Distillation apparatus
OwnerYao T. Liinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Distillation apparatus in which a group of pairs of heat-transfer tubes are each driven to wobble about a vertical axis which passes through a wobbling center. A stream of fluid is directed to flow down inside each tube. The fluid stream tends to cling to the inner surface of the tube away from the wobbling center while it revolves with respect to the tube in response to the wobbling motion. The revolving flow stream wipes the inside surface of the tube to form a thin film which offers low heat resistance to facilitate the evaporation, carries away the residue by its lateral motion and carries the reflux downward with little restriction.
Claims31
Distillation apparatus comprising
- an even number of pairs of vertically aligned heat transfer tube groups,
- means for mounting each of said pairs of tube groups symmetrically aligned about an associated vertical axis and with two of said pairs of tube groups arranged with a mutual angular displacement that has a criss-cross configuration in a plane transverse to said associated vertical axes, said mounting means including means for restraining said tube groups from rotation about said vertical axis while allowing them to wobble,
- means to drive said mounting means and said pairs of heat transfer tube groups about wobbling centers each associated with one of said pairs of tube groups and located along said associated vertical axis, said drive means including a common drive shaft and a plurality of eccentric drive systems each connected between said drive shaft and an associated one of said pairs of tube groups, said drive means and said mounting means providing a dynamic self balancing of said tube groups during said wobbling, and
- means to direct a stream of fluid toward the inner surface of each of said transfer tubes, the wobbling motion imparted to each of said transfer tubes serving to cause said fluid stream to cling to the inner surface of the transfer tube away from the wobbling center whereby the resulting revolving flow stream serves to wipe the inside surface of the transfer tube to form a thin film with low heat resistance and thus to facilitate evaporation and carry the residue and reflux downward with low resistance.
Apparatus according to claim 14 incorporating a free-hanging blade driven by the transfer tube to revolve and wipe the inside surface of the tube.
Distillation apparatus comprising groups of wobbling heat transfer tubes, each of said transfer tube groups being coupled to a wobbling valve plate at the top of said transfer tubes, a group of fixed cylindical valves, a backing plate coupled to said cylindical valves, said cylindical valves serving to engage with the valve plate to define a confined fluid space between the valve plate, the backing plate and the outside surfaces of the cylindical valves, means to introduce fluid to fill said confined fluid space, said wobbling transfer tubes wobbling with respect to said cylindical valves to form a revolving gap opening to allow the fluid to be drained from the confined fluid space into each wobbling tube in the form of a wobbling stream, said stream wiping the inside surface of the wobbling tube to generate a thin fluid film and facilitate rapid evarporation.
Distillation apparatus comprising
- a fixed container;
- an even number of pairs of heat transfer tube groups located in said container, each said pair of tube groups being aligned about a vertical axis;
- a supporting structure for said tube groups that secures each said pair of tube groups substantially symmetrically with respect to said vertical axis;
- a vertically aligned drive shaft that extends along a wobbling axis;
- eccentric drive means that connects said drive shaft to said supporting structure;
- two of said pairs of tube groups being arranged in criss-cross manner with respect to each other and with their associated vertical axes placed diagonally opposite each other with respect to the wobbling axis and driven by said drive shaft and said eccentric drive means to revolve in a wobbling manner with respect to the wobbling axis while remaining in balance with each other;
- coupling means to allow said pairs of tube groups to move freely only in a translational wobbling motion mode defined by said revolving but not in a rotational mode with respect to said fixed container, partition means that separate the center section of said tube groups from the two ends of said tube groups within said container, said partition means thereby dividing the inside volume of the container into a first chamber enclosing the outside surfaces of the tube groups and a second chamber comprising all space inside the tube groups;
- means to direct an individual fluid stream to the inside of the upper ends of each of said tube, the wobbling motion of each said tube causing the downward flowing fluid stream to revolve inside said tube with turbulence and to leave a thin film at the wake of the revolving stream by its wiping action;
- means for directing a fluid media to said first chamber at a temperature different from the temperature of the fluid in said second chamber;
- and
- said turbulence and said wiping action of the wobbling stream increasing the heat transfer rate across each said tube.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.