Screw conveyor for a centrifugal separator including partition walls in the helical channel
AssigneeAlfa Laval Corporate AB
InventorBent Madsen
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A screw conveyor for a centrifugal separator comprises a conveyor hub carrying a helical conveyor flight and providing a helical channel between adjacent turns of helical conveyor flight. The screw conveyor has an up-stream end and a down-stream end. At least two partition walls are arranged in a side-by-side relation to divide at least a radial part of a length of the helical channel into three sub-channels arranged in a side-by-side relation to cause a liquid flowing in the helical channel to flow in an up-stream direction towards the up-stream end in an intermediate sub-channel and in an opposite down-stream direction towards the down-stream end in two adjacent sub-channels on either side of the intermediate sub-channel.
Claims14
A screw conveyor for a centrifugal separator for separating at least a first phase and a second phase of a feed material with different densities, comprising:
- a conveyor hub carrying a helical conveyor flight and providing at least one helical channel extending between a first upstream channel wall of said helical conveyor flight and a second downstream channel wall of said helical conveyor flight, the at least one helical channel disposed between adjacent turns of helical conveyor flight in a separation space,
- the screw conveyor having an upstream end and a downstream end and an axis of rotation;
- a feed inlet with at least one feed inlet opening provided in the conveyor hub for letting in feed material into the separation space;
- a first upstream helical partition wall and a second downstream helical partition wall;
- a first cross wall extending in an axial direction between the first upstream channel wall and the second downstream helical partition wall;
- and
- a second cross wall extending in the axial direction between the second downstream channel wall and the first upstream helical partition wall,
- wherein the first cross wall does not contact the first upstream helical partition wall and the second cross wall does not contact the second downstream helical partition wall.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.