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A type of Davy lamp with apertures for gauging flame height. The lamp consists of a wick lamp with the flame enclosed inside a mesh screen. The screen acts as a flame arrestor; air (and any firedamp present) can pass through the mesh freely enough to support combustion, but the holes are too fine to allow a flame to propagate through them and ignite any firedamp outside the mesh.
Outside the entrance to Sunderland Football Club's Stadium of Light stands a giant Davy Lamp, in recognition of local mining heritage and the importance of Davy's safety lamp to the mining industry. [82] There is a street named Humphry-Davy-Straße in the industrial quarter of the town of Cuxhaven, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. [83]
One advantage of Stephenson's initial design over Davy's was that if the proportion of firedamp became too high, his lamp would be extinguished, whereas Davy's lamp could become dangerously hot. This was illustrated in the Oaks colliery at Barnsley on 20 August 1857 where both types of lamp were in use. [7]
A Davy lamp. In the Davy lamp a standard oil lamp is surrounded by fine wire mesh or gauze, the top being closed by a double layer of gauze. If firedamp is drawn into the flame it will burn more brightly and if the proportions are correct may even detonate. The flame on reaching the gauze fails to pass through and so the mine atmosphere is not ...
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The Davey Safety Lamp was made in London by Humphry Davy. George Stephenson invented a similar lamp but Davys invention was safer due to it having a fine wire gauze that surrounded the flame. This enabled the light to pass through and reduced the risk of explosion by stopping the "firedamp" methane gas coming in contact with the flame.
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Stephenson's safety lamp shown with Davy's lamp on the left. In 1815, aware of the explosions often caused in mines by naked flames, Stephenson began to experiment with a safety lamp that would burn in a gaseous atmosphere without causing an explosion. At the same time, the eminent scientist and Cornishman Humphry Davy was also looking at the ...