Patent Application
20050120926
None.
Not Applicable
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pre-fill chamber for an incinerator, the type particularly useful for burning various materials.
2. Brief Description of Prior Art.
The field of the present invention relates to an incinerator of the type that generally includes a lid or cover which is removably mounted on a trash container such as a 20 gallon trash can or a 55 gallon drum. The lid has an opening for directing air tangentially into the top of the container upon which it is mounted, and it has a central exhaust opening through which the combustion gases escape from the incinerator. The principle of the prior art incinerator has been to create, at the upper portion of the incinerator, a centrifugal swirl of combusting gases which burn the combustibles from the top down and in so doing tend to retain the combustibles for a long period of time whereby to effect their substantially complete burning.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,791,319 discloses such an incinerator which includes a retardation chamber at the top of the lid and of substantially smaller diameter than the lid rim and bringing air into the top of the retardation chamber. The smaller diameter tends to retain the high velocity of the incoming air before it expands into the larger container. In flowing downwardly into the retardation chamber, it captures and retains for a longer period the upwardly flowing particles. The '319 registration further provides a baffle plate supported below the exhaust opening of the lid. The baffle plate blocks the flow of gases and entrained solids upwardly from the center of the combusting material, causing the gases to be diverted to the perimeter of the incinerator lid. In the parameter of the incinerator lid, the gases and entrained particles are caught into the tangential flow of gases whereby the centrifugal force on the particles tend to retain them in the parameter of the lid until they are significantly more completely burned. Thus, the net effect of the baffle is to increase the residence time of the particles in the incinerator, thereby considerably increasing the extent to which they are combusted.
In application of the prior art incinerator, the lid is removed and the container is filled with the combustible material. The top most combustibles are ignited and the lid is replaced. A blower motor is energized to cause air to circulate in the lid and down upon the combustibles. Very rapidly, a roaring fire is created within the container whose temperature may be 1,500 [deg] F. or higher. The top-down burning creates a long retention time for all of the particles thereby assuring substantially complete combustion. Obviously, the lid of the '319 incinerator must be removed before re-filling the container with combustibles. As such, before removing the lid, any fires within the container must burn-out before re-filling. As such, application of the prior art incinerators requires filling the container, completely burning the material within the container, and once the fire has burned-out, then re-filling the container with combustibles. This is obviously a very time consuming process, especially when there is substantial material to be burned.
As will be seen from the subsequent description, the preferred embodiments of the present invention overcome shortcomings of the prior art.
The present invention in the preferred embodiment is an incinerator pre-fill chamber attachable to a modified prior art incinerator. The pre-fill chamber of the present invention allows the operator to continuously re-fill the container of the incinerator with new combustible material while the contents within the container is burning. The incinerator pre-fill chamber includes an elongated case, a plunger with a platen, at least one side door that opens for loading the material to be burned, a trap door that opens when the plunger is actuated thereby permitting the material to either fall or be forced by the platen of the plunger into the combustion container where the material is incinerated. The pre-fill chamber further includes trunions, and a handle.
In accordance with the present invention, an incinerator pre-fill chamber for installation on a prior art incinerator is disclosed. The pre-fill chamber relating to a method for continuously burning combustible material within the container of the incinerator. Specifically, it will be noted in the drawings that the incinerator pre-fill chamber relates to an apparatus used for loading combustible material to be burned into the prior art incinerator and introducing that material to the combustible container of the incinerator.
In the broadest context, the incinerator pre-fill chamber consists of components configured and correlated with respect to each other so as to attain the desired objective.
Referring to
The incinerator 100 is, in the preferred embodiment, mounted on a wheeled cart 120 having a horizontal support 125 and a generally vertical handle 126 onto which a plenum chamber 130 and at least one blower 135 are mounted. With this operation, the plenum chamber 130 protects the blower motor 135 from the container 111, maintaining the blower motor's 135 temperature. Again, the configuration of the incinerator 100 as described above is prior art.
Referring now to
As best shown in
The trap door 30 is hinged to the case 20 and is held in a closed position by friction until forced to an open position by the action of the plunger 15 as will be discussed.
As shown in
In application, an operator lays the pre-fill chamber 10 on a convenient surface, then opens the side door 25, retracts the plunger 15, and places the material to be burned within the chamber 22 of the pre-fill chamber 10. The operator verifies that the trap door 30 is closed, and then closes the side door 25 with the material to be burned within the pre-fill chamber 10. The pre-fill chamber 10 is then positioned on the closure plate 140 of the lid 113 of the incinerator 100, so that the trap door 30 is resting on the upper surface of the closure plate 140. The case 20 of the pre-fill chamber 10 is then urged downward so that the closure plate 140 is placed in its second position and the lower portion of the case 20 having the trap door 30 is positioned through the opening 117 and within the container 111 so that the container 111 remains closed with the insertion of the case 20. In this position, the section (not shown) of the closure plate 140 that had the trap door 30 resting thereon is received within container 111 as the case 20 is downwardly urged into the container 111. The case 20 is downwardly urged until the pair of trunions 32 come in contact with the trunion stops 34. The trunion stops 34 serve to keep the pre-fill chamber 10 in place over the opening 117 in the lid 113, and further controls the distance the pre-fill chamber 10 enters the container 111.
The operator then forces the plunger 15 downward, which forces the platen 15C to press the material in the chamber 22 of the pre-fill chamber 10 against the trap door 30, which forces the trap door 30 to swing down into the container 111, which in turn permits the material loaded with the chamber 22 to either fall from or be forced from the chamber 22 into the container 111 for burning.
After the pre-fill chamber 10 is emptied as described above, the operator removes the case 20 of the pre-fill chamber 10 from the container 111 by simply upwardly urging the pre-fill chamber 10 using the handle 35. Once the pre-fill chamber 10 is removed from the container 111, the weighted end 140A of the closure plate 140 will cause the plate 140 to return up to its first position, so that the opening 117 of the container 111 is closed by the closure plate 140 for continued burning. The pre-fill chamber 10 is then removed and may be re-filled with material to be burned as discussed above. As such, the above process may be repeated without requiring the operator to wait until the contents within the container 111 has completely burned.
Use of the pre-fill chamber 10 is an effective way to load said container 111 with material to be burned with minimal exposure to combustion gases and debris. The present invention further avoids the practice of the prior art which requires the operator to only load material within the incinerator once the fire within the incinerator is burned-out.
Although the description above contains many specificities, these should not be construed as limiting the scope of the invention but as merely providing illustrations of some of the presently preferred embodiments of this invention.
It will be obvious to those skilled in the art that modifications may be made to the embodiments described above without departing from the scope of the present invention. Thus the scope of the invention should be determined by the appended claims in the formal application and their legal equivalents, rather than by the examples given.
