The present invention relates to a rotary pump construction such as a positive displacement pump and more particularly to such pumps potentially having improved rotor constructions with at least one of easy to clean feature, voids in the rotor, improved rotor sealing characteristics and/or improved rotor bearing performance over prior art pumps.
The applicant is the owner of at least U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,087,914, 9,017,052, and 9,377,021 for improved positive displacement pumps with rotors. These designs have been well received in the marketplace.
While these three designs have rotor pads on the faces that face the cover (and opposing side) in an effort to reduce wear on the rotors themselves, they do not specifically address sealing. Furthermore, the covers on these designs are typically secured with nuts such as nut 20 in U.S. Pat. No. 9,937,021 requiring a wrench for installation/removal.
In the field of food service, many pumps are regularly disassembled and cleaned. In order to accomplish this, nuts are removed with wrenches. Other tools may be required in such activities. The applicant believes there is a need for a pump which can be quickly disassembled potentially with no tools in a safe and effective manner such as for cleaning or other service such as rotor replacement, seal replacement, etc. and efficiently placed back in service.
It is an object of many embodiments of the present invention provide an improved rotary pump with improved sealing characteristics.
It is another object of many embodiments to provide an improved rotary pump which can have a rotor removed and/or replaced without the use of tools.
It is another object of many embodiments of the present invention to have an improved positive rotary pump with rotors shaped somewhat like a Star Wars™ TIE fighter which may receive a cover spigot internally into at least a portion of the rotors to then be adjacently disposed against a central hub with one or more rings intermediate thereto to provide a thrust bearing and/or seal.
It is another object of many embodiments of the present invention to provide a rotary pump having a cover plate with cover spigots extending into the cavity of a pump which receive end portions of parallel shafts internally thereto, preferably with a ring at an end of the spigots to provide at least one of a thrust bearing against the rotors, a seal, and a radial bearing for at least one of the shaft and rotor.
It is another object of many embodiments of the present invention to provide rings in ring channels in at least one of a cover, a cover spigot and a rotor for use in at least one of providing a thrust bearing, providing a sealing surface and/or providing a radial bearing.
Accordingly, in accordance with a presently preferred embodiment of the present invention, a rotary pump is providing having a rotor housing defining a cavity intermediate side walls, an end wall and a cover plate. An inlet and outlet communicate with the cavity. Parallel first and second shafts extend into the cavity from the end wall which rotate first and second rotors to provide pumping action (to direct fluid/material from the inlet to out the outlet).
Cover plates may, or may not, have cover spigots extending into the cavity. Rings could be installed at least partially into the cover, cover spigots and/or on the rotors themselves such as in a ring channel extending into at least one of the covers, cover spigots and/or the rotors of the various embodiments. In fact, the rings may extend at least partially from the ring channels. Additionally, first rings may be located along the cover or cover spigots while second rings may be located along the rotors with the first and second rings contacting one another in the cavity.
In accordance with the presently preferred embodiment of the present invention, a positive displacement pump, also known as a rotor pump, having parallel shafts with rotors thereon receive an input (at input) and then expel an output (an output) based on the rotation of the rotors has improvements over prior art constructions. Specifically, the rotors may have ears extending from a hub which is received on a shaft. For many embodiments, the hub does not extend the full length of the rotors on the shaft. Instead, cover spigots receive a portion of the shaft therein and extend up to the hub (or to a hub extension extending towards the cover spigot) along the shaft. With this embodiment, a portion of the rotor ears have a cutout to receive the cover spigots radially internally thereto. The cover spigots may also cooperate with and/or have a ring or insert ring adjacently disposed thereto which may contact the rotor and/or rotor ring which may be inset in a channel on the rotors so that the rings may provide at least one of a seal, a thrust bearing to stop axial movement of the rotors, shafts or gears, and/or a radial bearing to resist radial movement of the rotors, gears and/or shaft.
Additionally, by providing wing nuts instead of other nut constructions to hold the cover to the pump housing, possibly in combination with a swing arm design of the cover plate relative to the pump housing, the cover plate can be removed relative to the pump housing potentially with no tools to be swung open to access the cavity such as the rotors such for cleaning and/or other maintenance activities. This means that workers could quickly and efficiently open pumps without a need for tools to perform desired maintenance and restore the pumps to serve in a very time-efficient manner for at least some embodiments. Other advantages will be apparent from the enclosed figures and description.
Rotors may be improved for at least some embodiments by having voids in the ears, preferably voids symmetrically disposed about the hub. These voids may be encapsulated by capping cast or machined openings in the ears or otherwise provided. The voids may by arcuately shaped (or have other shapes) and there may be more than one void per ear.
Alternatively preferred embodiments may have planar rear cover plates (without cover spigots) which may potentially receive rings in ring channels to function similar to those described above. The rotors with such embodiments may be more traditional in shape, but some may preferably have ring channels in the hub to receive a ring at least partially therein.
The accompanying drawings illustrate the preferred embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the invention. These drawings are offered by way of illustration and not by way of limitation:
Example embodiments will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Example embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough, and will fully convey the scope to those who are skilled in the art. Numerous specific details are set forth such as examples of specific components, devices, and methods, to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments of the present disclosure. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that specific details need not be employed, that example embodiments may be embodied in many different forms and that neither should be construed to limit the scope of the disclosure. In some example embodiments, well-known processes, well-known device structures, and well-known technologies are not described in detail.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular example embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting. As used herein, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” may be intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. The terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “including,” and “having,” are inclusive and therefore specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof. The method steps, processes, and operations described herein are not to be construed as necessarily requiring their performance in the particular order discussed or illustrated, unless specifically identified as an order of performance. It is also to be understood that additional or alternative steps may be employed.
When an element or layer is referred to as being “on,” “engaged to,” “connected to,” or “coupled to” another element or layer, it may be directly on, engaged, connected or coupled to the other element or layer, or intervening elements or layers may be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being “directly on,” “directly engaged to,” “directly connected to,” or “directly coupled to” another element or layer, there may be no intervening elements or layers present. Other words used to describe the relationship between elements should be interpreted in a like fashion (e.g., “between” versus “directly between,” “adjacent” versus “directly adjacent,” etc.). As used herein, the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.
Although the terms first, second, third, etc. may be used herein to describe various elements, components, regions, layers and/or sections, these elements, components, regions, layers and/or sections should not be limited by these terms. These terms may be only used to distinguish one element, component, region, layer or section from another region, layer or section. Terms such as “first,” “second,” and other numerical terms when used herein do not imply a sequence or order unless clearly indicated by the context. Thus, a first element, component, region, layer or section discussed below could be termed a second element, component, region, layer or section without departing from the teachings of the example embodiments.
Spatially relative terms, such as “inner,” “outer,” “beneath,” “below,” “lower,” “above,” “upper,” and the like, may be used herein for ease of description to describe one element or feature's relationship to another element(s) or feature(s) as illustrated in the figures. Spatially relative terms may be intended to encompass different orientations of the device in use or operation in addition to the orientation depicted in the figures. For example, if the device in the figures is turned over, elements described as “below” or “beneath” other elements or features would then be oriented “above” the other elements or features. Thus, the example term “below” can encompass both an orientation of above and below. The device may be otherwise oriented (rotated 90 degrees or at other orientations) and the spatially relative descriptors used herein interpreted accordingly.
As used herein, the term module refers to a part of, or includes an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC); a discrete circuit; an integrated circuit; a combinational logic circuit; a field programmable gate array (FPGA); a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) that executes code; other suitable hardware components that provide the described functionality; or a combination of some or all of the above, such as in a system-on-chip. In the example of a processor executing code, the term module includes memory (shared, dedicated, or group) that stores code executed by the processor.
The term code, as used above, may include software, firmware, and/or microcode, and may refer to programs, routines, functions, classes, and/or objects. The term shared, as used above, means that some or all code from multiple modules may be executed using a single (shared) processor. In addition, some or all code from multiple modules may be stored by a single (shared) memory. The term group, as used above, means that some or all code from a single module may be executed using a group of processors. In addition, some or all code from a single module may be stored using a group of memories.
The apparatuses and methods described herein may be partially or fully implemented by one or more computer programs executed by one or more processors. The computer programs include processor-executable instructions that are stored on at least one non-transitory tangible computer readable medium. The computer programs may also include and/or rely on stored data. Non-limiting examples of the non-transitory tangible computer readable medium include nonvolatile memory, volatile memory, magnetic storage, and optical storage.
The respective rotors such as 36 and 38 are shown in
A slot 72 in the second ring 80 is shown visible through notch 74 in the hub 44 with the slot 72 terminally at lip 76 so that a new second ring 80 may be relatively easily removed from the hub 44 by inserting a screwdriver or other device through the notch 74 into the slot 72 against the lip 76 and then lifting upward. Other embodiments may have other constructions, but this construction has been found to work particularly well for at least some embodiments.
One of ordinary skill in the art may see that the cutouts or ring channels 50, 52 may extend radially about the hub extension 54 and the ears 40, 48 may extend radially externally about the hub extension 54. While a ring similar to the first ring 56 is shown in
Once again, exterior slots such as slot 72 shown in the second ring 80 may be provided in the first ring 56 and be useful to assist in removing an installed first ring 56 for at least some embodiments. There may be other ways to assist in removing a first or second ring 56, 80 as well. Second rings 80 may also have various lubrication channels, etc as illustrated or not. It may be that only one of first and/or second rings 56, 80 are utilized in various embodiments, but still other embodiments may utilize both first and second rings 56, 80, so that first and second rings 56, 80 may then contact one another when installed as would be understood by those ordinarily skilled in the art to act as at least one of seal(s) thrust having to axially locate rotors relative to slots 22, 24 and/or adding seal(s) to limit radial movement of shafts 22, 24 and/or rotors 36, 38. One of the first ring 56 and second ring 80 are preferably held stationary with the cover plate 26 or 160 while the other rotates with the rotor 36, 38 (or 186, 188).
Voids 100 and 102 can take various shapes and are preferably disposed in the ears 40, 42. Voids 100, 102 may be arcuately disposed, as illustrated, possibly with a single void 100 or 102 per ear 40, 42, or there could be multiple voids 100 and/or 102 per ear 40, 42, of various shapes, depending on the construction of the embodiment. The voids 100, 102 in the arcuate constructions illustrated may have a with 112 which is longer than the diameter 114 of the shaft when installed, for at least some embodiments. Voids 100 and 102 are also shown extending a depth 116 and 118 depending on whether or not the caps 110 are included greater than a depth 120 of the hub 44. Other depths could be provided with other embodiments.
Additionally,
In the embodiment of the pump 300 of
As one can see from the drawings and the description, there are various embodiments that can be created utilizing the technology provided herein. Some embodiments may have rings and grooves on either the cover plate, cover spigots and/or rotors. Some rotors may have hubs connected to ears potentially with cutouts spacing a portion of the ears from each other about a shaft which could then receive the cover spigots therein. Some rotors may have voids therein of various constructions and shapes as shown and described herein and as would be understood by those who are ordinarily skilled in the art.
Numerous alterations to the structures 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 for 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 appending claims.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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8821141 | Helgeson | Sep 2014 | B2 |
20030059330 | Norman | Mar 2003 | A1 |
20090304540 | Whittome | Dec 2009 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20220065246 A1 | Mar 2022 | US |