GB641898A - Improvements in and relating to apparatus for feeding material into gas generators and the like - Google Patents

Abstract

641,898. Shoots and hoppers. HUMPHREYS & GLASGOW, Ltd. July 16, 1947, Nos. 18983/47 and 17014/48. [Class 78 (i)] [Also in Group XII] In an apparatus for intermittently charging a container with solid or liquid material in measured charges, the charges are stored until such time as they are to be charged to the container, and the magnitude of each charge is predetermined in accordance with the level of the material in the container at a particular instant in the charging cycle. Fuel is fed by a motor driven shaker screen 12 to a weigh hopper 16, guided by a link 30 and resting on one side of a steelyard 26 and, on a predetermined weight of fuel being delivered into the hopper, the steelyard tips and breaks a switch 32 in circuit with the operating coil of a starter 84 which then stops the feed motor 14. A timing mechanism (not described) which operates in a fixed time sequence, then rotates a shaft 36 which, through a link 38 opens a gate 24 at the mouth of a charger 20 and then, through links 40, 42 connected together by a lost motion device 44, opens a gate 18 which allows the fuel to flow into the charger, subsequent rotation of the shaft 36 serves to operate a linkage 48, 50, 52 which traverses a weight 34 to the maximum charge position on the steelyard which then tips and recloses the switch 32. The timing device then returns the shaft 36 to its original position so closing gates 18 and 24, next through the agency of a piston and cylinder device 58, it opens a bell valve 22 and allows the charger 20 to discharge into a gas generator 10, and finally forces a piston 62 downwards in a cylinder 64. This piston is attached by a toggle lever 66 to a conical headed probe 60 which, when actuated, rests on the top surface of the fuel so causing a toggle knuckle 68 to be displaced to the left by an amount which is determined by the level of said fuel, this displacement being communicated through links 70 and 72 to the weight 34 which is thereby traversed along the steelyard to such a position that the next weighing operation will provide a quantity of fuel of such magnitude that a substantially constant fuel level will be maintained in the generator. Secured to the toggle link is an arm 80 which, when said toggle is operated, closes a switch 82 which completes the operating coil circuit, starts the fuel feeding motor 14 and also closes a switch 88 which, when switch 82 is broken on the probe being lifted, maintains the circuit through the operating coil until the switch 32 is broken by tipping of the weigh beam. An integrating mechanism (not shown) may be operated by the movements of the weight 34 to record the total weight of fuel fed into the generator. In a modification the motor driven shaker screen 12 is replaced by an electrically-operated feed gate and it is stated that the switch 82 may be operated by any other part of the mechanism timed to operate after discharge of the measured charge has been completed. In a further modification (not shown) the quantity of fuel at each discharge is determined volumetrically.