158 RECENT ADVANCE IN OIL BURNING. 
Impressed as I am with the importance of naval experiments, I have made an 
effort to secure some information as to what was being done in the development of 
oil burning by the British Admiralty. In this I have not been successful, but I 
am informed that a paper dealing with this subject is to be presented by Sir George 
G. Goodwin, Engineer in Chief of the British Admiralty, before the Institute of 
Naval Architects next February. 
Returning to the work of the United States Fuel Oil Testing Plant now under 
the command of Lieut. Commander Purnell, it seemed at first sight that 1,032 
pounds of oil per burner per hour was rather a notable achievement. It is inter- 
esting to state, therefore, that this record has already been materially outstripped. 
Early in the past summer The Babcock & Wilcox Company offered Six air registers 
of their standard design, but of an enlarged type, with mechanical atomizers capable 
of atomizing 1,500 pounds of oil per unit per hour. These were tested by Com- 
mander Purnell under the same White-Forster boiler already described. The six 
burners successfully sprayed over 9,000 pounds of oil per hour under conditions stmi- 
lar to those pertaining to the U. S. scout cruisers now under construction. The oil 
per square foot of heating surface was approximately 1.2 pounds, and the oil per 
cubic foot of furnace volume per hour about 12 pounds. 
This record was exceeded in August in a test of the Normand boiler at the Fuel 
Oil Testing Plant. This boiler contained 4,500 square feet of heating surface and 
487 cubic feet furnace volume and was fitted with three of the recently developed 
Peabody-Fisher wide-range mechanical burners and new Peabody air registers. 
Crude Mexican oil of 13.3 Baumé was used and the three burners each atomized 
over 1,800 pounds of oil per burner per hour, without smoke, carbon or other _ 
objectionable conditions. The oil burned per square foot of heating surface 
was 1.2 pounds per hour and per cubic foot of furnace volume 11.15 pounds per 
hour. 
The following letter from Commander Purnell enclosed the results of the tests 
as given in Table II, Plate 66:— 
“THe PEABODY ENGINEERING CORPORATION, 
331 Madison Avenue, 
New York, N. Y. 
Attention of Mr. E. H. Peabody, President. 
“‘ GENTLEMEN :— 
“T am enclosing summary of results of tests conducted on the Normand 
boiler, which was equipped with three Peabody air registers and three Peabody- 
Fisher wide-range fuel-oil atomizers. 
“The Normand boiler has not been used for testing purposes for approxi- 
mately five years and is not equipped with the latest appliances and instruments 
for securing test data. However, I believe the final calculations can be taken as 
representative of what can be expected from the boiler. 
“While the tests were not official in so far as they were not run to meet specific 
