THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN

AND

JOURNAL OF THE COAL AND IRON TRADES.

Vol. CVIII.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1914.

No. 2816.

New Coke Oven and By=Product Recovery Installation at
Newton Cap Colliery, Bishop Auckland.

By FREDERICK C. COLEMAN.

The coke manufactured for considerably more than
half a century by Messrs. Henry Stobart and Company
Limited, of Etherley, Bishop Auckland, County Durham,
at their Newton Cap Colliery, is a special foundry coke
of highest order, very low in sulphur and ash, and has
been in general use in various parts of the country for
smelting purposes and the production of high-grade
castings.

process of by-product recovery plant, coal crushing
machines with crushed slack conveyor, coke ram and
coal levelling machine, coal storage bunker of 450 tons
capacity, automatic coke screening and loading machine,
combined coke quenching and handling machine, and
pump house. The washed and crushed slack is brought
from the colliery hoppers by means of a conveyor to
the main storage bunker of 450 tons capacity. The

oven is ready to be charged with coal the lids of the
charging holes are removed and the charging lorry is
brought in position.

By the simple operation of levers the whole charge is
immediately dropped through the charging holes into
the oven. To ensure that the full charge is evenly dis-
tributed in the oven, an automatically driven coal
leveller, which is attached to the ram engine and
actuated by the same motor, is employed, and the
levelling is done by a series of rakes fixed to a steel
beam which reciprocates through a small door fixed to
the top of the main coke oven door. When the levelling
is completed the levelling beam is withdrawn, the small
door is shut and luted, and the work of charging is

iW MBA

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Fig. 1.—General View of Installation, with Sulphate Store in Foreground.

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Recently a new installation of 44 Simplex regenerator
coke ovens and by-product recovery plant has been
introduced into service at this colliery. This plant
supplies a complete equipment of the most modern
appliances for the economical handling of the washed
slack until it is eventually converted at a minimum cost
into coke, tar, and sulphate of ammonia.

The general arrangement is shown in fig. 2, from
which it will be gathered that the plant consists of an
electrically-driven coal charging lorry, semi-direct

crushed slack is automatically distributed over the
whole surface of this bunker so that all trimming is
avoided. The bunker is provided with a series of outlet
valves on the under side so that the charging lorry
which travels underneath can receive its charge from
any portion of the bunker. As soon as the charging
lorry has received its supply of crushed slack from the
bunker, it is automatically moved by means of an
electric motor along a rail track fixed on the top of the
ovens for the whole length of the battery. When an

complete. The time occupied in charging an oven is
less than two minutes.

The ovens, as previously mentioned, are 44 in number,
and are built on the latest system recently invented by
the Simplex Coke Oven and Engineering Company
Limited, of Sheffield. They are of the regenerative
type, and are so arranged that the distribution of heat
to the oven walls is perfectly uniform. This is done by
a system of fractional combustion. The whole of the
burners for heating the flues are fixed on the top of the