A float chamber is a device for automatically regulating the supply of a liquid to a system. It is most typically found in the carburettor of a normally aspirated internal combustion engine, where it automatically meters the fuel supply to the engine. However, this arrangement is found in many automatic liquid systems, for example the cistern of a toilet could be said to be a type of float chamber.
A float chamber works by allowing liquid within the chamber to lift a float which is linked to a valve which regulates the liquid intake. When the level is low, the float drops and opens the valve, allowing in liquid until the float rises sufficiently to close off the valve again. This is identical in principle to the ballcock valve.
One drawback of the basic type of float chamber described is that it only operates correctly when it is the right way up, so more sophisticated solutions are needed in aircraft.
Famous quotes containing the words float and/or chamber:
“Life is a long Dardenelles, My Dear Madam, the shores whereof are bright with flowers, which we want to pluck, but the bank is too high; & so we float on & on, hoping to come to a landing-place at last—but swoop! we launch into the great sea! Yet the geographers say, even then we must not despair, because across the great sea, however desolate & vacant it may look, lie all Persia & the delicious lands roundabout Damascus.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“A snake, with mottles rare,
Surveyed my chamber floor,
In feature as the worm before,
But ringed with power.”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)