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US 4,391,561 AGranted
Solids pumping apparatus
AssigneeCombustion Engineering, Inc.
InventorsDonald A. Smith, Bruce M. Pote
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A pump for feeding granular material into a pressurized zone having a feed screw (14) located within a cylinder (12). The cylinder is tapered (34) at its discharge end, and the outside diameter of the flights (32) is also tapered (43). The clearance (38) of the tapered flights is significantly greater than the clearance (40) of the non-tapered flights.
Claims12
An apparatus for feeding a granular material into a pressurized zone comprising:
- a stationary hollow cylinder having a bore;
- a frustoconical reducing nozzle located at a discharge end of said cylinder;
- means for feeding the granular material into said cylinder at an upstream located of said cylinder;
- a rotary feeder screw concentrically located within said cylinder and having helical flights thereon, said flights having a decreasing pitch towards the discharge end;
- means for rotating said feed screw at high speeds;
- said flights having an OD only slightly less than said bore through a majority of the length of said feed screw, and having a tapered decreasing OD at the discharge end, the taper being at least as great as that of said nozzle;
- said feed screw being located within said cylinder such that the radial clearance between the nozzle bore and the tapered flights is significantly greater than that between the bore of the cylinder and the flights through the majority of length, and the tapered flight extending through only a portion of said nozzle;
- and a columnar plug rotating with said screw and concentrically located with said nozzle.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.