Steam Pipes
A fatal accident at Deptford resulting from failure of the main steam pipe greatly perturbed Ferranti and, during the short time that elapsed between the accident and the inquest, he thought out all the details of a multiple steam pipe. To reduce the danger Ferranti decided that brazed pipes should be avoided at all costs and solid-drawn pipes must be used. The difficulty was that solid-drawn pipes were only made in small diameters. Then why not bunch a number of pipes together and expand them into flanges for jointing? He developed this idea and produced patents 7276 of 1889 and 2052 of 1891, and the multiple pipes were made on the premises at Deptford. The Engineer of 13 March 1891 remarked: 'It is somewhat to be wondered at that, with the black history before him of disastrous explosions, no engineer had hitherto thought of any really safe means of carrying steam from boilers to engines.... As a matter of fact, there is at Deptford one multiple pipe which delivers steam to a pair of 700 horse-power engines 130 ft. away from the boilers with a loss of not more than 5 per cent of pressure, and better than this cannot be expected from any pipe single or multiple . . . the practical advantages are many and great.... (1) An enormously reduced possibility of explosion, due to the very great increase in strength of the multiple over the single pipe for the same area.'
A fatal accident at Deptford resulting from failure of the main steam pipe greatly perturbed Ferranti and, during the short time that elapsed between the accident and the inquest, he thought out all the details of a multiple steam pipe. To reduce the danger Ferranti decided that brazed pipes should be avoided at all costs and solid-drawn pipes must be used. The difficulty was that solid-drawn pipes were only made in small diameters. Then why not bunch a number of pipes together and expand them into flanges for jointing? He developed this idea and produced patents 7276 of 1889 and 2052 of 1891, and the multiple pipes were made on the premises at Deptford. The Engineer of 13 March 1891 remarked: 'It is somewhat to be wondered at that, with the black history before him of disastrous explosions, no engineer had hitherto thought of any really safe means of carrying steam from boilers to engines.... As a matter of fact, there is at Deptford one multiple pipe which delivers steam to a pair of 700 horse-power engines 130 ft. away from the boilers with a loss of not more than 5 per cent of pressure, and better than this cannot be expected from any pipe single or multiple . . . the practical advantages are many and great.... (1) An enormously reduced possibility of explosion, due to the very great increase in strength of the multiple over the single pipe for the same area.'