Safety control apparatus for coke oven batteries

In a system for sequentially removing coke from a battery of sequentially numbered coke ovens, said system comprising a pusher machine having door-removing means and a ram mounted thereon, said pusher machine being adapted to traverse tracks disposed along one side of said ovens, a coke guide machine having door-removing means and a coke guide mounted thereon, the latter door-removing means and the coke guide being separated by an integral number of ovens, said coke guide machine being adapted to traverse tracks disposed on the other side of said ovens, and a hot car adapted to traverse tracks disposed parallel to said coke guide machine tracks and receive coke pushed out of said ovens by said ram, the improvement comprising:

• a. means programming said coke guide machine with a sequence of ovens to be pushed and producing a signal indicative of the number of the next oven in said sequence,
• b. means disposed on the coke guide side of each of said ovens indicative of the number of that particular oven,
• c. means on said coke guide machine for sensing the number of the oven with which the door-removing means of said coke guide machine is aligned and producing a signal indicative of said number,
• d. means for preventing the removing of an interlock that prevents the coke guide machine door-removing means from operating if the signal produced by means (a) does not agree with the signal produced by means (c),
• e. means on said coke guide machine for storing a door removed from any one of said ovens and producing a signal indicating such storage,
• f. means interposed between means (c) and means (d) that, in response to the signal from means (e), adds said integral number to the number sensed by means (c) to obtain a signal indicative of a modified number,
• g. means programming said pusher machine with a sequence of ovens to be pushed and producing a signal indicative of the number of the next oven in said sequence,
• h. means for transmitting a signal from the pusher machine to the coke guide machine,
• i. means on said coke guide machine for receiving a signal from said pusher machine,
• j. means connecting means (h) to means (g), and
• k. means on said coke guide machine for producing a signal, that removes an interlock that prevents said ram from operating, in response to agreement between:
• 1. the signal produced by means (a),
• 2. the signal produced by means (f), and
• 3. the signal produced by means (g) and transmitted from means (h) to means (i).