Who invented the corner tube boiler?

November 12, 1944, the first basic patent for Corner Tube Boilers (= Eckrohrkessel, Berlin, Germany) was applied for. During this time oil as fuel ran short. All efforts, to save energy and use domestic and alternate resources, were to be made. One came up with an idea, to operate cars and trucks, not on gasoline or diesel fuel, but with steam.

Dr. Vorkauf, a specialist for water circulation in boilers, especially in La Mont boilers (forced circulation boilers), got the order to design a small boiler for a steam engine fired with coal or wood. The result was not as expected a forced circulation boiler, but a natural circulation boiler. A forced circulation boiler of this size would have been too costly.

Due to his experience with the La Mont boiler Dr. Vorkauf had the idea to obtain a pre-separation of the steam - water mixture in front of the drum. An extremely lively water circulation resulted from unheated downcomers and a suitable arrangement of the mixture tubes. The unheated downcomers were installed in the 4 corners of the boiler, where they not only served the purpose of water circulation, but also as a support frame for the boiler. The boiler with such an arrangement of the downcomers in the corners was called Corner Tube Boiler (Eckrohrkessel, Eckrohr-Boiler).