Patent Application
20160010632
The present invention relates in general to high pressure pump systems and, more particularly, to a remotely-configurable high pressure fluid passive control system for controlling bi-directional pumps.
Richard Peter McCabe devised the McCabe Wave Pump, which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,132,550. The McCabe Wave Pump consists of three rectangular steel pontoons, which move relative to each other in the waves. A damper wave plate attached to the central pontoon ensures that it remains stationary as the fore and aft pontoons move relative to the central pontoon by pitching about the hinges. Energy is extracted from the rotation about the hinge points by linear hydraulic pumps mounted between the central and other two pontoons near the hinges.
A related configuration to the McCabe Wave Pump is an “articulated wave energy conversion system (AWECS)” which is disclosed in U.S. Patent Publication Nos. 2014/0008306 (Murtha, et al.); 2014/0158624 (Murtha, et al.); and U.S. Patent Publication No. 2014/0091575 (McCormick, et al.), and all of which are owned by the same Assignee as the present application, namely, Murtec, Inc. of Glen Burnie, Maryland. See also U.S. Pat. No. 8,650,869 (McCormick). As shown in
Doug Hicks and Charles M. Pleass devised the Delbuoy wave-powered desalination unit, described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,013,219; 4,512,886; 4,421,461, and 4,326,840. When the waves lift and then lower the Delbuoy wave-powered desalination unit, a piston connected to the bottom of the buoy drives a piston pump at the sea floor. The pressure created by the pump is strong enough to drive the sea water through a reverse osmosis filter, which removes salt and impurities from the water, and then to send the fresh water through a pipe to the shoreline, where it is tapped and used by people.
However, there remains a need for quickly and easily reconfiguring the operational modes of pumps depending on different scenarios which none of the aforementioned disclosures teach or suggest.
All references cited herein are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
A bi-directional pump system for providing a high pressure fluid output is disclosed. The pump system comprises: at least one bi-directional pump having a piston and piston rod that can translate within a cylinder in two opposite directions, wherein the piston separates the cylinder into two variable-sized chambers, and wherein the piston displaces fluid located in each chamber when the piston is in motion due to external forces acting through the piston rod and the cylinder; each variable chamber being in fluid communication through a valve network to a high pressure manifold, a low pressure manifold and a suction manifold, wherein the high pressure manifold has an output for delivering the high pressure fluid to a target process and wherein the suction manifold provides a fluid input into the bi-directional pump system; and wherein the valve network can be configured to deliver high pressure fluid from one of a single-acting pumping mode and a double-acting pumping mode, wherein the single-acting pumping mode delivers high pressure fluid to the target process during piston motion in one of the two opposite directions and wherein the double-acting pumping mode delivers high pressure fluid to the target process during piston motion in both of the two opposite directions.
A method for permitting a plurality of parallel-acting bi-directional pumps to be configured into a plurality of operational modes is disclosed. The method comprises: providing a plurality of bi-directional pumps, each bi-directional pump having a piston and piston rod that can translate within a cylinder in two opposite directions, wherein each piston separates the corresponding cylinder into two variable-sized chambers, wherein the piston displaces fluid located in each chamber when the piston is in motion due to external forces acting through each piston rod and each cylinder; coupling each variable-sized chamber, through a respective valve network, to a high pressure manifold, a low pressure manifold and a suction manifold, wherein the high pressure manifold has an output for delivering the high pressure fluid to a target process and wherein the suction manifold provides a fluid input into the bi-directional pump system; and controlling the valve network so that each one of the plurality of bi-directional pumps can be configured to deliver high pressure fluid from one of a single-acting pumping mode and a double-acting pumping mode, wherein the single-acting pumping mode delivers high pressure fluid to the target process during piston motion in one of the two opposite directions and wherein the double-acting pumping mode delivers high pressure fluid to the target process during piston motion in both of the two opposite directions.
Many aspects of the present disclosure can be better understood with reference to the following drawings. The components in the drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon clearly illustrating the principles of the present disclosure. Moreover, in the drawings, like reference numerals designate corresponding parts throughout the several views.
Referring now to the figures, wherein like reference numerals represent like parts throughout the several views, exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail. Throughout this description, various components may be identified having specific values, these values are provided as exemplary embodiments and should not be limiting of various concepts of the present invention as many comparable sizes and/or values may be implemented.
The present invention 20 relates in general to an apparatus comprising a liquid pipe and valve system or network designed to be configured locally or remotely and passively control the operation of bi-directional piston pumps in any of four modes:
As a result, the apparatus 20 has an unlimited number of uses (hence the term “target process” used in several of the figures) high pressure fluid is required and the need to use these four modes operation are available. Thus, by way of example only and not by way of limitation, as shown in
The terms “high pressure (HP)” and “low pressure (LP)” as used throughout this Specification may comprise approximately 1000 psi and 100 psi, respectively.
As mentioned previously, the piston 100 within the cylinder 104 is moved back and forth within the cylinder 104 by the motion of alternately extending and retracting the connected piston rod 102 relative to the cylinder 104 by an external force provided by, e.g., wave power, by way of example only in the present application. This reciprocating action of the piston/rod causes fluid to be drawn into the expanding cavity end of the cylinder 104, and expelled from the shrinking cavity end. For the present exemplary intended use as a high pressure sea water pumping system, the inlet to the suction manifold 110 is filtered by a sand filter 40 on the sea bed 41 followed by a fine strainer (not shown) to remove particulate matter that could cause excessive wear on the piston pumps. Also, the low pressure and high pressure manifolds 106/108 relieve excess pressure by porting fluid back to the suction manifold 110 to provide a back flush action of the suction strainer, as does a separate back flush valve 11 when opened momentarily.
As shown in
An apparatus for pumping sea water drawn from the sea to a process requiring a continuous direct flow of high pressure sea water uses a reciprocating pump powered by external mechanical forces. A power take-off sub-system is a shaft that transfers mechanical power between mechanical systems. In another embodiment of the instant invention, power take-off is the transformation of power to fluid power. An embodiment of the instant invention includes at least two power take-off sub-systems. e.g., a first power take-off sub-system and a second power take-off sub-system. The first power take-off sub-system from the articulated levers is, for example, a single rod end double-acting hydraulic cylinder pump. By itself, the double-acting hydraulic pump produces alternating fluid flow in and out of the fluid connections at each end of the cylinder.
It should be noted that the useable volume in the rod end of the cylinder 104B actually forms an annular volume due to the presence of the rod 102. This can be most easily seen in
The fluid flow control system of the present invention 20 can be configured to provide four different fluid functionalities as described in the following paragraphs. These configurations are realized through appropriate positioning either locally or remotely using remote actuators (not shown) to OPEN or SHUT the 2-way full-port (e.g., very low flow resistance) ball valves 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 as shown in
It should be noted that in
An embodiment of the instant invention of a reconfigurable fluid control and distribution system is, for example, a configuration to provide single-acting pump delivery of high pressure sea water for delivery direct flow to a reverse osmosis system for conversion to potable water. In this configuration, ball valves 1, 2, 5, 7 are placed in the OPEN position, while ball valves 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 are placed in the SHUT position. Relief valves 12, 13 remain SHUT except for overpressure conditions where they relieve their respective manifold fluid back to the suction manifold until the overpressure condition is corrected.
During the portion of the cycle where the external mechanical forces cause the two hinged levers to move apart and the piston rod 102 is extended (
During the portion of the cycle where the external mechanical forces cause the two hinged levers to move toward each other (
As mentioned earlier, due to the annular volume of the rod-end chamber 104B, there is an excess fluid (see excess fluid flow 109, in FIGS. 5B and 7A-7B) that is expelled from the non-rod chamber 104A. This excess fluid flows into the low pressure manifold 108. This repeated addition of fluid causes the pressure in the low pressure manifold 108 and accumulator 31 to gradually increase until the maximum desired is reached. At this point, pressure relief valve 12 relieves fluid back to the suction manifold 110 until the pressure is sufficiently reduced, and it ceases relieving. This periodic relief from the low pressure relief valve 12 provides the benefit of an automatic periodic back flush for the suction screen 40.
Since the non-rod end of the cylinder 104B, which takes suction directly from the sea, acts as a prime pump for the high pressure pumping rod end in this configuration, the cylinder 104 tends to supply fluid to the high pressure pump side with potentially less suction induced gas content than if that side were to take direct sea suction.
An alternate second embodiment of the instant invention of a reconfigurable fluid control and distribution system is, for example, to reconfigure the system to provide double-acting pump delivery of high pressure sea water for delivery direct flow to a reverse osmosis system for conversion to potable water. In this configuration ball valves 1, 2, 6, 8 are placed in the OPEN position, while ball valves 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11 are placed in the SHUT position, as are relief valves 12, 13 except for overpressure conditions where they relieve their respective manifold fluids back to the suction manifold 110 until the overpressure condition is corrected.
During the portion of the cycle where the external mechanical forces cause the two hinged levers to move apart and the piston rod 102 is extended (
During the portion of the cycle where the external mechanical forces cause the two hinged levers to move toward each other and the piston rod to be pushed into the cylinder 104 (
In this double-acting high pressure pumping configuration, more than twice the volume of high pressure fluid is supplied per external force cycle than with the single-acting pump. The disadvantage is that high compressive stresses are placed on the piston rod 102 during the non-rod end pumping phase. This can add to the likelihood of rod bending and increased rod seal wear unless the rod is of a robust diameter. In addition, the low pressure manifold 108 is effectively isolated and there is no differential volume induced automatic back flush of the suction screen 40. This back flush must be accomplished by momentary opening of the normally shut back flush valve 11. In addition, since both sides 104A/104B of the cylinder take direct sea suction, the advantages of a having a preliminary prime pump are lost.
An alternate third embodiment of the instant invention of a reconfigurable fluid control and distribution system is to reconfigure the system 20 to isolate the cylinder 104 from the rest of the pump group if cylinders are working together in parallel, but still permitting the piston 100 to be cycled back and forth. This feature permits increasing or decreasing the number of active cylinder pumps on line to increase or decrease the flow rate of high pressure fluid as needed without interruption of the targeted process. In this configuration (
It should be noted that the high pressure fluid in the HP manifold 106 is being provided by the other pumps 20A that are operating in either the SAPM or DAPM configurations.
During the entire external force cycle, fluid is pumped back and forth between the two internal cavities of the cylinder through open ball valves 9, 10 with a minimum of external force required. While pumping from the non-rod end cavity 104A to the rod-end cavity 104B (
It should be noted that during the piston rod extension half cycle (
An alternate fourth embodiment of the instant invention of a reconfigurable fluid control and distribution system 20 is to reconfigure the system to isolate and rigidizing it by placing a hydraulic lock on the cylinder 104, to prevent displacement of the piston 100. This locked piston configuration could be useful when, for example, a bank of cylinders connected between two barges that are providing power to generate high pressure sea water by wave action are made rigid to make the two barges act as a single larger essentially rigid barge for ease of transport and other tasks. In this configuration, ball valves 3, 4, 5, 7 are placed in the OPEN position, while ball valves 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 are placed in the SHUT position, as are relief valves 12, 13 except for overpressure conditions where they relieve their respective manifold fluid back to the suction manifold 110 until the overpressure condition is corrected.
During this evolution, the isolated pistons are connected at both ends to small spring accumulators 33/34 that act as stiff fluid springs connected to the locked piston 100 to cushion and provide restoring forces against sudden external forces on the cylinder 104. Since these accumulators 33/34 are of use only when in the locked piston configuration, their internal gas bladders must be precharged to a higher pressure than normally encountered during system operation in the other the configurations. They will be in an empty fluid condition until this configuration is entered, with the internal gas charged bladder pushing against and keeping shut the internal spring-loaded fluid shutoff valve. If, after entering this configuration, large external forces on the levers L1/L2 to which the piston rod 102 and the cylinder 104 are connected are encountered causing the piston 100 to move slightly, thus raising the pressure of the trapped fluid in one of the cylinder cavities to above the attached spring accumulator 33/34 precharge pressure, a small amount of fluid from that cavity will be pumped into that spring accumulator raising its gas charge pressure as the bladder is displaced slightly by the inflow fluid. At the same time, the cylinder cavity on the other side of the piston 100 will be supplied the required fluid to make up for the piston displacement from either its attached spring accumulator 33/34 if it contains fluid, or by the low pressure manifold 108 through OPEN ball valves 3, 4, 5, 7 and check valves 25, 26 if the attached spring accumulator is emptied of its fluid. Once there is sufficient fluid in the spring accumulator connected to that cavity, it will provide any necessary make up fluid to the cavity. After each of these external force induced small piston oscillations, the spring accumulator with the higher pressure due to fluid inflow will push some of that fluid back out when the disturbing force is lessened, thus displacing the piston 100 in the opposite direction while also decreasing that spring accumulator pressure due to the fluid outflow. This outflow induced piston displacement will force some fluid from the opposite cavity into its attached spring accumulator, raising the pressure on that side. These piston displacements will continue until the fluid forces on each side of the piston are equal. It should be noted that the spring accumulator/fluid pressure on the rod-end cavity will be higher than that of the non-rod end cavity when the piston forces are equal due to the smaller annular piston area on the rod end. As each successive external force disturbance is applied to the cylinder 104, it will tend to cause the piston 100 to displace in the opposite direction proportional to the disturbing force. This will pump a corresponding amount of fluid into the spring accumulator connected to that cavity and raise its pressure, while draining a corresponding amount of makeup fluid from the opposite spring accumulator and lower its pressure. This action will produce a restoring “spring” force on the piston 100 due to the differential forces across the piston 100. This restoring force action will cushion the isolated piston 100 in a manner similar to attached mechanical springs. The volume of the spring accumulator is inversely proportional to the desired stiffness, as a smaller volume will have a greater increase in gas pressure, hence a greater resulting restoring force, for a given volume of fluid addition.
It should be noted that during startup in the IRM configuration, the spring accumulators 33/34 are initially empty. For small piston rod extension motions caused by large external forces, the LP manifold 108/accumulator 31 will provide makeup fluid to the non-rod end of the cylinder 104A; or, if the LP manifold 108 is empty, the suction manifold 108 will supply the makeup fluid. For small piston rod retraction motions caused by large external forces, the LP manifold 108/accumulator 31 will provide makeup fluid to the rod end of the cylinder 104B; or, if the LP manifold 108 is empty, the suction manifold 108 will supply the makeup fluid.
It should also be noted that for use only in this fourth mode, namely, the IRM, respective relief valves 14 and 15 are provided at the spring accumulators 33/34 for safety. These relief valves protect the system 20 from experiencing unusually high pressures in the IRM configuration should an unusually high force (e.g., large wave) try to extend or retract the locked piston. They relieve fluid from the affected accumulator side to drains D, rather than back to the suction manifold 110 or the LP manifold 108 since the relief valves 14/15 are actuated only very occasionally and only with a small discharged quantity of fluid, i.e., a small amount of fluid drained from either spring accumulator 33/34 results in a large pressure decrease back into the safe region.
As can be appreciated, implementation of the IRM configuration requires that all pumps 20A for that group of pumps 20A be placed into the IRM configuration. Thus, unlike the IFMM where one or more pumps 20A may be placed into that mode, the IRM configuration requires that all pumps 20A in the group operate in the IRM configuration.
For the purpose of this specification, although reference has been made specifically to salt water, one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that alternative liquids will provide the same functionality, including but not limited to fresh water, hydraulic oil, or any other type of essentially incompressible fluid.
For the purpose of this specification, although reference has been made specifically to a cylindrical single-ended piston pump, one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that this same function could be provided by other equivalent piston configurations, including but not limited to square or oval pistons and enclosing housings, double-ended pistons, or tandem connected piston pairs.
For the purpose of this specification, although reference has been made specifically to local or remotely actuated two-way ball valves, one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that this same functionality could be provided by other equivalent two-way valves, including but not limited to spool or gate valves.
For the purpose of this specification, although reference has been made specifically to bladder hydraulic accumulators, one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that this same functionality could be provided by other equivalent devices, including but not limited to pistons and piston accumulators.
For the purpose of this specification, although reference has been made specifically to ocean surface waves, one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that surface waves are present in other bodies of water, including but not limited to lakes and rivers.
For the purpose of this specification, although reference has been made specifically to waves to provide the force to cause the reciprocating pumping action, one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that this power could be provided by any sort of primary power engine, including but not limited to water wheels, tidal turbines, electric motors, or internal combustion engines.
Because numerous modifications and variations of the above described invention will occur to those of ordinary skill in the art, it is not desired to limit the invention to the exact construction and operation illustrated and described. Accordingly, all suitable modifications and equivalents may that be resorted to fall within the scope of the invention.
All such modifications and variations are intended to be included herein within the scope of this disclosure.
While the invention has been described in detail and with reference to specific examples thereof, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope thereof.
