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91
SHOT TOWER WHARF DESTRUCTOR.
(Special Report presented to the Council on January 18th, 1906.)
The Dust Destructor belonging to the City of Westminster,
and situated at Shot Tower Wharf, Commercial Road,
was formally opened for work on November 7th, 1900. the
Destructor is of the Horsfall type, and was erected by the
Horsfall Furnace Syndicate, Ltd., of Leeds and London.
It has six back-to-back cells, or furnaces, to treat 12 tons of
refuse per cell per day, with a maximum residue of 33 per
cent. in weight. The refuse is tipped directly into the cells
or furnaces from the carts or vans through cone-shaped hoppers
(fitted with covers), which hold several loads of refuse
each; and so the refuse does not require to be stored, or
handled, in any way previous to burning. The stoking is
done from below on a clinkering floor, which is unfortunately
situated underneath the ground level. The hot clinker (as
it is formed) is removed, at once, away by means of a single
overhead railway carried round the furnaces, and furnished
with clinker trucks of steel, with a hoist to convey the
trucks (when filled) from the clinkering floor to the level of
the Wharf, and so by means of another overhead railway
to the jetty at the end of the Wharf, where the barges are
moored.
The advantages of the Horsfall type of Destructor may
be summarised in the words of the Special Report, published
in 1898 by Lord Kelvin and Prof. Barr, as the maintenance
of high glowing temperatures from energetic combustion,
both inside the fires themselves and in the walls of the flues,
temperatures which are assisted and increased by the production
of forced draughts (on the plenum system) by means
of steam jets—the blast air, on its way to the grates, passing
through, and being heated in, flue boxes specially built
at the sides of the furnaces. There is only a small chimney
draught. The products of combustion from each cell discharge
into one main flue, and pass through a circular centrifugal
dust collector, or catcher, before passing on to the
boilers, and thence out into the outside air. The charging
holes of the cells are placed at the backs, and the flues for
the emission of gaseous products in the fronts, of the