TAR-FED FURNACES.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1994, 27 February 1914, Page 5

TAR-FED FURNACES.

EXPERIMENT AT WWEB-HOtfSE. An interesting experiment was carried out last week at the rfectrioal lifthting power-house in Harris Street, when Mr. Henderson, a Na.pior engineer, was given' au opportunity to deraoJistrMe how tar could be used as fuel to fire large boilers. A big '. Babcoek-Wilcox boiler, was placed at the experimenter's disposal, tanks for the tar. w«ro erected at an elevation sufficient to cflstire a flow through a pipe to the furnace-door, where an open flow was regulated by a cock. The flow was caught by a cup, which conducted the tar through a pipe to.'a.nozzlo.iii the furnace, ?nd which was also connected with a powerful steam jet' that disintegrates the tar, arid_ forced it in a fierce white fkme against a mound of fire bricks erected in tho furnace, precisely as is done in the caso.of a petroleum-fed furnace. The fact that tar could bo used as fuel 'was satisfactorily .deniosstrafced, but it wgs not proved that tiro radiant' heat from tar was a.s effective- a steai»producer as tho direct flame from coal under forced draught. In using petro-. leum a direct flame is created, but.in the case of tar only the bottom tubes of the boiler benefit by direct flame, leaving the upper tubes to be heated radiantly.; it was also' not demonstrated that tar-is nearly as economical as coal for,this class of firing.