Spiral cut honeycomb body for fluid mixing
AssigneeCorning Incorporated
InventorJohn F. Wight, Jr.
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A honeycomb article has longitudinal channels extending from one face to a second face. A portion of the honeycomb is removed by cutting away a helical slot that depthwise extends from the outer surface of the honeycomb through a majority of the channels and lengthwise extends along the honeycomb channel axis commencing at or near the first face and toward the second face. The helical slot traverses a minimum of one rotation around the honeycomb axis. The honeycomb article can be used in a number of applications including heat exchange, thermal mixing, physical mixing, chemical stripping, and chemical reactions of one or more workstreams entering from one face, or entering in a countercurrent mode from both faces.
Claims17
An integral honeycomb body comprising a first end face, a second end face, and a plurality of open-ended channels bounded by shared channel walls disposed between and connecting the first end face to the second end face, wherein at least one helical slot discontinuity encircles the body and extends inwardly through the channel walls toward an axis joining the centers of the first and second end faces in a direction transverse to that axis, the slot being of a length and depth at least sufficient to intersect a majority of the channels present in the body.
A method for processing a workstream which comprises:
- introducing the workstream into a honeycomb body comprising a first end face, a second end face, and a plurality of open-ended channels bounded by shared channel walls disposed between and connecting the first end face to the second end face, the body including at least one encircling helical slot discontinuity extending inwardly through the channel walls toward an axis joining the centers of the first and second end faces, the slot discontinuity intersecting at least a majority of the channels present in the body,
- directing the workstream into and through first sections of channels intersected by the helical slot discontinuity;
- mixing the workstream in the helical slot discontinuity;
- and
- directing the workstream into and through second sections of the channels intersected by the helical slot discontinuity.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.