one end are fixed in such positions that when viewed from the side they bisect the angles made by those at the other side. Sails of canvas or galvanised iron are then fastened to the arms, the position of which is such that the necessary obliquity to the line of the barrel is secured at once.

Looking at this elementary and at one time very popular form of windmill, and asking ourselves what adaptation its general principle is susceptible of in order that it may be usefully employed in conjunction with a storage battery, we find, at the outset, that, inasmuch as the electric generator requires a high speed, there is every inducement to greatly lengthen the barrel and at the same time to make the arms of the sails shorter, because short sails give in the windmill the high rate of speed required.

We are confronted, in fact, with the same kind of problem which met the constructors of turbine steam-engines designed for electric lighting. The object was to get an initial speed which would be so great as to admit of the coupling of the dynamo to the revolving shaft of the turbine steam-motor, without the employment of too much reducing gear. In the case of the wind-motor the eighteenth century miller was compelled to make the arms of his mill of gigantic length, so that, while the centre of the wind pressure on each arm was travelling at somewhere near to the rate of the wind, the axis would not be running too fast and the mill stones would never be grinding so rapidly as to "set the tems—or the lighter parts of the corn—on fire."

The dynamo for the generation of the electric current demands exactly the opposite class of conditions. We may therefore surmise that the windmill of the future, as constructed for the purposes of storing power, will have a long barrel upon which will be set numerous very short blades or sails. Reducing this again to its most convenient form, it is plain that a spiral of sheet-metal wound round the barrel will offer the most convenient type of structure for stability and cheapness combined. At the end of this long barrel will be fixed the dynamo, the armature of which is virtually a part of the barrel itself, while the magnets are placed in convenient positions on the supporting uprights. From the generating dynamo the current is conveyed directly to the storage batteries, and these alone work the electric motor, which, if desired, keeps continually in motion, pumping, grinding, or driving any suitable class of machinery.

It is rather surprising to find how relatively small is the advantage possessed by the vane-windmill over the fixed type in the matter of continuity of working. During about two years the Author conducted a series of experiments with the object of determining this point, the fixed windmill being applied to work which rendered it a matter of indifference in which way the wheel ran. With the prevailing winds from the west it ran in one direction, and with those of next degree of frequency, namely from the east, it turned in the reverse direction. The mill, however, was effective although the breeze might veer several points from either of the locations mentioned. It was found that there were rather less than one-fourth of the points of the compass, the winds from which would bring the wheel to a standstill or cause it to swing ineffectively, but as these were the directions in which the wind least frequently blew it might safely be reckoned that not one-eighth of the possible working hours of a swivel-windmill were really lost in the fixed machine.

With the type adapted to the working of a dynamo as already described, it will, in most cases, be convenient to construct two spirals on uprights set in three holes in the ground, forming lines at right angles to each other, but both engaging, by suitable gearing, with the electric current generator situated at the angle. This will be found cheaper than to go to the expense of constructing the mill on a swivel so that it may follow the direction of the wind. At the same time it should be noticed that the adoption of the high speed wind-wheel, consisting of some kind of spiral on a very long axis, may be made effective for improving even the swivel windmill itself, so as to adapt it for electric generation and conservation of power through the medium of the storage battery. Supposing that a number of small oblique sails be set upon an axis lying in the direction of the wind, the popular conception of the result of such an arrangement is that the foremost sails would render those behind it almost, if not entirely, useless.

The analogy followed in reaching this conclusion is that of the sails of a ship, but, as applied to wind-motors, it is quite misleading, because not more than one-third or one-fourth of the energy of the wind is expended upon the oblique sails of an ordinary wind-wheel. Moreover, in the case of a number of such wheels set on a long axis, one behind the other as described, the space within which the shelter of the front sail is operative to keep the wind from driving the next one is exceedingly minute.

The elasticity of the air and its frictional inertia when running in the form of wind cause the current to proceed on its course after a very slight check, which in point of time is momentary and in its effects almost infinitesimal. This being the case, and the principal expense attendant upon the construction of ordinary wind-engines being due to the need for providing a large diameter of wind-wheel, with all the attendant complications required to secure such a wheel from risk, it is obvious that as soon as the long axis and the very short sail, or the metallic spiral, have been generally introduced as adjuncts to the dynamo storage battery, an era of cheaper wind-motors will have been entered upon—in fact, the "little want" of which Lord Kelvin spoke in 1881 will have been supplied. The high speed which the dynamo requires, and the more rapid rate at which windmills constructed on this very economical principle must necessarily run, both mark the two classes of apparatus as being eminently suited for mutual assistance in future usefulness.

The anemometer of the "Robinson" type, having four little hemispherical cups revolving horizontally, furnishes the first hint of another principle of construction adapted to the generation of electricity. Some years ago a professor in one of the Scottish Universities set up a windmill which was simply an amplified anemometer, and connected it with several of Faure's storage batteries for the purpose of furnishing the electric light to his residence. His report regarding his experience with this arrangement showed that the results of the system were quite satisfactory.

In this particular type of natural motor the wind-wheel, of course, is permanently set to run no matter from what direction the wind may be blowing. Tests instituted with the object of determining the pressure which the wind exerts on the cup of a "Robinson" anemometer have shown that when the breeze blows into the concave side of the cup, its effect is rather more than three times as strong as when it blows against the convex side. At any given time the principal part of the work done by a windmill constructed on this principle is being carried out by one cup which has its concave side presented to the wind, while, opposite to it, there is another cup travelling in the opposite direction to that of the wind but having its convex side opposed.

The facts that practically only one sail of the mill is operative at any given time, and that even the work which is done by this must be diminished by nearly one-third owing to the opposing "pull" of the cup at the opposite side, no doubt must detract from the merits of such a wind-motor, judged simply on the basis of actual area of sail employed. But when the matter of cost alone is taken as the standard, the advantages are much more evenly balanced than they might at first sight seem to be.

The cup-shaped sail may be greatly improved upon for power-generating purposes by adopting a sail having a section not semicircular but triangular in shape, and by extending its length in the vertical direction to a very considerable extent. Practically this cheap and efficient wind-motor then becomes a square or hexagonal upright axis of fairly large section, to each side of which is secured a board or a rigid sheet-metal sail projecting beyond the corners. The side of the axis and the projecting portion of the sail then together form the triangular section required.

For the sake of safety in time of storm, an opening may be left at the apex of the angle which is closed by a door kept shut through the tension of a spring. When the wind rises to such a speed as to overbalance the force of the spring each door opens and lets the blast pass through. One collateral advantage of this type of windmill is that it may be made to act virtually as its own stand, the only necessity in its erection being that it should have a collar fitting round the topmost bearing, which collar is fastened by four strong steel ropes to stakes securely set in the ground. The dynamo is then placed at the lower bearing and protected from the weather by a metal shield through which the shaft of the axis passes.

For pumping, and for other simple purposes apart from the use of the dynamo, a ready application of this form of wind-engine with a minimum of intricacy or expense may be worked out by setting the lower bearing in a round tank of water kept in circular motion by a set of small paddles working horizontally. Into the water a vertically-working paddle-wheel dips, carrying on its shaft a crank which directly drives the pump. This simple wind-motor is particularly safe in a storm, because on attaining a high speed it merely "smashes" the water in the tank.

Solar heat is one of the principal sources of the energy to be derived from the wind. Several very determined and ingenious attempts at the utilisation of the heat of sunshine for the driving of a motor have been made during the past century. As a solution of a mechanical and physical puzzle, the arrangement of a large reflector, with a small steam-boiler at the focus of the heat rays thrown by it, is full of interest. Yet, when a man like the late John Ericsson, who did so much to improve the caloric engine, and the steam-ship as applied to war-like purposes, meets with failure in the attempt to carry such an idea to a commercially successful issue, there is at least prima facie evidence of some obstacle which places the proposed machine at a disadvantage in competition with its rivals.

The solar engine, if generally introduced, would be found more intermittent in its action than the windmill—excepting perhaps in a very few localities where there is a cloudless sky throughout the year. The windmill gathers up the power generated by the expansion of the air in passing over long stretches of heated ground, while a solar engine cannot command more of the sun's heat than that which falls upon the reflector or condenser of the engine itself. The latter machine may possibly have a place assigned to it in the industrial economy of the future, but the sum total of the power which it will furnish must always be an insignificant fraction.

The wave-power machine, when allied to electric transmission, will, without doubt, supply in a cheap and convenient form a material proportion of the energy required during the twentieth century for industrial purposes. Easy and effective transmission is a sine quâ non in this case, just as it is in the utilisation of waterfalls situated far from the busy mart and factory. Hardly any natural source of power presents so near an approach to constancy as the ocean billows. Shakespeare takes as his emblem of perpetual motion the dancing "waves o' th' sea".

But the ocean coasts—where alone natural wave-power is constant—are exactly the localities at which, as a rule, it is the least practicable to build up a manufacturing trade. Commerce needs smooth water for the havens offered to its ships, and inasmuch as this requirement is vastly more imperative during the early stages of civilisation than cheap power, the drift of manufacturing centres has been all towards the calm harbours and away from the ocean coasts. But electrical transmission in this connection abolishes space, and can bring to the service of man the power of the thundering wave just as it can that of the roaring torrent or waterfall.

The simplest form of wave-motor may be suggested by the force exerted by a ferry boat or dinghy tied up to a pier. The pull exerted by the rope is equal to the inertia of the boat as it falls into the trough of each wave successively, and the amount of strain involved in rough weather may be estimated from the thickness of the rope that is generally found necessary for the security of even very small craft indeed. A similar suggestion is conveyed by the need for elaborate "fenders" to break the force of the shock when a barge is lying alongside of a steamer, or when any other vessel is ranging along a pier or jetty.

A buoy of large size, moored in position at a convenient distance from a rock-bound ocean coast, will supply the first idea of a wave-motor on this primary principle as adapted for the generation of power. On the cliff a high derrick is erected. Over a pulley or wheel on the top of this there is passed a wire-rope cable fastened on the seaward side to the buoy, and on the landward side to the machinery in the engine-house. The whole arrangement in fact is very similar in appearance to the "poppet-head" and surface buildings that may be seen at any well-equipped mine. The difference in principle, of course, is that while on a mine the engine-house is supplying power to the other side of the derrick, the relations are reversed in the wave-motor, the energy being passed from the sea across into the engine-house. The reciprocating, or backward and forward, movement imparted to the cable by the rising and falling of the buoy now requires to be converted into a force exerted in one direction. In the steam-engine and in other machines of similar type, the problem is simplified by the uniform length of the stroke made by the piston, so that devices such as the crank and eccentric circular discs are readily applicable to the securing of a rotatory motion for a fly-wheel from a reciprocating motion in the cylinders. In the application of wave-power provision must be made for the utilisation of the force derived from movements of differing lengths, as well as of differing characters, in the force of impact. Every movement of the buoy which imparts motion to the pulley on top of the derrick must be converted into an additional impetus to a fly-wheel always running in the same direction.

The spur-wheel and ratchet, as at present largely used in machinery, offer a rough and ready means of solving this problem, but two very important improvements must be effected before full advantage can be taken of the principle involved. In the first place it is obvious that if a ratchet runs freely in one direction and only catches on the tooth of the spur-wheel when it is drawn in the other, the power developed and used is concentrated on one stroke, when it might, with greater advantage, be divided between the two; and in the second place the shock occasioned by the striking of the ratchet against the tooth when it just misses catching one of the teeth and is then forced along the whole length of the tooth gathering energy as it goes, must add greatly to the wear and tear of the machinery and to the unevenness of the running.

Taking the first of these difficulties into consideration it is obvious that by means of a counterbalancing weight, about equal to half that of the buoy, it is possible to cause the wave-power to operate two ratchets, one doing work when the pull is to landwards and the other when it is to seawards. Each, however, must be set to catch the teeth of its own separate spur-wheel; and, inasmuch as the direction of the motion in one case is different from what it is in the other, it is necessary that, by means of an intervening toothed wheel, the motion of one of these should be reversed before it is communicated to the fly-wheel. The latter is thus driven always in the same direction, both by the inward and by the outward stroke or pull of the cable from the buoy.

Perhaps the most convenient development of the system is that in which the spur-wheel is driven by two vertically pendant toothed bands, resembling saws, and of sufficient length to provide for the greatest possible amplitude of movement that could be imparted to them by the motion of the buoy. The teeth are set to engage in those of the spur-wheel, one band on each side, so that the effective stroke in one case is downward, while in the other it is upward. These toothed bands are drawn together at their lower ends by a spring, and they are also kept under downward tension by weights or a powerful spring beneath. The effect of this is that when both are drawn up and down the spur-wheel goes round with a continuous motion, because at every stroke the teeth of one band engage in the wheel and control it, while those of the reversed one (at the other side) slip quite freely.

The shock occasioned by the blow of the ratchet on the spur-wheel, or of one tooth upon another, may be reduced almost to vanishing point by multiplying the number of ratchets or toothed bands, and placing the effective ends, which engage in the teeth of the wheel successively, one very slightly in advance of the other. In this way the machine is so arranged that, no matter at what point the stroke imparted by the movement of the buoy may be arrested, there is always one or other of the ratchets or of the teeth which will fall into engagement with the tooth of the spur-wheel, very close to its effective face, and thus the momentum acquired by the one part before it impinges upon the other becomes comparatively small.

The limit to which it may be practicable to multiply ratchets or toothed bands will, of course, depend upon the thickness of the spur-wheel, and when this latter has been greatly enlarged, with the object of providing for this feature, it becomes virtually a steel drum having bevelled steps accurately cut longitudinally upon its periphery.

The masts of a ship tend to assume a position at right angles to the water-line. When the waves catch the vessel on the beam the greatest degree of pendulous swing is brought about in a series of waves so timed, and of such a length, that the duration of the swing coincides with the period required for one wave to succeed another. The increasing slope of the ship's decks, due to the inertia of this continuous rhythmical motion, often amounts to far more than the angle made by the declivity of the wave as compared with the sea level; and it is, of course, a source of serious danger in the eyes of the mariner.

But, for the purposes of the mechanician who desires to secure power from the waves, the problem is not how to avoid a pendulous motion but how to increase it. For each locality in which any large wave-power plant of machinery is to be installed, it will therefore be advisable to study the characteristic length of the wave, which, as observation has proved, is shorter in confined seas than in those fully open to the ocean. It is advisable then to make the beam width of the buoy, no matter how it may be turned, of such a length that when one side is well in the trough of a wave the other must be not far from the crest.

Practically the best design for such a floating power-generator will be one in which four buoys are placed, each of them at the end of one arm of a cross which has been braced up very firmly. From the angle of intersection projects a vertical mast, also firmly held by stays or guys. The whole must be anchored to the bottom of the sea by attachment to a large cemented block or other heavy weight having a ring let into it, from which is attached a chain of a few links connecting with an upright beam. It is the continuation of the latter above sea-level which forms the mast. On this beam the framework of the buoy must be free to move up and down.

At first sight it might seem as if this arrangement rendered nugatory the attempt to take advantage of the rise and fall of the buoy; but it is not so when the relations of the four buoys to one another are considered. Although the frame is free to move up and down upon the uprising shaft, still its inclination to the vertical is determined by the direction of the line drawn from a buoy in the trough of a wave to one on the crest. In order to facilitate the free movement, and to render the rocking effect more accurate and free from vibration, sets of wheels running on rails fixed to the beam are of considerable advantage.

The rise and fall of the tides render necessary the adoption of some such compensating device as that which has been indicated. Of course it would be possible to provide for utilising the force generated by a buoy simply moored direct to a ring at the bottom by means of a common chain cable; but this latter would require to be of a length sufficient to provide for the highest possible wave on the top of the highest tide. Then, again, the loose chain at low tide would permit the buoy to drift abroad within a very considerable area of sea surface, and in order to take advantage of the rise and fall on each wave it would be essential to provide at the derrick on the shore end of the wave-power plant very long toothed bands or equivalent devices on a similarly enlarged scale.