GB915499A - Charging apparatus for furnaces - Google Patents

Abstract

915,499. Feeding charges. INLAND STEEL CO. Feb. 13, 1961, No. 5295/61. Class 78 (1). [Also in Group XII] In a charging apparatus 10, interposed by a passage 14 between an ore reducer and a melting furnace, and comprising a plunger assembly sliding closely in a waterjacketed plunger housing section 13, which has a fuel feed 29 from a hopper 30 and connects into the passage 14, the assembly comprises a cylindrical body section 28, Fig. 3, containing the rod 39 of a piston 82 disposed outside the cylinder and movable away therefrom to form therewith a fuel container. The operating means include a fixed piston assembly 11 which acts with a movable cylinder 12 and the plunger body assembly to provide a reciprocable feed action. The plunger body section 28 is joined to and separated from the cylinder 12 by a cover member 36, carrying the piston-rod 39 and being formed with a radial hole 37, opening into the fluid cylinder 12 and controlled by a valve 101. The fluid cylinder 12 is also connected to the flexible dust boot 75 of the fixed piston assembly 11 by a cover 40, and contains a piston 43 carried by the rod 39, and the piston 44 of the fixed piston assembly. The latter comprises a double tube piston-rod 60, 70 fixed to a stationary bracket 62 at one end and to piston 44 at the other. The inner tube 60 has a fluid supply port 64 controlled by a valve 102 and a fluid delivery port 66 leading into the cylinder 12. The annular space between the tubes is connected to a fluid supply port 72 controlled by valve 103 and to ports 73 behind the piston 44. The plunger body section 28 comprises two sections keyed across at one end 78, and containing at that end a guideway 80 in which slides one end wall 83 of a plunger member 81, the other end wall of which, the piston 82, forms, together with the end wall 89 of the body section, and the lateral walls 84, 85, Fig. 5, of the plunger assembly, a collapsible chamber 88 which is open at the top and bottom. Operation.-The commencement of the operating cycle is shown schematically in Fig. 9, in which 101, 102, 103 represent three-way solenoid valves, each connected to a fluid-pressure line P and an exhaust line E. Fuel from hopper 30 is conveyed in the chamber 88 positioned between body section 28 and piston 82 and passes through the body section 13 into the passage 14 where it drops out, valves 101 and 103 being connected to the exhaust line. The piston 82 is then closed up to the plunger body section 28 by pressurizing valves 101 and 102 and neutralizing valve 103. The plunger body section is then withdrawn in its closed-up state by pressurizing valve 103. Finally the body section 28 is withdrawn from the piston 82 by exhausting valve 101, leaving the assembly as in Fig. 9 again.