Wear-resistant rotor wheel

In a wear-resistant rotor wheel, particularly for use as an atomizer wheel for the atomization of slurries of highly abrasive materials or as a rotor wheel for an agitator pump of the centrifugal type, and including a central hub, a wheel bottom fixedly connected with said hub, a body of revolution symmetrically surrounding said hub to form a guide surface for said slurry, an annular plate of a wear-resistant sintered material covering said wheel bottom, a substantially cylindrical side wall formed with a number of ejection orifices, the annular plate having an inner circumference disposed adjacent the central hub and an outer circumference disposed adjacent the cylindrical side wall, a number of wear-resistant bushings individually lining each of said orifices, said body of revolution, said annular plate and the inner side of said side wall defining an annular bowl-shaped space concentric with said hub, and inlet means for feeding a slurry into said bowl-shaped space, the improvements comprising:

• the annular plate being spaced from said wheel bottom to provide a clearance therebetween, and means for sealing the outer circumference of the annular plate relative to the lower part of the inner side of said side wall to prevent solid particles contained in said slurry from penetrating between said annular plate and said side wall and to simultaneously allow said side wall to follow any operational deflections of said wheel bottom without subjecting said annular plate to deformation forces, one of said inner circumference and said outer circumference of said annular plate being displaceable with respect to the central hub and the cylindrical side wall, respectively, and the other of said inner circumference and said outer circumference of said annular plate being fixed with respect to the central hub and to the cylindrical side wall, respectively.