JPS6161040B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention mainly relates to a ball replenishing device in ball cleaning equipment for a shell-and-tube heat exchanger.

This type of ball cleaning equipment runs sponge balls (hereinafter referred to as balls) together with liquid such as water into the tubes of a multi-tubular heat exchanger, thereby peeling off and draining the deposits attached to the inner surfaces of the tubes. However, due to repeated use, wear, deformation, or stagnation occur, resulting in a decrease in the number of effective balls capable of cleaning the inside of the pipe, and the cleaning effect deteriorates. Therefore, in order to maintain the cleaning effect, the conventional method was to manually open the lid of the ball collector where balls are collected, discard worn or deformed balls, and count the valid balls. To compensate for the shortage, they manually filled new balls with water, closed the lid of the recovery container, and continued to operate the ball cleaning equipment.

However, when performing this replacement, the timing of ball replenishment differs depending on the degree of contamination of the liquid flowing inside the heat exchanger tubes, so judgment based on experience is required.
Another disadvantage is that it takes a relatively long time to replenish the balls, and the work is difficult, especially in cold regions.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a ball replenishing device that eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art and allows ball replenishment operations to be carried out easily and in a short time without touching the balls.

In order to achieve this objective, in the present invention,
A first hopper into which the old balls taken out from the ball collector are placed; a ball discriminator which takes out normal balls from the old balls coming out of the hopper and discharges deteriorated balls out of the system; a second hopper into which balls to be replenished are placed; a water-containing device that hydrates new balls taken out from the hopper; and a new ball that counts the number of hydrated new balls. a counting machine, a mechanism for determining the number of new balls supplied from the total count of the normal ball counting machine and controlling the number of new balls delivered from the water containing device;
By attaching the system for feeding the water to the hopper to the ball circulation system installed in parallel to the system to be washed,
This invention is characterized by achieving the above object.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. 1 is a shell-and-tube heat exchanger, which is an example of the object to be cleaned;
2 is a ball collector provided in a cooling system (which may be a heating fluid system) 30 that communicates with the inside of the pipes of the multi-tubular heat exchanger; 3 is a ball circulation pipe 31 from the ball collector 2; a ball circulation pump which has the function of taking out the balls through the heat exchanger 1 and refluxing them to the upstream side of the heat exchanger 1 through the piping 34; 5, a first hopper for retaining the old balls discharged from the ball collector 2;
6 is a deteriorated ball discharge valve 22 for removing worn or deformed balls from among the balls coming out of the hopper.
The normal balls are collected into the degraded ball collection box 8 via the ball discriminator which sends the normal balls to the normal ball counter 7, which discriminates whether the balls are good or bad based on, for example, the difference in momentum. The normal ball counter 7 counts and stores the number of normal balls output from the ball discriminator 6, and may be of an optical type that utilizes the effect of blocking light as the ball passes, for example. 3
Reference numeral 7 designates a surplus water discharge pipe that allows surplus water from the first hopper 5 to flow down to the exit side of the counter 7.

On the other hand, 9 is a second hopper for holding new balls to be replenished, 10 is a ball water absorbing machine for moistening the new balls coming out of the hopper, 24 is its outlet valve, and 11 is connected to the ball water soaking machine at the bottom. 23 is a valve that controls the water supply to the tank, and 12 is a new ball transport water valve 26 that adds water introduced through the tank to provide a natural flow force to the new ball. New ball supply tank, 25 is a new ball supply valve provided at the ball outlet of the new ball supply tank, 13
is a new ball counting machine that counts the number of new balls and has the same configuration as the normal ball counting machine.

Reference numeral 4 denotes a ball recovery device having a ball recovery basket 29 and a ball outlet valve 28, into which new and old balls counted by both the counters 7 and 13 flow through the ball supply cutoff valve 21 and are recovered. Further, balls are supplied from the circulation pump 3 through the piping 35 and the pump discharge valve 15 when cleaning the heat exchanger. Reference numeral 33 designates an excess water drain pipe for discharging excess water from the ball recovery device 4 via the recovery device hydrophobic valve 27 during ball recovery. 36 is a new and old mixing ball replenishment pipe that branches from the pipe 34 and connects its end to the suction side of the circulation pump 3;
18 is a ball suction valve provided in the pipe, 16, 17
are the recovery outlet valve and the cooler connection valve, respectively, which are installed in the piping connected to the cooling water system.

Reference numerals 19 and 20 designate a recovery device bypass valve and a discriminator supply valve provided in the old ball pipe 32 connecting the discharge side of the circulation pump 3 and the first hopper 5. 4
0 is a central operation panel which is a control device for each of the valves and the like.

In this configuration, cleaning inside the pipes of the heat exchanger 1 is as follows:
opening the valves 14, 15, 28, 16, 17;
With the valves 18, 19, 20, 21, and 27 closed, the balls collected by the pump collector 2 are transferred to the pump suction valve 14, the circulation pump 3, and the fluid force applied by the circulation pump 3. It is supplied to the cooling water system 30 via the pump discharge valve 15, the ball recovery device 4, and the valves 28, 16, and 17, and is circulated by flowing into the heat exchanger 1 to perform a cleaning operation.

After the cleaning work is complete, replenish the balls. The transition to this replenishment work can be performed automatically by detecting the stoppage of the washing operation using electrical means, but generally the supervisor presses the start button on the central control panel 40 to start automatic ball replenishment. Start. When the start button is pressed, the ball outlet valve 28 in the ball collector 4 is automatically closed to collect the old balls from the circulation pump 3 into the ball collection basket 29. The time for this collection work is set in advance, and after pressing the start button, when this time has elapsed, the cooling pipe connection valve 17, the collector outlet valve 1
6. The pump discharge valve 15 is automatically closed by the output from the central operation panel 40. The following operations can also be performed using the central control panel 40.
automatically by the control action of

After closing the valves 14 to 17, the ball outlet valve 2
8, ball suction valve 18, collector bypass valve 19,
The discriminator supply valve 20 is automatically opened. By operating this valve, the balls in the recovery basket 29 are brought to the first hopper 5 by the circulation pump 3.

After all the balls in the recovery basket 29 are transferred, the ball outlet valve 28, the ball suction valve 18, the recovery device bypass valve 19, and the discriminator supply valve 20 are automatically closed, and the operation of the circulation pump 3 is stopped. Subsequently, the ball replenishment cutoff valve 21 and the deteriorated ball discharge valve 22 are automatically opened. The balls collected in the first hopper 5 enter a ball discriminator 6, where worn or deformed balls are discriminated based on, for example, a change in the momentum of the balls, and then pass through a valve 22 to a degraded ball collection box 8. It will be disposed of later. On the other hand, ball discriminator 6
The balls deemed to be normal balls pass through the normal ball counter 7 and are counted, and then reach the recovery basket 29 in the ball recovery device 4 via the ball replenishment cutoff valve 21. This determination operation is performed for all the balls gathered in the first hopper 5, and the total number of normal balls is subtracted from the required number of balls stored in advance in the counting mechanism.

On the other hand, new balls are placed in advance into the second hopper 9 in sufficient time to meet the number of balls to be supplied. In addition, in order to maintain a proper liquid level in the ball water absorbing machine 10, the liquid level maintaining replenishment water valve 23 is opened and water is injected into the water absorbing machine liquid level holder 11. After that, when you press the start button for automatic ball replenishment on the central operation panel 40, the ball hydrating machine 10 moves, and the new balls are bitten and hydrated in the water.At the same time, they are passed through the opened hydrating machine outlet valve 24 to the new ball supply tank. It reaches 12.

On the other hand, after all the normal balls have passed through the normal ball counting machine 7, the new ball supply valve 25 and the new ball transport water valve 26 are opened, and the new balls containing water are transferred to the new ball counting machine 13 and the ball supply cutoff valve. 21
It is then sent to the collection basket 29 in the collection device 4. At this time, the new ball counting machine 13 counts the number of new balls passing through it, inputs it into the counting mechanism, and calculates the number of new balls from the required number of balls minus the total number of normal balls for each count. and then
When the difference becomes zero, the supply of new balls is completed. In this case, if inflow water overflows into the recovery vessel 4, the recovery vessel hydrophobic valve 27 is opened and the excess water discharge pipe 3
3. Let the hydrophobic fluid flow out. After the replenishment is completed, the new ball supply valve 25, the new ball transport water valve 26, the water absorber outlet valve 24, and the liquid level maintenance makeup water valve 23 are closed, and the ball water absorber 10 is stopped. In addition, the ball replenishment cutoff valve 2
1. Close the defective ball discharge valve 22 and the collector hydrophobic valve 27 to complete the replenishment work.

As described above, according to the present invention, deteriorated balls are automatically removed and new balls are reinforced with respect to old normal balls only by valve operation, so that it is easy to remove deteriorated balls and replenish new balls. This can be done efficiently without requiring judgment based on experience, and moreover, it can be done without touching the balls, so that labor-saving and efficient ball replenishment work can be achieved. The effects of the present invention are further enhanced by the automatic control of the valves described in the embodiments.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The accompanying drawing is a ball circulation system diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention. 1...Multi-tube heat exchanger, 2...Ball collector,
3...Ball circulation pump, 4...Ball recovery device,
5...First hopper, 6...Ball discriminator, 7
... Normal ball counting machine, 8 ... Deteriorated ball collection box, 9 ... Second hopper, 10 ... Ball moisture absorbing machine, 12 ... New ball supply machine, 13 ... New ball counting machine.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A first hopper into which the old balls taken out from the ball collector installed in the system to be washed are placed;
a ball discriminator that takes out only normal balls from old balls coming out of the first hopper; a normal ball counter that counts the number of normal balls; a second hopper into which new balls to be replenished are placed; a water-retaining device for adding water to new balls coming out of the hopper; a new ball counting machine for counting the new balls coming out of the water-retaining device; and a new ball counting machine for determining the number of new balls to be replenished from the total count of the normal ball counting machine. and a system for feeding old balls from the ball collector to the first hopper, and is attached to a ball circulation system installed in parallel with the system to be washed. ball supply device.