IL100820A - Device for heating thickened liquids in vessels - Google Patents

Description

ο1»^»» τιιΐ-1 t _j»no o i>na om>ni> ιρηη DEVICE FOR HEATING UP THICKENED LIQUIDS IN VESSELS Background of the Invention This patent application relates to devices for heating viscous and thickening liquids to facilitate their discharge from vessels.

There is known a device for this purpose according to the invention certificate of the USSR #1555221, under the title: " A Device for Unloading Railway Tanks with Thickened Oil Products". The above device has a number of major drawbacks, such as: 1. The transported oil products are discharged from tanks mainly through a cock, which is installed for that purpose in the lower part of the boiler of each tank. If discharge is needed, a lid of the tank's hatch is opened and with the use of a rotating flywheel in the upper part of the tank and a system of ties the discharge cock is opened, and oil products are discharged by gravity ( under the condition of suitable fluidity ) into a special vessel. To achieve the required fluidity of a thickened oil product, e.g., to heat it, the above device is totally unsuitable. On the contrary, the presence of a probe in the device is in itself an additional barrier to heating adjacent layers of the oil product. 2. Another means to unload oil products from the tank is to pump them out through the upper hatch using a pump, pipe-lines, and hoses. The main factor that provides quick pumping out of an oil product is its fluidity and a certain stock of heat contained in the mass of the product. This stock of heat offsets the decrease in the product's temperature when the product is transported through the pipe-line, hose and pump. Here again, as in the case of discharge (1), the device is unsuitable, now in the case of pumping out, to provide appropriate fluidity, that is, to heat the thickened oil product to the required temperature to allow product's discharge from the tank into the stationary vessel. The reasons are as follows: (a) The intake probe can not be sunk through tank's neck into the tank's bottom, because when at cold days the rolling stock is on its way to the place of destination, both the truck's and product's temperature become considerably lower than the temperature of the ambient air. It can have such a low magnitude that fuel oil gets solid. The solid state of fuel oil prevents the probe from penetrating the oil product, not to say to reach the tank's bottom. (b) Let us assume that the probe did reach the bottom, and fuel oil under the probe would be heated, as the author of the device claims. In this case, when the pump is operating, small amount of the heated oil product may be taken into the intake hose, but the product's transportation would immediately stop due to the loss of fluidity of the product, caused by the rapid cooling of the unheated part of the liquid. Thus the further delivery of the oil product to the zone under the probe is impossible because of the absence of fluidity of the unheated product outside the probe's zone. A conclusion can be drawn now that under any circumstances the above device is not workable.

There is no necessity to prove unfitness of the device for filling casks, pumping out or discharging oil products from tank trucks, and stationary capacities.

It is also worth mentioning that the above device is bulky, has sophisticated design and highly priced.

Summary of the Invention The purpose of the invention is to raise efficiency of the heater's performance, effectively using energy and substantially reducing the time of heating and discharging, thus increasing productivity of the device.

The proposed device has at its center a hollow shaft being able to rotate, the internal and external surfaces of the said shaft are equipped with special elements, such helical blades, propellers, and others, for transporting the heated oil product along two directions: • to the piping of the discharging pump; • to the heating up the thickened product.

The proposed device can be used as a working fitting at the intaking end of the discharging system.

It is worth mentioning that the proposed device can be used for any capacities, without restrictions on their dimensions, amount of liquid to be heated, and location of the cocks.

Principal view of the device is given in Fig.1.

Units of the distributor's shaft attachments are given in Fig.2 and 3.

The device in operating position is shown in Fig.4.

The heating device includes body 1 filled with non-freezing liquid 2, which serves as an intermediate heat-transfer medium. The properties of the medium (e.g., glycerin, ethylene, glycol, etc.) allow to attain required heating temperatures in a closed vessel without an increase in pressure and evaporation.

There are corrugations 3 on the body's surface to increase the area of heat transfer and to raise rigidity of the device. The shape of the body can be spherical, cylindrical or any other depending on the type of the oil product and peculiarities of the vessel's design. The non-freezing liquid is heated by thermoresistant heater 4. The heater's design allows to achieve the required temperatures. The design of the device provides opportunity to quickly change, if necessary, the heaters attached to flanges 5, using insulators 6 or bolts 7. The electric power is supplied through wiring 8, attached to the body with clamps 9. On the body there are neck 10 to fill the liquid, plug 11 with valve 12 to release pressure when the liquid is heated.

There are distributor of jets 13 with nozzles__14 and mouthpieces 15, screw 16, or blades installed on shaft 17, in the upper part of the body. The unit that includes numbers 13, 14 ,15, 16, 17 is named a jet mechanism.

The shaft of the distributor is hollow. The heated liquid is pumped out through the rotating cavity 18. The surface of the cavity has the profile 19, which facilitates liquid's moving under rotation.

The shaft's ends, the lower one 20 and upper one 21 (Fig. 2 and 3), slide along the plain bearings 22, 23, and are supported on rolling bearings 24, 25.

Besides, the distributor is supported on a plain bearing 26 (Fig.l).

The shaft's cavity has upper and lower extensions 27, 28 (Fig.2 and 3).

When the liquid is pumped out by the stationary pump, the lower inlet sucks the liquid, and the upper outlet has a hose to transport the liquid to the user.

The internal surface of the distributor's pipe 29 has a smooth, even shape to facilitate delivery of the heated oil product towards nozzles. The jet mechanism is set into motion by electric driver 30, or by a turbine, driven by the compressed air, using the connection of the engine of the drive gear, put on the shaft 31, with the driven gear 33, fit on the shaft of the jet mechanism.

There is a thermocouple 34 in the tank's body to automatically switch off the thermoresistant heaters once the required temperature is achieved, or to switch them on if the temperature is falling.

In the lower part of the device there are support ribs 35 and cavity 36 for the intake of the heated liquid, using the helical blade or propeller. The lower inlet is equipped with filter 37 that prevents the pipe from getting clogged with various large inclusions.

The presence of the filter does not considerably raises resistance to the liquid's passage through the pipe. The device in operating position, that is, when the liquid is pumped out of the stationary vessel into the tank truck, is shown in Fig.4.

Similarly, the number of the places where oil products are discharged can be increased. can be installed to heat the thickened in order to transport the heated liquid along the pipe-line. These devices can be placed either on the earth's surface or put deeper into the earth.

The device 38 in J¾g^ 4 is suspended from lifting mechanism 39, which is installed on girder 40, attached to the tank together with beam 41. Heated up liquid 42 is pumped out, using hose 43 and pump 44, from vessel 45 and discharged through hose 46 into tank truck 47. The lower end of the hose 48 is either corrugated or telescopic to facilitate hose's removal from or lowering into the tank truck's neck.

There is a sealing material at the and of the hose that excludes pollution of the adjacent territory, in case the device is not in operation. The lid 49 protects the contents of the vessel from rain and undesired inclusions. The neck 50 of the tank is tightly closed by the lid. To avoid undesired swinging of the hose, it is fixed on the brackets 51. Lines 52 show the motion track of the heating liquid. The device for the heating up thickened liquids in vessels works as follows: Once thermoresistant heaters are switched on and the liquid 2 and subsequently the body 1 are heated up, the device, suspended from the eye by the rope of the lifting mechanism 39, is submerged together with the attached hose 43 through the neck 50 into the mass of the thickened product 42.

Being in contact with the heated device, the product gets heated up, its viscosity falls, and it is no more an obstacle to the device which penetrates the product down the bottom of the vessel by gravity.

Thus, while penetrating the liquid, the device heats up the product around and under itself.

Once the product has been heated up, the jet mechanism 13 is switched on into motion.

The rotating shaft together with the helical blade or propeller take the heated product from the bottom of the tank through the intake opening 36, and throws it out under the pressure as a hot jet through the nozzles 14 of the packing 15 towards thickened (not yet heated up) mass of the product, thus heating it up.

Once a certain amount of the product has been heated up, it is pumped out through hose 43 using stationary pump 44.

The heated liquid is sucked by lower inlet 27, passes first through the space of rotating pipe 17, then through upper inlet 28, and along hose 46 the liquid is transported to user 47.

When the required amount of the liquid has been pumped out, the device is switched off, and the rest of the thickened, not enough heated liquid is left in the tank.

If another portion of the liquid is needed to be pumped out, the process is repeated.

If there is a necessity to completely discharge the liquid using either the lower cock, or the upper neck, or discharge the liquid both from the above and the bottom, the device with the hose is sunk into the tank's bottom and heats the liquid up.

The lower layers of the product located in the heating zone are constantly subjected to the intensive heating, and as the heated product is being gradually pumped out, the less heated portions of the product, getting more and more heated up by the jet streams of the heated liquid, flow down towards the intake opening of the heater.

Due to the fact that the heated portion of the product is discharged from or pumped out of the tank, a reliable circulation system of the type "tank-pump-tank" has been designed. According to this system, the part of the heated product is transported through the pump, and it forces other portions of the product that are not located around the heater, to get heated by the heated jets. Another part of the product is heated by contacting with the heated mass at the bottom of the tank. Upper layers of the weakly heated product move downwards, mix with the heated product, get heated and attain necessary viscosity. At the same time, jet streams of the pump keep heating the rest of the product, washing it off the cold walls of the tank.

(The heateTlur) located in the tank's volume also promotes complete removal of the oil product from the tank. The temperature of the air is getting higher due to the contact with the heated tank's body, product itself and jet streams.

The device can be used as a mixer for various liquid media, and as a heater of liquids in stationary vessels.

Claims (3)

f Claims:

1. A device for heating up thickened liquids in a vessel, consisting of a heater with electric heaters and of a central space, distinguished by the fact that, in order to increase the efficiency discharge of the product from the vessel, in the central space of the heater a hollow shaft rotating around the device center is being located the inner and outer surfaces of the shaft are provided with elements purposed to transport the heated product along two directions: to the piping of the discharge pump and to the heating up the thickened product.

2. A device according to Claim 1 wherein the elements purposed to transport the heated product are helical blade, propeller or others.

3. The device as claimed in Claim 1, distinguished by the fact that unmovable extensions are attached to both ends of the hollow shaft serving for take-in of the product and for connecting to the discharge pipe. Trachtenberg Yosef