Scavenging metallic debris from buried metal pipelines
OwnerJohn A. Schneiderinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A metal-debris magnetic scavenging tool useable inside a buried, horizontal metallic pipeline through an access opening which has been cut into the upper wall portion of the pipeline overhead where the resulting debris has collected. A raiseable/lowerable and rotatable array of magnets, surface exposed, and operating moveably as a unit, agitate and collect debris principally within an area-footprint which allows for clearance lifting and removal of collected debris through the access opening.
Claims8
A tool for scavenging magnetic metal debris from the inside of an elongate, generally horizontal, cylindrical, metal pipeline, which debris is generally located in the base of the pipeline beneath an access opening which has been cut in the wall of the pipeline comprising
- an elongate, generally cylindrical tool body of revolution having an axis of revolution, and an end region disposed along said axis, said tool body being freely insertable into, and withdrawable from, the interior of the pipeline through such an access opening, said end region including a generally planar end face which lies substantially normal to said axis,
- plural, elongate sockets having long axes, and extending into said tool body with their respective long axes generally paralleling said tool body's axis of revolution, said sockets opening to said face at plural, spaced locations distributed angularly about said axis of revolution, and
- plural, permanent magnets secured in a recessed fashion, and one each, within said sockets for behavior a unit with said tool body, each said magnet being outwardly exposed where its associated socket opens to said face.
A method of scavanging from within the base of an elongate, generally horizontal, cylindrical, metal pipeline metal debris that has collected there as a consequence of the cutting of an access opening in the overhead wall of the pipeline, said method comprising
- creating, about the long axis of an elongate, rigid tool stem, an angularly distributed array of magnets having like radial spacings from said long axis, and generally lying in a common plane which is substantially normal to that long axis, with these magnets effectively affixed to operate as a unit with the tool stem,
- employing the tool stem, lowering the magnet array as a whole generally diametrally relative to the long axis of the pipeline through the cut access opening into the interior, and downwardly toward the base, of the pipeline,
- further employing the tool stem, maneuvering and manipulating the magnet array so as to move the magnets within the interior of, and adjacent, the base of the pipeline, and in a manner specifically permitting selectable rotation of the array generally about the tool stem's mentioned long axis, thus to enable the creation, as a consequence of such rotation, and adjacent such debris, of a locationally time-varying, debris-scavenging magnetic field within the pipeline, and
- by said maneuvering and manipulating, attracting, moving and gathering the debris into magnetically held adjacency with respect to at least one of the magnets, thus to enable retrieval of such debris from the pipeline through the access opening.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.