Metering device
AssigneeWilhelm A. Keller
InventorsWilhelm A. Keller, Laurence Richard Penn
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A metering device includes an inlet and outlet for a material (liquids, gases or solid particles) to be metered, a rotatable ball driven by a shaft and interposed between the inlet and outlet seats. The rotatable ball has a transverse bore containing a sealess shuttling member which can reciprocate back and forth along the bore between two sealing seats so as to seal against one or the other. The sealess shuttling member is propelled by pressurized material which flows into the bore without surface-to-surface contact of the shuttling member with the bore wall until is engages one of the two sealing seats. Each time the rotatable ball rotates 180.degree., a metered shot is ejected resulting in a quasi continuous flow depending upon a rotatable ball revolution rate.
Claims23
A metering device comprising:
- a housing having a material inlet and a material outlet;
- at least one rotatable ball member having at least one transverse bore in which a sealess flow metering shuttling member is disposed, the rotatable ball member being captured between two opposed seats disposed in said housing, each seat having at least one passage communicable with one of the material inlet or the material outlet;
- means for adjusting the position of at least one of said two seats within said housing;
- and
- wherein the shuttling member is so configured and arranged as to have a specific gravity proximate to that of a material to be metered by said metering device.
A metering device for fluids including a housing having an inlet and an outlet, comprising:
- a rotatable ball member having a transverse bore, said rotatable ball member being connected with a drive shaft, said transverse bore having sealing seats at each end;
- and
- a sealess shuttling member disposed in said bore, said sealess shuttling member being retained in said transverse bore by the sealing seats having surface portions adapted to engage the sealess shuttling member to provide a fluid-tight seal;
- wherein said sealess shuttling member is so constructed and arranged that it has a specific gravity which is proximate that of a fluid to be metered.
A metering device comprising:
- a housing having a material inlet and a material outlet;
- at least one rotatable ball member having a spherical outer surface and at least one transverse bore in which a sealess flow metering assembly is disposed, the rotatable ball member being captured between two opposed seats disposed in said housing, each seat having at least one passage communicable with one of the material inlet or the material outlet and having a seat face of spherical configuration complimentary to the spherical outer surface of said at least one rotatable ball member;
- an adjustment assembly disposed in said housing to adjust the position of at least of one of two seats with respect to said housing;
- and
- said sealess flow metering assembly comprising a two-part sleeve, each sleeve part having a sealing seat at one end and being disposed with the opposite end in mating engagement with the opposite end of the other sleeve part to form a smooth cylindrical inner surface;
- said sealess flow metering assembly further comprising a shuttle member movably disposed within said two-part sleeve for selective engagement with said sealing seats.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.