GB742247A - Tobacco tearing and separating apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

742,247. Centrifugal separators; pneumatic separating. AMERICAN MACHINE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION. April 4, 1952 [April 6, 1951], No. 8649/52. Classes 23 and 117. [Also in Group VI] A chamber S forming an enlarged portion of an air passageway 200, 34 confining an air stream to a predetermined path in a housing H receives air and entrained tobacco leaf components and acts to remove tobacco leaf blade portions from the air stream, air being withdrawn from the chamber S uniformly over a large wall area by dust separators 64 appropriately mounted and operatively connected over the area of one wall of the chamber. As shown, tobacco leaves T pass through a gate valve 12 to a threshing drum 18 and thence, after coaction with stationary combs 20, 21, 23, through a serrated-bar grid 22 on to a conveyer 24 which delivers them into an air duct partly defined by a wall 28 and an adjustable flap 26, where the clean stems fall into a container B and the leaf portions are carried by an air current, caused by a suction fan or fans 80, past a curved surface 30 which in conjunction with a downwardly directed air entry through three adjustable flaps 40 acts to return leaf portions with attached stems to the drum 18 for further threshing. The remaining leaf portions, aided by an air entry through three adjustable flaps 36, pass into the chamber S for delivery through a gate valve 44 to a conveyer C, whilst the dust-laden air passes through a grid 56 and enters banks of cyclone separators 64 detachably arranged over openings 69 in the front wall 70 of a detachable dust separating unit D. Each separator 64 comprises a tangential entry 66, an outlet 72 delivering dust to a chamber 62, and a central tube 76 up which the cleaned air passes into a chamber 60 connected to the fan or fans 80. Supplementary air entry to the chamber S is controllably permitted by a flap 59 operated by a worm and pinion 65, whilst additional dust falling from the grid 56 or through a grid-like wall 46 of the chamber S is delivered by screw conveyers 50, 94 through gate valves 52, 96 to receptacles 54, 98. A similar screw conveyer 86 in the chamber 62 delivers dust through a gate valve 88 to a receptacle 90. Specification 737,165 is referred to.