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US 8,997,370 B2Granted
Centrifugal dryer with replaceable blades and self-cleaning rotor seal and centrifugal dewatering tower
OwnerGeorge A. Holmes, Tadeuz Rybkainventors
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A centrifugal pellet dryer with a self-cleaning rotor seal, replaceable wear plates, and a fluid powered dewatering tower is presented. The self-cleaning rotor seal includes a plurality of grooves that are structured to eject pellet debris that migrates into between the seal and the housing for the rotor. The replaceable wear plates are secured to the rotor at locations such that they contact pellets that are entering the rotor housing. The dewatering tower includes a helical augur that dewaters a pellet slurry and delivers partially dried pellets to the rotor housing.
Claims12
A centrifugal pellet dryer comprising:
- a housing having a pellet outlet port located above a pellet inlet port,
- a rotor disposed within the housing, the rotor including
- a plurality of blades located between the inlet port and the outlet port, the plurality of blades structured for
- spinning the pellets and
- elevating the pellets towards the pellet outlet port;
- a flange located mounted on the exterior of the rotor and intermittently adjacent to the inlet port while the dryer is operational, the flange positioned to
- contact pellets entering the housing through the inlet port, and accelerate pellets upwards towards the plurality of blades;
- and
- an impact board mounted to the flange, the impact board being replaceable when worn;
- a self-cleaning seal including
- a bottom plate circumscribing the rotor and rigidly secured to the housing;
- and a top plate in fixed rotation with the rotor, the top plate having
- a bottom surface adjacent to the bottom plate, the bottom surface having a plurality of grooves for directing particle debris out from between the top plate and the bottom plate, each of the plurality of grooves extending from about the rotor to an outer perimeter of the bottom surface, the top plate further including
- an alignment mechanism for raising and lowering a portion of the bottom surface in relation to the bottom plate.
11 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.