The present invention relates to a pulverizer also known as a vertical grinding mill which are normally provided with a rotating shaft with a plurality of arms spinning thereabout which generate a series of air currents inside of a cylinder to pulverize, aerate, homogenize and/or separate material.
Solid materials such as garbage, rubbish or other solid materials have been collected by trucks and transported for disposal for many years.
Burkett developed a centrifugal mill sometime around in the mid-1970s and ended up with U.S. Pat. No. 3,987,970 and others. The applicant's predecessor-in-interest filed Canadian Patent Application Nos. 2,125,797 and 2,147,666 for use with various equipment and methods for pulverizing rock and remediating soil utilizing an improved pulverizer configuration. These three patents and patent applications are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Still others have commercialized an embodiment of the Burkett mill and are trying to sell that design in the marketplace today. However, when attempting to build a Burkett mill with improvements, the applicant discovered there were components of that basic design which could be improved.
It is a present object of many embodiments of the present invention to provide an improved vertical gyroscopic mill or pulverizer having advanced capabilities.
It is another object of many embodiments of the present invention to provide a modular construction for a pulverizer mount so that the pulverizer can be made to be relatively simple in construction and fabrication characteristics to potentially reduce costs of the unit as well as to simplify the building and/or maintenance processes.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an ability to replace certain parts of a pulverizer drum without having to replace all the parts should some part fail or wear excessively.
Accordingly, in accordance with the presently preferred embodiment of the present invention, a modular pulverizer is provided. Specifically, instead of the housing being a rolled piece of metal of a sufficient thickness to withstand impacts from extremely rapidly rotating materials thrown around the body of the pulverizer, the body is instead divided into a series of modular segments or panels, and for many embodiments those panels can be interchangeable. Additionally, the panels can have lips which cooperate with lips of adjacent panels to provide a location for connecting adjacent panels together. Additionally, these lips can provide many secondary functions that may or may not be critical to the process.
Additionally, a series of drum liner attachments can be attached internally to the panels and/or housings of other embodiments so that should any of the drum liner panels be compromised or worn out, a single panel and/or individual panels could be swapped out with others without a need to replace the entire housing. These easily accessible liners can also be retained by the shelves or other internal components.
Additionally, a discharge from the pulverizer can be made as a single component so that panels can possibly be substantially identical above the discharge. In fact, one panel may hingedly connect to another for some embodiments so that the panel provides internal access.
The particular features and advantages of the invention as well as other objects will become apparent from the following description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings in which:
In one embodiment, the panels 12-22 can be made similarly or even identically and so that the six panels 12-22 can come together to form a circumference about the perimeter 50 of the bottom portion 40. This way, the panels 12-22 need not be rolled after forming to a precise circumference. Instead, each of the panels 12-22 may have first and second portions 52,53 which may angularly meet together such as at about 30 degrees so that the six panels 12-22 can come together to form a complete circumference about the perimeter 50 of the bottom portion 40 so that no material escapes between the adjacent panels 12-22 during operation by connecting lips such as lips 24,26 to one another or alternatively either in a permanent manner such as by welding or using connectors such as through bores 28-30 and/or other connection. It may also be alternatively possible that at least one of the panels 12-22 is configured as a door relative to the other panels and may selectively lock in position during use in a locked configuration and then be able to be hingedly connected to an adjacent panel such as having panel 16 be hingedly connected to panel 14 while having the capability of locking the panel 18 during operation while also allowing the panel 16 to rotate open to an open configuration during periods of non-use as one of ordinary skill in the art would understand to perform service internal to the drum 11.
Lips 24,26 are shown extending at obtuse angles from the panel portions 52, 53, although the lips 24, 26 may extend at acute angles or be perpendicular to panel portions 52,53 and/or along radius of the drum (if thought of as round) and/or housing 61 to facilitate connection and/or construction.
Generally a consistent circumference about a large diameter cylindrical housing has been found to be expensive particularly when utilizing AR 400 or other metal. Few machine shops have been found to be willing to roll unitary drums to the desired shape. By providing the panel construction, the cost to form the housing or drum would significantly decrease.
Furthermore, by providing six separate panels 12-22 to provide a drum 11, possibly modular in nature, if any one of the panels 12-22 is damaged, they could simply be replaced without having to replace the entire housing. Furthermore, shipment of panels 12-22 as opposed to a unitary drum is generally easier as well. The amount of steel can be decreased and assembly is believed to be greatly improved in efficiency compared to other options. While six panels 12-22 are shown each having two portions, such as the planar portions 52,53. Other embodiments may have other numbers of panels 12-22, possibly with other numbers of portions 52-53 and/or meeting at other angles. Furthermore, not all panels 12-22 need necessarily be similarly constructed for all embodiments.
While AR 400 or other high strength metal can be utilized, the various improvements disclosed herein can provide a design providing more panels than the six panels 12-22 illustrated and still other improvements.
Additionally, while making a modular drum construction, it is further anticipated that drum liner attachments could be modular in nature for at least some embodiments.
By providing a drum liner 59 in the form of portions such as the portions 54,56,58,60 it may be possible to test different materials other than just AR400 rolled steel as has traditionally been utilized as a drum housing wall 61 in the past. It may be that there is a low cost wear product whether a fiberglass, an HDPE high density polyethylene, a ceramic, some steels, chromium carbide overlays, ceramic overlays and/or other materials that may benefit from being utilized as any of the drum liner attachment portions 54-60 as would be understood by the reference to
Of course, other constructions could provide fewer or more portions 54-60. Utilizing the shelves 72,74,76 it has been found that they provide a particularly efficient way to cover over the seams 62,66,67 of adjacent portions as described above while other methods could connect in different ways. Additionally, the deflectors and/or shelves themselves may also be made in modular sets such as could be connected to each of the respective panels 12-22 such as in the form of portions 54-60 illustrated in
Deflectors and/or shelves as shown in
Furthermore, an intermediate lateral brace 92 could be provided for structural support and can be in addition to a bottom base 94 as well as an upper extension 96 for structural integrity of each of the panels 12-22. The brace 92, the bottom base 94 and the upper extension 96 are shown extending from lip to lip 24,26 of each panel, for at least some embodiments.
By constructing panels 12-22 and/or drum liner attachment portions 54-60 in such a way that the scalability can be increased, modularity can be made more efficient and the cost can be dropped to provide easier assembly for at least some embodiments.
Accordingly, a pulverizer 10 may comprise a top 80 having a perimeter 81, a bottom 82 having a perimeter 83, and a plurality of planar panel portions 52,53 connected together between the top 80 to the bottom 82 to provide a modular drum 11 construction. The pulverizer 10 also has a rotating shaft 190 having radially extending arms 191,192,193 (or other numbers, at possibly the same or other elevations as better described by the patents/patent applications incorporated by reference herein) creating flow currents within the pulverizer 10 thereby reducing the size of product input 194 near the top and discharged at the bottom as output 195. Unlike prior art constructions, the panel portions 52,53 can be planar, and preferably modular, rather than being formed of a single cylindrically rolled drum, which can be rather expensive to produce.
The pulverizer 10 can connect the top 80 to the plurality of panel portions 52,53 as well the bottom 82. The top 80 can have an inlet 196 while the bottom has an outlet 197 whereby material to be pulverized is fed in the inlet 196 as input 194, broken into smaller pieces, and then discharged from the outlet 197 as output 195.
Panels 12,14,16,18,20,22 and/or others can have multiple panel portions 52,53, such as first and second panel portions 52,53. Some, many or even all of the panels 12-22 may be similarly constructed. The panels 12-22 can have feet 36,38 which connect to the bottom 82, such as with respective bores 150,151 etc. and 46,48, etc. in each receiving connectors therethrough, or otherwise. The panels 12-22 can have lips 24,26 whereby adjacent lips 24,26 may connect with one another to assist in forming the drum 11. The lips 24,26 may also have shoulders 32 which can provide connection locations on an external surface of the drum 11.
For some embodiments, at least one panel portion 52,53, if not a panel 12-22, forms the door as shown in
Internal to the drum 11 can be at least one drum liner 59, if not a plurality of drum liner portions 54-60. The drum liner 59 can meet the top 80 and bottom 82 at seams 68,70, and drum liner portions 54-60 can meet one another at seams 62,66,67. The seams 62,66,67,68,70 can be covered with at least one of shelves 72,74,76 and/or guards 78,79. Shelves 72,74,76 can assist in directing flow in the pulverizer 10.
Numerous alterations of the structure herein disclosed will suggest themselves to those skilled in the art. However, it is to be understood that the present disclosure relates to the preferred embodiment of the invention which is for purposes of illustration only and not to be construed as a limitation of the invention. All such modifications which do not depart from the spirit of the invention are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/278,089 filed Jan. 13, 2016, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
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