US403478A - Ventilator - Google Patents

Description

(Model.

B. MERIAM. VENTILATOR. N0. 403,478. Patented May 14, 1889.

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UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

BENJAMIN MERIAM, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

VENTILATOR.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 403,478, dated. May 14, 1889. Application filed February 1, 1888. Serial No. 262,688. (ModeL) To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, BENJAMIN MERIAM, a citizen of the United States, residing at Boston, in the county of Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Ventilators for Buildings, &c., of which the following is a specification.

I attach to the top of a building well or a pipe or a chimney or similar object a covering, (provided with a glass-armed roof or roof and sides when light is to be admitted,) preferably in the shape of a hollow cone or a pyramid, and furnished from its bottom (which is generally at the top of the roof) to a certain distance upward with walls on the outside, and with, preferably, a double wall also at its top. The top is made so as to curve (with a contour varying according to the requirements presented) and proceed downward to one side or on all sides a short distance, and the bore or hollow of the device being left unclosed at this bent end the foul air, smoke, &c., drawn from below are discharged to the external atmosphere. Some minor devices are also added, hereinafter explained, and the object is to provide a simple automatic and constantly-working apparatus for the ventilation of buildings, &c.

In the drawings, Figure 1 is a side view of my device. Fig. 2 is an end View.

In Fig. 1 is seen, in side view, my ventilating device, made preferably of sheet metal, and supposed to be resting on the roof of a building by means of the platform B B, which platform serves for its firm attachment to the roof. I

O is the upper part of the buildingwell hole, over which the ventilator is placed. The building-well is a clear passage-way, passing, ordinarily, from the bottom room of a building to and through the roof, the said well being used for ventilation and sometimes for lighting. The well in this instance is supposed to be an oblong in horizontal section, but may be round, oval, or square, and the shape of my ventilatorat its bottom, in horizontal cross-section, is to be made to conform to the shape of the well.

A A, Fig. 1, are the two end walls of the ventilator and proceed perpendicularly upward from the roof. These end walls are sometimes furnished with windows when extra light is required.

D D Fig. 2, are the two side walls of the device. They are seen in Fig. 2 to be inclined diagonally to the level house-roof toward the center of the well-space, and on reaching a certain altitude to curve outward and proceed diagonally, respectively, a short distance downward, terminating at a point a little above the windows E E, Figs. 1 and 2, which are borne, respectively, two by each wallfour in all-by the side walls, D D Sometimes only one or two in all, sometimes more than four, windows are used, the number varying according to the size of the well or the requirements as to more or less light. Wheirthe well is not to be used as a lightconduit, the windows in the ventilator are dispensed with, as also when, as sometimes happens, my ventilator is placed on the top of a chimney or a simple air-passage instead of the ordinary building-well.

F F Fig. 2, (in dashed lines,) are two supplementary side walls of the ventilator, placed, respectively, a short distance from the side walls, D D being attached to and running parallel with them, as seen in Fig. 2, a closed chamber, G G being thus formed, respectively, on each side of the ventilator.

H H ,Fig. 2, (in dashed lines,) are two windows, (there are two on each side-four in all,) placed, respectively, in the inner side walls opposite, respectively, the windowsE E. (The number used of these windows varies, of course, with the number of windows placed in the outer side walls, D D.)

J J, Fig. 2, is the ventilator-roof, attached to and supported by the end walls, A A, Fig. 1, and bearing on each side, respectively, two windows, M M, Fig. 2, M M Fig. 1, (more or fewer, according to the size of the ventilator or the requirements as to light, and sometimes dispensed with altogether, like the windows in the side walls, as above mentioned,) there being four windows in allin the roof of the ventilator.

K K, Fig. 2, (in dashed lines,) is the inner roof, placed a short distance below the roof J J and running nearly parallel with it, and to which it is attached at each side, as seen in Fig. 2, the outer and inner roofs thus car:

rying between them a closed chamber, L L, Fig. 2. This inner roof bears on each side, respectively, two windows, N N ,Fig. 2, (four in all,) parallel with and opposite to, respectively, the windows M M in the roof J J. In practice one of these windows of the inner roof is placed beneath and opposite each of the outer windows in the roof J J P P P P P P P P, Fig. 1, (P P, Fig. 2,) are light-plates, called the tunnel-plates, of sheet metal of appropriate shape, fastened, (in a position parallel to the end walls, A A2) I respectively, between the upper ends (the parts which proceed downward, respectively) of the side walls, D D and the lower ends of the sides of the roof J J. They are called the tunnel-plates because they, in conjunction with side wall and roof, form a series of tunnels. In this instance they are quadrilateral and angular in horizontal section; but when only one tunnel is used, (say fastened to the top of achimney,) or, say, three or four, (as when the building-well is small,) these tunnels are made circular in horizontal section in their whole length, presenting thus the shape of a cone. The size of the ventilator, and hence the number of tunnels, is proportioned to the size of the well.

Operation of the i1wenti0n.--This ventilating apparatus of mine is but a simple mechanical construction of non-moving parts, and depends for its unvarying and automatic action upon no moving machinery. Its theory, which I have practically and amply tested, rests upon the well-known scientific fact that air when heated, being surrounded by the atmospheric unchanged air of lower temperature, rises upward, and subsequently descends on being cooled. My device being duly placed in position-say as seen in the drawings-it may be supposed that the apartments connected by windows or in any other way with the bui1ding-well,flue, or air-conduit, contain foul air (in the shape of the warmed aeriform products of artificial combustion, forinstance) to be got rid of. There is supposed to be cffected by means of doors, windows, or apertures unobstructed communication between the well and the room in question. The foul air, being warm, and therefore expanded, weighs less for any given cubic area than the surrounding cold air, which latter presses upon it with superior weight on all sides. Yielding to this pressure, the warm air passes in the direction of least resistance, which is upward, and rises in the well. the top of the well the heated foul air encounters the sides and top of my ventilator, which sides and top, being warm, thus do not absorb the heat from the rising air, which thus retains all the heat and expansion imparted to it below. (This is the sole function of the side and roof chambers, G Gr and L L.) At this time and all the time a body of cold air surrounds the ventilator above, including its eduction aperture or apertures and the por- On reaching tions adjacent. This cold air chills the nonjacketed portions of my devicesay from the end of the inverted portion up to the beginning of the roof and side jackets or the chambers. The result of this action is the chilling of the warm air as it reaches the point referred to. An increase of its specific gravity, with a contraction of its volume, occurs simultaneously, and it drops by its own weight downward through the eduction-aperture and out of the ventilator. The chilling and dropping of the risen foul air produces invariably and inevitably an imperfect vacuum at and above the eduction-aperture of the ventilator, inside the same. The rising body of warmed air rushes to fill this vacuum, is in turn chilled and condensed, drops down and out of the ventilator, and is got rid of, to be followed in endless succession by more warm and foul air. The curving over to a downward direction of the top end of the ventilator, it will be seen, very materially assists this action, and at the same time prevents the passage downward of cold air from the surrounding atmosphere, and also the dropping of rain, hail, and snow in the ventilator.

The essential features of my invention are, the curved top of the ventilator, the contracted top or inverted-tunnel form of the body of the ventilator, its tunnel shape from the curve and the side and roof chambers to its end, and the side and roof chambers themselves. I sometimes, however, use simply the curved top and no jacket-made chamber or inner wall to the roof. I sometimes pass horizontal ducts'from each roof in a buildin g, unbroken, in an upright direction through the building-well to and through the roof, and terminate them, respectively, with a tunnel. The advantage found in practice of the contraction and shaping to a tunnel form of the body of my ventilator is due to the fact that it concentrates the force with which the foul air passes upward, and the same advantage is attained by the use of the tunnel shape of the curved end. With an inner room, say in the center of a house, or at the end of a close passage-way, and thus unprovided with adequate'ventilation, I sometimes use an' upioo It is-the practice in some cases (as with case the central receiving-room becomes a part of the air-duct, and is so considered in the following claim.

I do not claim an air-duct bearing at its top a box with a closed top and a side opening in the form of a downward-curved pipe of the same diameter in all its length; nor do I claim a main air duct or well with its central passage contracted at the top; nor do I claim a box attached to the main duct, pipe, or well bearing one or more closed chambers at its side or sides. I do not confine myself to any special material for the roof L L of my Well, but use sheet metal, plate-glass, wood, or any other convenient substance.

I claim- In ventilators, the combination and arrangement of the ventilator herein described,

shown.

BENJAMIN MERIAM. Witnesses:

LEMUEL P. J ENKS, '1. J. HOWE.

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