Spray apparatus
AssigneeHorstine Farmery Limited
InventorHorstine Farmery
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for distributing a flowable material onto a base surface and wherein a rotary member is rotatably supported concentrically within a mask, a flowable material supply to the rotary member deposits said material on the rotary member and said material is centrifuged uniformly from the periphery of the rotary member, said mask has slots through which selected segments of centrifuged material can pass while the spray segments striking the inside of the mask between the slots is arrested to achieve a spray pattern on the base surface in accordance with the arrangement of slots in the mask. In a preferred embodiment a second rotary member is located beneath the mask and material arrested by the mask constitutes a material supply to the second rotary member.
Claims37
A method for distributing a flowable material onto a base surface comprising the steps of:
- centrifuging the material from a peripheral region of a rotary member to produce a spray pattern substantially uniformly disposed about the axis of rotation of the rotary member;
- interrupting the free flow of material in the uniform spray pattern at a plurality of locations spaced about the axis of rotation of the rotary member to establish a spray pattern defined by selected sectors of the initial uniform spray pattern;
- and transversing the rotary member over the base surface with said locations fixed relative to the direction of displacement over the base surface to obtain from the interrupted spray pattern a desired distribution of flowable material over the base surface transverse to the said direction of displacement.
A method for distributing a flowable material over a substantially horizontal base surface comprising the steps of supporting two disc-like rotary members of substantially uniform diameter on a common drive shaft with the rotational axis of said shaft substantially vertical, said shaft passing centrally through said rotary members and supporting said members in vertically spaced relationship at substantially fixed height above said base surface, surrounding the highest one of said rotary members with a mask having slots therein, continuously displacing said shaft and rotary members supported thereon over the base surface, supplying flowable material to the highest one of said rotary members, rotating the shaft, and thereby the two rotary members, at a substantially constant peripheral speed sufficient to centrifuge the material supplied to the said higher rotary member uniformly from the periphery thereof allowing free flow of material centrifuged from the said highest rotary member through the said slots in the mask, collecting the material centrifuged from the said highest rotary member and arrested by the mask material between said slots, directing said collected material to a material supply for the lower rotary member and centrifuging the material from said lower rotary member, whereby the interrupted flow pattern from the first rotary member is superimposed on the flow pattern from the lower rotary member to obtain a desired distribution of material transverse to the direction of displacement over the base surface.
Apparatus for distributing a flowable material onto a base surface comprising a spray assembly adapted to be supported above the base surface and including a rotary member and a non-rotating mask substantially concentric with the rotary member, said mask including means for permitting selected segments of material centrifuged uniformly from the rotary member to pass therethrough and for obstructing the remaining segments of centrifuged material from passing therethrough whereby to establish an interrupted spray pattern distribution on said base surface, said permitting means including a plurality of slots through said mask, said slots being circumferentially spaced around the entire periphery of said mask.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.