Apparatus for drying seeds

Abstract

An apparatus for drying seed corn on the ear or shelled seed corn or other seed. A cylindrical housing has a roof thereon with an aperture at the center of said roof and closable openings therein, one of which is a discharge opening in the side of said housing. A downwardly directed conical wall fills the entire internal cross-section of the housing and has a plurality of perforations distributed evenly therein and an opening at the bottom thereof. An open sided pan is positioned beneath the bottom opening of the conical wall and is inclined toward the open side, and a vibrator is operatively associated with the pan for vibrating it. A discharge conveyor has one end beneath the open side of the pan and the other end at the discharge opening. A distributing chute in the upper part of the housing above the conical wall has a funnel-shaped receiving portion beneath the opening in the center of the roof and a distributing chute extending from the bottom of the funnel-shaped receiving portion downwardly and outwardly from the center of the housing to adjacent the periphery of the housing. A distributing chute rotating means such as a motor-driven wheel on a track rotates the distributing chute with the funnel-shaped receiving portion beneath the opening in said roof and the end of the distributing chute moving around the periphery of the housing. A gaseous drying medium inlet pipe opens into the housing below said conical wall and has a gaseous medium pumping means therein and a heater and a damper downstream of the pumping means, and a reverse flow pipe extends from the inlet pipe between the heater and the damper and through the roof into the space above the conical wall and has a further damper therein. Other pipes and dampers allow for recirculation of air through the fan and heater, whether feeding air up or down. The ear corn, after drying, is removed from the conical perforated floor through the opening at the bottom by means of the vibrator which vibrates the corn but does not vibrate the perforated wall.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.