Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/935

 Popular Science Monthly

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���At the principal division p)oints the hogs are given a shower bath to prevent them from becoming over-heated

��Shower Baths for Hogs — A New Life Saver Used by Railroads

SHIPPING , hogs to the slaughter house in freight cars is a precarious business. Strange to say, hogs, as a rule, do not suffer while the cars are in motion, but a great many die from over- heating while the cars are not mo\ing. Furthermore, the first warm weath- er of the season is more severe on hogs than the hot weather later in the season. A train may become stalled upon arrival at a division point and within twenty-four hours enough hogs may die from over- heating to cause the shipper or the railroad a great financial loss.

To afford the shipper the protection he needs and to protect itself against loss, the Saint Louis and San Francisco Railroad has installed a hog-watering device at its principal division points. Immediately upon arriving at these points the freight trains carrying hogs are stopped and the hogs are given an im- promptu shower bath, as the accom- panying illustration shows. As a general thing a stream of water is first turned into the bedding underneath the hogs. After the bedding is well saturated the nozzle of the hose is turned to the roof of the car and the water falls on the hogs. A drain lx)X is provided under the car to carry off the waste water.

��The Simplified Turbine for Small Electric Plants

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��The steam simply flows m a helical path at high speed. During half of its journey it forces itself against the turbine rotor, pushing it around

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electric power is developed, some type of driving unit must be used to turn the generators. In the newest power plants, the steam tur- bine is being used. A steam tur- bine may be considered as nothing more than a wind- mill adapted to special conditions. Instead of wind striking against its curved blades, steam rushes upon them. The steam is directed by a nozzle, producing a compact stream of a tremendously high velocity which glances against one blade cast into the side of one of a number of driving wheels, and shoots into another blade on another driving wheel rotating beside it.

Such was the old-type turbine. The complexity of mounting a series of driving w heels on one shaft made it an exceedingly expensive engine, practicable only for a large size plant. A new method of guiding the steam so that the series of blades on the same driving w heel can be utilized, adapts it for the small power plant. The blades are sunk into the periphery* of the driv- ing wheel, and after the steam pushes against one, it is guided by a fixed stator in a helical path into another. After expending its energ>- on six blades, the p>ower is con- verted into motion.

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