GB1443279A - Valve mechanism - Google Patents

Abstract

1443279 Pipe couplings; valves HOPFMA ANSTALT 26 March 1974 13331/74 Headings F2G and F2V Mechanism for draining a vessel 1 of liquid with the aid of pressurized gas comprises a connecting member on the vessel 1 and including a collar 3 with an aperture 2, a rising pipe 9 extending from the bottom of the vessel and carried by a socket 8 secured by a nut 6 within the collar 3, the rising pipe having a closed plug 12 at its upper end, with the annular space between shoulders 13, 15 on the plug 12 and collar 3 being normally closed by a spring loaded rubber ring 18 as shown in the left-hand part of Fig. 1, and a connecting piece for mounting on the collar as a bayonet fitting over the nut 6, the connecting piece including a twopart housing 19, 20 enclosing two conical membranes 38, 39, the membrane 38 being secured to an inner gland 28 which abuts the plug 12 in use, and the other membrane 37 being secured to an outer sleeve-like gland 27 surrounding the gland 28 and mounted so as to push back the ring 18 to open the vessel on supply of pressurized gas via a stud 51, the gas acting as the membrane 39 to effect movement of the gland 27. The stud 51 is mounted on a rotatable ring 49 which can be positioned either to close off the supply, as shown in the left-hand part of Fig. 1, or to supply gas to the housing by way of a bore 53. When the gas acts on the membrane 39, a collar 45 thereon moves into a recessed chamber 46 allowing the gas to pass through apertures 48 in the membrane 39 and to enter the vessel 1 around the ring 18 and by way of holes 10 in the socket 8. The liquid is forced up the pipe 9 and passes to a central bore in the gland 28 by way of aperture 14 below the plug 12 and holes 31 in the gland 28. In Fig. 1 the gland 28 and membrane 38 prevented from movement by the fixed plug 12, but in an alternative embodiment of connecting member on the vessel 1 in which the plug is formed as a valve head inside the ring 18 and the ring carries the rising pipe, the inner gland 28 is moved by the effect of gas pressure in the membrane 38 to act on the central valve head and the gland 27 moves the ring 18 as before. Other alternative embodiments of the connecting piece are also described in which the chamber 36 in which the central part of the membrane 38 moves is mounted inside the space between the two membranes, and in which the action of the membranes is enhanced by effectively reducing their areas by use of flexible skirts located around the glands 27, 28 and between the membranes and/or between the membrane 27 and the housing part 19. In this latter instance gas supply is by way of a conical valve seat in which a ball is held clear of the seat by part of a flexible collar on one of the membranes, the collar deflecting to allow the ball to close off the gas supply in the event of excessive gas pressure (Fig. 5, not shown).