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43
SHOT TOWER WHARF DESTRUCTOR—CITY
OF WESTMINSTER.
(Special Report presented to the Council on Jan. 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 dustcollector
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
o