Patent Application
20160265890
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to intentional burning, often called ‘prescribed burning’ for wild-land and wildlife management purposes, and in particular to an apparatus for launching incendiary spheres for the purpose of conducting such prescribed burning.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Prescribed burning is a common activity that is well recognized to produce many wild-land, environmental, agricultural and wildlife benefits. A variety of methods and devices are employed to do this. One main methodology uses flammable liquid or, flammable sludge, which is ignited as it exits the ignition device. Examples of such devices range from hand held ‘drip torches’ to helicopter slung ‘heli-torches’, or to vehicle-mounted or vehicle-towed devices, often called ‘terra-torches’, which eject ignited fuel under pressure much as does a military-type flamethrower. All flammable liquid methods carry with them certain disadvantages. The first such disadvantage is the obvious potential danger to the personnel who operate these devices. Such danger may arise for instance as an unintended consequence of misdirected flame, or possibly by explosion. Secondly, although such devices are effective for starting fires, they tend to consume a large quantity of fuel relative to both the number of fires they start, and to the total area they burn; consequently there exists an ongoing need to re-fuel these devices, which includes the storage, transportation, and often mixing of fuel, which imposes a significant operational challenge in the field. This re-fueling requirement also adds environmental risk and significant expense. Thirdly, there exist several physical limitations regarding the design, construction, and operation of any mechanical device which processes and ignites flammable liquids. Such limitations can be related for instance to the need to avoid fuel or flame leakage, or to mitigate the consequences if such leakage occurs, or to other design restrictions due to the potentially detrimental effect of burning fuel upon the mechanical or electrical components of the device. These are some of the reasons why it is desirable to design and employ an ignition apparatus which processes neither flammable liquid, nor flame itself.
One existing method of igniting prescribed burns which avoids the need to emit ignited liquids is that commonly referred to as ‘delayed ignition’. The most common method of delayed ignition is a machine that processes plastic incendiary spheres. Such a machine is known as a “plastic sphere dispenser” (PSD). Each plastic sphere is partly filled with an incendiary such as potassium permanganate, and, as the sphere is processed within the machine it is injected with a reactant such as ethylene glycol. As a result, after a delay of about 20-40 seconds, the now-mixed chemicals react with one another to create flame, which then causes the plastic sphere to burn. This burning sphere becomes the source of ignition for whatever ground material is intended to be burnt. The main advantage of delayed ignition is the delay itself. This is what allows for a method, or device, that does not have to process actual flame with all of the difficulties associated with doing so, but rather it processes what can be referred to as a ‘pre-flame’ incendiary sphere. This ‘delayed ignition’ technique is the method referenced in the present invention.
It is often desirable to conduct prescribed burning from the air. This is especially true if the terrain is difficult or impossible to traverse by ground, or if the area to be burnt is very large, in which case the time required to do so by traditional ground based methods may exceed the time window within which optimal burning conditions (wind speed and direction, temperature, relative humidity, etc.) can be expected to persist. When prescribed burning is conducted from the air, this is usually done by helicopter. This can be done by ‘fleli-torch’ as previously mentioned, or, it can be done by installing a PSD within the cabin of the helicopter. A P SD is capable of producing ‘charged’, or injected spheres, which are dropped by gravity from the aircraft to the ground. There are presently several PSD machines on the market, to site the four known such devices by their marketing name, they are: the ‘Mark III’, the ‘Red Dragon™’ (US 2010101401 A1), the Mark V′ and the ‘Spitfire’™ (CA 2,761,242/U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/061,511). There exist other devices which dispense delayed-ignition capsules such as the Raindance R2 (U.S. Pat. No. 7,451,679 B2) but these are not relevant to this general discussion because they do not dispense incendiaries that are sphere shaped.
All of the above PSD machines however are restricted by their design in that, by themselves, they can only practically be used by helicopter. Were it attempted to deploy one by ground vehicle the consequence would be of very little practical benefit. This is because the PSD machine, by itself, is not capable of launching the charged incendiary for a distance; it can only drop it straight down by gravity. This is perfectly acceptable and practical of course when using the PSD by helicopter because it is merely a matter of maneuvering the helicopter directly over the area that is desired to be burned, but the same machine, if deployed by ground vehicle, would only drop the incendiary right on the trail that the vehicle is travelling on. In nearly every case it is not the trail itself that is desired to be burned but the area beside the trail; this desired adjacent area could be anywhere from a few feet away to a hundred feet or more from the trail. This therefore explains the rationale for the present invention; namely: to provide an apparatus which will receive a charged incendiary from a PSD machine and then launch it for a distance, thus allowing a helicopter-deployed PSD machine to also be used by ground vehicle. Given the fact that an incendiary, once charged is about to burst in flame in about 25 seconds time, and another one is normally coming right behind it, the launcher must operate quickly and it must operate jam free. It must also be capable of reliably processing incendiaries no matter what rate (expressed in balls per minute or “BPM”) they are received by it. In the preferred embodiment for instance the present invention is capable of launching incendiaries at any rate between 1 and 200 BPM, which of course is a very widely varied BPM range, a greater range than any existing PSD machine is capable of producing.
As will be seen, the present invention launches the incendiary by means of contact with a spinning wheel, or wheels. The applicant recognizes a large number of devices exist which launch a sphere, or ball by means of contact with a spinning wheel or wheels, however, applicant is not aware of such devices being used to launch an incendiary sphere. The majority of the known ball launchers relate to some sporting activity that employs, as of course many do, some type of ball. For the most part, these sport ball throwers launch balls for the purpose of practice or training. It seems that for every sport that uses a ball there is a mechanical machine that can be used to launch that ball in series for practice or training purposes. This is certainly true for tennis, baseball, softball, basketball and football (often called ‘soccer’ in North America). Tennis is particularly well represented in the category of ball throwing machines that employ spinning wheels to launch the balls: the Lobster Company produces several models including ELITE series and GRAND series; there is also the Silent Partner Company which produces the LITE, the SPORT, and the STAR, and there are several other companies which produce similar products. Spinning wheel machines are also used with baseballs, softballs, basketballs and soccer balls. In the case of baseballs and softballs it is also known to employ only a single wheel in combination with a ‘kick plate’ which biases the ball against the spinning wheel, as opposed to the much more common two-wheel configuration used in the vast majority of sport ball throwers.
Therefore, while it is recognized that there are a great variety and quantity of machines, especially sport ball throwers in existence which do employ a spinning wheel or wheels to convey velocity to a sphere, no existing spinning-wheel machine of any description launches charged incendiary spheres, and this is despite the fact that delayed-ignition incendiary spheres have been in use for prescribed burning for about 25-30 years now. Also, it must be emphasized that the technical performance requirements for an incendiary sphere launcher in comparison to a sport ball thrower are of an altogether more exacting, critical and challenging nature. No tennis expert needs to be trained to handle three balls per second, and no sport ball is about to burst on fire if it jams inside the throwing machine The two mechanisms in particular which the present invention employs, and sport ball throwers do not, in order to ensure this exacting perfoimance standard are the inclusion of a ‘delivering wheel’ and a ‘slotted basin’. These two features will be more fully described in the paragraphs that follow.
The above discussion addresses machines that launch spheres by means of contact with spinning wheels, which is the general methodology employed in the present invention, but that is not to say that there exists no machines that launch charged incendiaries. A series of delayed-ignition devices are produced by Field Support Services of Atlanta, Ga. The PyroShot™ (U.S. Pat. No. 7,275,529) is a spring loaded ‘hand launcher for ground ignition’ which indicates, of course, that it is intended for use by personnel while walking on foot. The same company has also produced an HS model which includes a CO2 tank for the purpose of propelling the charged sphere for a longer distance. Further, the same company, in partnership with another company has recently introduced its Green Dragon™ product (U.S. Pat. No. 8,316,750 /CA 2,703,398). The Green Dragon also employs pressurized CO2 to launch each sphere over a long distance, and this is normally mounted on a truck or a UTV type vehicle as opposed to being used by a person on foot. All three products (hereafter referred to as PyroShot) are intended exclusively for use by ground, as opposed to aerial, deployment, and all three are used independently of a PSD. To be clear on this last point it should be explained that the term PSD has become commonly used to describe those four previously mentioned machines that drop incendiary spheres from a helicopter. Strictly speaking PyroShot could just as rightly be referred to as a PSD, because it does in fact dispense-plastic-spheres; the PyroShot includes all the mechanisms necessary to inject the incendiary sphere with reactant before it launches it. Thus, a main differentiation between PyroShot and the present invention is that PyroShot is a stand-alone gun, or system, which maneuvers, injects and then launches incendiary spheres, while the present invention is an apparatus that is exclusively used only to receive charged incendiaries from an existing PSD machine and then launch them. Most significantly however it is understood, in consideration of the main job that the present invention is designed to do, namely the launching of incendiary spheres, that there are no obvious similarities between PyroShot and the present invention in the manner in which they accomplish that task. PyroShot employs either a spring release, or, gas pressure for motive power to launch the incendiary sphere, whereby the present invention employs spinning wheels to do so.
The applicant is aware of no other relevant art in addition to that as described above.
The general objective of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for launching incendiary spheres (hereinafter referred to as “Ball-Thrower”). This Ball Thrower is used to receive ‘charged’, or injected, spherical plastic incendiaries, then throw, or ‘launch’ them, for a distance. These charged incendiaries are first emitted from a conventional PSD machine into the Ball-Thrower's intake (7) whereupon they roll down into a low point slotted ‘basin’ (33), from which they are picked up individually immediately upon entry and carried by a ‘delivering wheel’ (32) to a juncture point between two spinning wheels. These spinning wheels convey velocity to the incendiary, which is then thrown in a trajectory that is determined by the plane of orientation, and the rotational velocity of the spinning wheels. Although the plane of orientation of the spinning wheels is fixed at a constant angle about the horizontal axis, considering the vertical axis, the entire Ball Thrower assembly (50) is capable of approximately 180 degrees or more of azimuth rotation. Therefore, the direction that the incendiary is launched is controlled by means of orientation of the whole apparatus, while the distance the incendiary travels is controlled by adjusting the RPM of the spinning wheels. It is to be understood that, in the preferred embodiment described herein, although we use the example of two spinning wheels, this desired launching effect could logically be just as well accomplished by a variety of possible spinning wheel configurations; for instance this could be accomplished by a single spinning wheel biased to a kick plate, or by contact with three or even more spinning wheels. In teems of ensuring that the Ball-Thrower functions with adequate speed (measured in BPM, or balls-per-minute), and, with maximum reliability, the most critical elements of the design are those involved in the job of delivering the incendiary spheres to the spinning wheels. These critical elements include, the delivering wheel (32) and the slotted basin (33), which will be described in more detail during the discussion of the “feeder assembly” which follows.
The central structural component of the overall Ball-Thrower (50) is a Main Base Plate assembly (48). On its upper surface, main base plate (1) includes the necessary features for mounting a PSD machine. It includes a center mount hole where a pin-bolt is installed. This pin-bolt focus the vertical axis upon which the overall Ball-Thrower assembly, including the PSD on top of it, is rotated for the purpose of launching incendiaries in the desired direction. The main base plate also includes an intake tube (7) through which incendiaries first enter the thrower-head, and it includes mounting aims to attach the thrower-head assembly. The thrower-head is a separate piece that mounts to this main base plate assembly, and which includes all of the various mechanisms involved in the actual task of launching the incendiary.
The central structural component of the thrower-head is the spinner base plate (8). This plate mounts all of the main elements of the thrower-head. It includes recesses to mount three bearings. It includes an opening through which the body of an electric motor with a pulley on its shaft passes. The motor is mounted by inserting bolts through elongated bolt holes adjacent to this motor opening. The bolt holes are elongated so that the bolts can be moved as necessary to adjust tension on the timing belt, or, to install or remove the belt. This plate also includes a clearance cut-out (55), on both sides of which are recesses with bolt holes. The cut-out and recesses are for the purpose of mounting the forward end of the feeder assembly. On the opposite side are bolt holes (13) used to mount the aft end of the feeder assembly.
Mounted parallel to the spinner base plate is a bearing block (15). Spacers are added, and the bearing block is bolted to the spinner base plate, creating, in effect, a single piece with two separated parallel plates. To so connect, the three bolt holes in the bearing block are first aligned with the identical-pattern three bolt holes in the spinner base plate. The bearing block also includes three identical-pattern bearing mount holes which align with the bearing mount recesses in the spinner base plate. The bearing block further includes a clearance cut-out that precludes interference of the feeder assembly, and it also includes on both sides, two clearance holes that allow insertion of a quick-connect positioning pin, and a threaded hole for insertion of the bolts that connect the entire thrower-head assembly to the main base plate (48). Before connecting these two plates together, bearings are installed, spacer keys and pulleys are aligned, and three keyed shafts are inserted through all three bearing sets, at which point all three pulleys are installed. In the preferred embodiment these three are timing pulleys, one of which is an idler pulley which is used only to direct the path of the timing belt, while the two remaining pulleys will counter-rotate the two shafts that drive the spinner-wheels. The pulleys are all positioned between the plates, but the two shafts that drive the spinner-wheels extend beyond the lower surface of the spinner base plate. The spinner-wheels are attached to these two shaft extensions, and are keyed and secured with a ring clip. With the installation of the spinner-wheel motor, and a two-sided timing belt, the Ball-Thrower assembly is complete with the exception of the feeder assembly.
The central component of the feeder assembly is the delivering wheel (32). The function of the delivering wheel is to scour incendiaries from the sump and deliver them to an exact desired junction point between the spinning wheels. On the outer circumference of the delivering wheel is a straight surface which terminates in a concave half-circle. This concave half-circle is of a diameter that matches the outside diameter of the sphere that it is designed to manipulate, in other words, the incendiary fits exactly or near exactly within the half-circle concave surface on the circumference of the delivering wheel. This combination of a flat surface and a concave half-circle, for the sake of brevity, will be referred to as the “cavity”. It should be understood that the delivering wheel will perform its delivering function equally well if it included any number of cavities. The delivering wheel in operation, as previously mentioned, must be capable of delivering whatever number of incendiaries per-unit-of-time (BPM) at a varied and adjustable rate, that are presented to it. It is necessary therefore to ensure that the “cavities-per-minute” presented to the incendiary stream is at least equal to the maximum BPM rate at which the incendiaries could possibly exit the PSD. Otherwise, a back-log of un-launched incendiaries would be the natural result, and this would lead to disastrous consequences, namely the ignition of incendiaries still inside the Ball-Thrower, or in the worst case, since the sphere pathway between the PSD and the Ball-Thrower is connected and open, ignition within the PSD machine. There is obviously a relationship between the RPM (revolutions per minute) of the delivering wheel (32) and the cavities-per-minute that any particular RPM results in, and just as obviously, the number of cavities-per-minute per RPM is further dependent on the number of cavities on the wheel. Therefore, in terms of presenting a certain minimum number of cavities-per-minute, it is seen that, if the total number of cavities in the wheel is less, then the RPM must be more. The potential problem with higher RPM is that the higher it becomes the hirer becomes the rotational velocity of the protruding high point of the cavity, and the faster that is, the greater there is a tendency to sometimes rebound the incendiary off that high point. The purpose of the wheel is to entrap the incendiary, not to rebound it. To optimize this consideration, the present invention in the described embodiment employs five such cavities on the delivering wheel, and it rotates that wheel at an RPM that presents cavities at a rate that is higher than the ejection rate of the fastest PSD machine, but slow enough to minimize the unwanted rebounding effect.
The delivering wheel is mounted on a driveshaft. This driveshaft is driven by a motor. On either side of the delivering wheel are spacers which are keyed to the shaft. The delivering wheel, driveshaft and two spacers are mounted between two sidewalls. These sidewalls include externally mounted bearings through which the driveshaft passes. On one side, the driveshaft extends beyond the bearing, and it is on this extended side that a motor which rotates the driveshaft is mounted. A motor-shaft to drive-shaft adapter piece is installed for this purpose. When assembled, the internal distance between the sidewalls is slightly greater than the diameter of the spherical incendiary. This internal distance is maintained on the forward, or discharge, end by spacers that are bolted through each sidewall. On the aft, or intake end, the distance is maintained, and the sidewalls are joined, trough the interceding interference of an L-shaped piece. This L-shaped piece, called a slotted basin (33), performs several critical functions: it serves as a ramp that the incendiary rolls down upon, it serves as a stop at the bottom, or basin, of that ramp, and, it serves to hold that incendiary in an exact position momentarily until a cavity of the delivering wheel (32) entraps that incendiary and delivers it upwards to a center junction point between the two spinning wheels. At the bottom of the slotted basin, as its name suggests, is a slot or opening. It is through that slot that the outer circumference of the delivering wheel rotates.
The feeder assembly also includes two tabs attached to its intake end, and a plate on its discharge end; these are used to attach the feeder assembly to the spinner base plate (8).
The above described mechanisms collectively form the preferred embodiment of the present invention.
The drawings which show by way of example the preferred embodiment of the invention are as follows:
The preferred embodiment of the present invention is shown in
Although the above describes a delivering wheel with five identical segments, it is understood that the delivering wheel could equally well perform its function if it consisted of a number of cavities other than five.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2844336 | Feb 2014 | CA | national |
