Method of removing boiler tubes
OwnerMerrill C. Craiginventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Boiler tubes are removed from a boiler vessel without damaging the vessel by severing the boiler tube near the exterior periphery of the vessel, and using a piloted rotary cutting tool fixtured with respect to the longitudinal axis of the severed boiler tube to remove all but a very thin shell of the severed tube. The rotary cutting tool is then withdrawn, and the remaining thin shell of the boiler tube is manually peeled away from the periphery of the boiler vessel opening. In a preferred implementation, the rotary cutting tool is annular, and a tapered cylindrical pilot having an outside diameter slightly smaller than the inside diameter of the expanded portion of the boiler tube is retractably mounted within the annulus of the cutting tool.
Claims4
A method of removing a boiler tube that extends through and is retained in an opening in a boiler vessel, the method comprising the steps of:
- severing the boiler tube near an exterior periphery of the boiler vessel;
- centering a rotary cutting tool with respect to a longitudinal axis of the severed boiler tube, the cutting tool having a cutting diameter that is larger than an inside diameter of said boiler tube but smaller than a diameter of said opening;
- advancing the rotary cutting tool into the boiler tube to remove all but a thin shell of said boiler tube;
- retracting the rotary cutting tool out of the boiler tube;
- and
- peeling said thin shell of said boiler tube away from an inner periphery of said opening.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.