Apparatus for cake removal in a filter press

For use in a filter press including a pair of parallel guide rails supported by machine frames at a predetermined level, each guide rail having an upper surface, a multiplicity of filter plates suspendedly supported on the rails for movement in the longitudinal directions of the rails, each filter plate having a lower end portion, a pair of clamping heads disposed in such a way that the filter plates are entrained between the heads so as to form an entrained assembly of filter plates, the filter plates individually having their both surfaces covered with separate filter cloths, an apparatus for cake removal comprising:

• (i) the filter plates, as well as each outermost one of the filter plates and both of the clamping heads, are separably interconnected, at a level adjacent the upper surface of the guide rails, by loose connecting means which permit individual adjacent ones of the filter plates to be equally spaced from one another when the clamping heads are moved in opposite directions until they are apart a predetermined distance from each other, means for separating and assembling the filter plates together being connected to both of the two clamping heads;
• (ii) the filter plates, when separated from one another, are individually swingable about their interconnections with the loose connecting means, while being supported on the guide rails;
• and
• (iii) the filter plates entrained between the clamping heads are equipped with jolting means for causing selected filter plates to swing so that the lower end portions thereof are caused to strike against the lower end portion of a preceding or succeeding adjacent filter plate when the filter plates are separated in equally spaced apart relation via said loose connecting means, whereby all the filter plates and associated filter cloths are jolted.