Solids separation

A solids separation system for assorting pieces of a mixture fragmented of metal scrap including non-metallic solid contaminants into respective light and heavy metallic fractions, said system comprising:

• An enclosed separation vessel having forward and rear walls, means for feeding a mixture of discrete pieces of fragmented metal scrap solids to an inlet of said vessel at said forward wall, for free fall into the vessel, means at said solids inlet to restrict escape of gas from said vessel, means below disposed normal to and laterally apart from said free fall path of said solids fed through said solids inlet for horizontally directing a stream of air into an air inlet of said vessel for flow across said vessel;
• a heavy-solids receiving chamber at said air inlet into which chamber the air is initially admitted, a light-solids receiving chamber downstream of said air inlet, said heavy-solids receiving chamber having an angularly disposed wall sloping upwardly towards said light-solids chamber, said wall being adjustable to vary its slope, the upper edge of said wall being spaced from said solids inlet to provide an adjustable flow path, by varying the slope of said wall and thus the space between said upper edge and said solids inlet for adjusting gas flow from said heavy-solids chamber into said light-solids chamber, an air discharge port at the upper end of said vessel, whereby the air admitted from said heavy solids chamber into said light solids chamber is induced to flow upwardly toward said discharge port, adjustable first air deflector means below said air discharge port and in the path of the upwardly flowing gas at the forward wall side of the vessel and separately adjustable second air deflector means in the path of the upwardly flowing gas at the rear wall of said vessel, said first and second air deflectors so constructed and arranged to adjust the transverse size of the air flow path formed between each of said air deflectors and the vessel wall adjacent thereto.