US3720173A - Rotatable hot metal car - Google Patents

Abstract

A car for conveying molten metal comprising two independent bogies spaced longitudinally one behind the other in the direction of movement, said bogies carrying horizontally oriented bearings and being connected together by a longitudinal vessel having journals rotatable in said bearings, said vessel, with said bearings, forming a unit detachably connected to said bogies, and especially from frame plates having spherically movable engagement with the bogies one of which carries motor means for tilting the vessel, the detachable connections being provided by forming the frame plates of upper and lower sections mutually aligned by self-centering male and female interfitting portions, with readily detachable means securing said upper and lower sections together.

Description

llmite States Patet Van Wierst [451March 13, 1973 RUTATABLE HOT METAL CAR FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS Inventor: Wilhelmus Lamberulus Van Wiersl, 1,291,343 3/1969 Germany nos/271 Santpoort, Netherlands 73 Assignee: Koninklljke Nederlandsche 'f 'f Fmlenza Hooaovens en stanhbfleken Asszstant Exammer-I-Ioward Beltran Ijmuiden, Netherlands Attorney-Ha Hougmon [22] Filed: Oct. 26, 1970 [57] ABSTRACT [21] Appl. No.: 83,682 A car for conveying molten metal comprising two independent bogies spaced longitudinally one behind [52] U S Cl 105/271 105/183 OS/366E the other in the direction of movement, said bogies [51] 9/02 B61d 17/00 3/00 carrying horizontally oriented bearings and being con- [58] Field of Search l05/270 272 183 366 E nected together by a longitudinal vessel having journals rotatable in said bearings, said vessel, with said [56] RefernceS Cited bearings, forming a unit detachably connected to said bogies, and especially from frame plates having spheri- UNITED STATES PATENTS cally movable engagement with the bogies one of which carries motor means for tilting the vessel, the 3,070,039 12/1962 Mohrm ..;l05/27O detachable connections being provided by forming the 2 g frame plates of upper and lower sections mutually 3589303 641971 zz 1 X aligned by self-centering male and female inter-fitting portions, with readily detachable means securing said upper and lower sections together.

4 Claims, 2 Drawing Figures "I \V AVA /AVAVAVA ROTATABLE HOT METAL CAR This invention relates to a car for conveying hot materials, comprising two bogies one behind the other in the direction of movement, said bogies supporting a longitudinal vessel rotatable in bearings and removable from the bogies.

Such cars are often used for the conveying of molten pig iron and if so they are often named moving mixers or torpedo cars. They are often used for conveying pig iron from blast furnaces to steel works. As a rule such conveying takes place over rails, although this invention is also applicable to cars for road transport. By the large contents of the vessels which may contain up to 350 or even 450 tons of pig iron, it is possible to homogenize large quantities of pig iron simultaneously therein. Moreover, it is possible to add substances to the contents of such vessels or to subject the iron in the vessels to for instance a desulphurizing treatment.

For several technical and economical reasons there is a tendency at present' to use moving mixers of gradually increasing volume. A restricting factor is formed by the wear of the refractory lining at the inner wall of the vessels. If this lining hasbeen attacked too much, the entire car should be taken out of operation to repair the refractory lining. This requires the presence of a reserve in moving mixers, whiehmeans a high amount of capital investment for a steel factory.

It has been tried before to restrict such additional investments by makingthe vessel removable from the bogies. This entrains that during the repair of the vessel only'the vessel itself is out of operation, the bogies being meanwhile used by putting another vessel upon them (German Auslegeschrift 1.29l.343). In such known mixer cars there is a kind of hook structure near the ends of the vessel, by which such vessels can be suspended and fixed in the trunnions, by which it is possible to tilt such vessels. As a vessel hooked into the trunnions should no more have any possibility of movement with respect thereto, the hook structure is provided with a lock which excludes any possibility of movement. This has as a result that the str'uctureof the vessels and of the bogies and the arrangement of the wheel bogies with respect to each other during hooking in of the vessels should suffice particular and high requirements of accuracy. This is so because, at the moment that the vessel is hooked into the trunnions, the bogies are entirely separate from each other. If in I this separate position of the bogies the trunnions are not sufficiently in line or do not remain sufficiently in line during the one-sided application of a very heavy load (the vessel to be hooked in), the. bearings after fixing the hook will be subjectedto very high additional forces of shear and bending moments. The object of this invention is to obtain a structure which avoids such additional load of the bearings, without the need to make particularly high requirements to the accuracy of the position of the trunnions.

In this respect the invention consists in that in a car as given in the preamble above the vessel constitutes one unitary structure with the bearings, which unitary structure is detachable from the bogies. Thereby it is obtained that the trunnions and the hearings will always be and remain in line independent of the fact whether before or during the coupling of the vessel to the bogies these bogies are not accurately in line with each other.

It is remarked that the suggested structure could seem to have the disadvantage that a heavier load will have to' be lifted from the bogies. However, it has appeared in practice that this is hardly disadvantageous. The weight of the bearings and of the trunnions is small as compared to the total weight of the vessel and moreover the weight of the hook structure etc. of the above-described known structure is saved.

Although less high requirements have to be made to the new structure as to the accuracy during assembly, it is nevertheless of importance to raise the accuracy with simple means to the highest possible level. It is in this respect possible to fix the bearings during assembly by means of for instance fitting pins in their correct position with respect to the wheel bogies. It is, however, more simple to apply according to a preferred embodiment of the invention a structure in which the lower side of the bearings and the upper side of the bogies are provided with mutually fitting surfaces and tapered searching and aligning fitting edges, and with securing means to secure the system of vessel etc. to the wheel bogies. Such last means for instance consist of drawing bolts, clamps, wedges and the like. It has appeared that with such structures it is possible to obtain in a simple way accuracies up to about half a millimeter.

It should be possible to connect at least one of the trunnions of the vessel to a driving device to rotate the vessel in order to be able to empty it. It is possible to secure such a driving device to one or to both bogies and to couple it to the trunnions during the positioning of the vessel. This is possible by means of usual detachable couplings or by means of belts and pulleys or sprocket wheels and chains. It is, however, preferable when applying the invention to embody this driving device entirely or in part as a fixed part of the detachable system. Thus it may be preferable to embody the driving device as a planetary gear and to take up entirely in the detachable system. As, however, the positioning of the system as explained above on the bogies is possible with high accuracy, a simple structure is most preferable in which the detachable system includes a gearwheel on one of the trunnions which when positioning the system on the bogies enters into engagement with a pinion which forms part of a driving device remaining on the bogies when the vessel is removed.

The invention will now be explained in more detail with reference to the enclosed drawing.

FIG. 1 shows a side-view of a mixer car according to the invention.

FIG. 2 shows a detail on an enlarged scale, in view and partly in section, illustrating the detachability according to the invention.

FIG. I shows two bogies with eight axes each diagrammatically and these bogies are indicated by 1 and 2. The embodiment of such bogies may be conventional insofar as the contrary is not described and shown. On the bogies frame structures 3 and 4 are supported. Buffer and pulling means are attached thereto and they are indicated by 5 and 6. With the aid of partspherical bearing supports 9 and 10 two frame plates 7 and 8 are coupled to the frame structure. There are, of course, means (not shown) for keeping the frame plates 7 and 8 from tilting, such as springs between these plates and the frame structures 3 and 4. Such means are shown diagrammatically and are indicated by 33. On these plates 7 and 8 bearings 11, 12, 13 and 14 are mounted. In these bearings trunnions l and 16 are rotatable which are secured to the ends of the elongated vessel 17. A driving device 18, being shown diagrammatically, serves for tilting the vessel 17 about its longitudinal axis if it has to be emptied. The vessel 17 is provided at the inside with a refractory brick lining not shown. Around the filling opening 22 there is a system of splash shields 21 being shown for sake of simplicity as one shield. Such shield structures protect the wall of the vessel 17 against superheating as a result of spilt liquid iron, which during filling of the vessel is spilt outside opening 22.

Reference numerals l9 and 20 in FIG. 1 show diagrammatically two strops or ropes secured to hoisting means not shown. By such ropes it is possible to tilt the vessel 17 from the bogies 1 and 2. This lifting could also take place by means of jacks to be positioned on the rails or on the rail bed. 7

In FIG. 2 the upper part of this structure is shown for the left end thereof at a larger scale. A pinion 23 is driven from the driving means 18. If the vessel is in the normal position this pinion 23 is in engagement with a driving wheel 24 secured on the end of trunnion 15 and so lifted off together with the vessel. It is possible to apply a casing for shielding and enclosing around the driving wheel 24, said casing being for instance secured to bearing housing 11 and adapted to fit by fitting pins in holes to a mounting ledge or to a lower casing part positioned on frame plate 7 around pinion 23. Bearings 11 and 12 are supported on a base plate 25 which is provided at its lower end with a protruding fitting edge 26, which has a tapering outer shape and thus is selfcentering. Cooperating therewith is a female fitting edge 27 on frame plate 7, into which fitting edge 26 fits. The lower face of plate 25 and the upper side of frame plate 7 are provided with fitting surfaces 28 and 29 which are supported one upon the other in mounted condition of the vessel. The drawing shows the vessel in the position somewhat lifted from the normal operative position. During this lifting the plate 25 slides over threaded ends 30 and 31 fitting into recesses 32 in plate 25. In operative position the structure can be secured in place by tightening nuts over the screw-threaded ends 31 and 32. It is of course possible to replace the screw-threaded ends by clamps, anchor or hammer bolts and the like, known as such.

It will be clear that within the scope of the invention many variations in structure are possible. The drive for tilting the vessel could for instance, as already indicated above, have chains or belts and pulleys or sprockets instead of the gear wheels 23 and 24. It will be clear that the structure at the right end of FIG. 1 could be embodied in the same way as the structure at the left as shown in FIG. 2, without, however, the drive means and gear wheels for tilting the vessel.

Although above the invention has been explained and described for a mixer car for pig iron, it could of course also be applied for conveying many other hot liquids such as other molten metals.

I claim:

1. An improved car for conveying molten metal and the like, said car comprising a. two independent bogies spaced longitudinally one behind the other in the direction of movement of the car,

b. independent frame structures carried by said bogies, respectively,

c. said frame structures having frame plate means and part spherical bearing means coupling said frame plate means thereto, respectively,

d. bearings mounted on said frame plate means, and

e. a longitudinally extending vessel having longitudinally extending trunions rotatably mounted in said bearings and forming a unitary structure providing for tilting of said vessel about its longitudinal axis,

and said car being improved in that f. said frame plate means each comprises a lower section and an upper section,

g. said bearings being carried by said upper sections,

h. said lower sections being coupled to said bogies by said part spherical bearing means, and

i. releasable means separably securing said upper and lower sections rigidly and non-tiltably together, whereby on releasing said releasable means said vessel, bearings, and upper sections as a unitary assembly, may be lifted from said bogies and the lower sections respectively coupled thereto.

2. An improved car as claimed in claim 1 further comprising j. means for tilting said vessel in said bearings, said tilting means comprising 1. driving gear means carried by said unitary assembly, and

2. driving means carried by one of said lower sections, separate from said unitary assembly and having driving pinion means engaging said driving gear means when said assembly is mounted on said bogies by connecting said upper and lower sections.

3. An improved car as claimed in claim 1 wherein said upper and lower sections include mutually interfitting surfaces with tapered aligning edges for accurately positioning said upper sections for said rigid connection to said lower sections by said releasable means.

4. An improved car for conveying molten metal and the like, said car comprising a. two wheeled bogies located one below the other in the direction of movement of the car, and

a vessel supported by the bogies and rotatable in bearings and detachable from the bogies, said car being improved in that said vessel has longitudinally extending trunions at its ends, said trunions are supported in said bearings, said bearings and vessel form a unitary structure, said unitary structure is detachably connected to said bogies, and g. said detachable connection comprises separate upper and lower plate portions having mutually fitting aligning elements, said upper portions forming a unitary assembly with said vessel, and said lower portions forming unitary assemblies with said bogies, and said detachable connection comprising detachable means securing said upper and lower plate portions rigidly and non tiltably together in interfitted relation.

* K i i l Patent No. 3,7 73 Dated March 3, 1973 lnventofls) wilhelmus Lambertus Van wier-st It is certified that; error appears in the above-identified patent and that said Letters Patent are hereby corrected as shown below:

In the Caption Page, 901. 1, following the item "pg Appl. 1%.: 83;;82" insert the fol owing: Q

[597 Foreign Application Priority Date November 5, 1969 Holland 69.16705 I Signed and sealed this 20th day of November 1973.

(SEAL) Attest:

EDWARDM.F1LETCHER, JR. RENE D TEGTD IEYER Attesti-ng Officer Acting'commissioner of Patents M PC4050 (10459) USCOMM-DC 60376-P69 U,Sv GOVERNMENT FRlNTlNG OFFICE! [969 3$5'354

Claims (6)

1. An improved car for conveying molten metal and the like, said car comprising a. two independent bogies spaced longitudinally one behind the other in the direction of movement of the car, b. independent frame structures carried by said bogies, respectively, c. said frame structures having frame plate means and part spherical bearing means coupling said frame plate means thereto, respectively, d. bearings mounted on said frame plate means, and e. a longitudinally extending vessel having longitudinally extending trunions rotatably mounted in said bearings and forming a unitary structure providing for tilting of said vessel about its longitudinal axis, and said car being improved in that f. said frame plate means each comprises a lower section and an upper section, g. said bearings being carried by said upper sections, h. said lower sections being coupled to said bogies by said part spherical bearing means, and i. releasable means separably securing said upper and lower sections rigidly and non-tiltably together, whereby on releasing said releasable means said vessel, bearings, and upper sections as a unitary assembly, may be lifted from said bogies and the lower sections respectively coupled thereto.

1. An improved car for conveying molten metal and the like, said car comprising a. two independent bogies spaced longitudinally one behind the other in the direction of movement of the car, b. independent frame structures carried by said bogies, respectively, c. said frame structures having frame plate means and part spherical bearing means coupling said frame plate means thereto, respectively, d. bearings mounted on said frame plate means, and e. a longitudinally extending vessel having longitudinally extending trunions rotatably mounted in said bearings and forming a unitary structure providing for tilting of said vessel about its longitudinal axis, and said car being improved in that f. said frame plate means each comprises a lower section and an upper section, g. said bearings being carried by said upper sections, h. said lower sections being coupled to said bogies by said part spherical bearing means, and i. releasable means separably securing said upper and lower sections rigidly and non-tiltably together, whereby on releasing said releasable means said vessel, bearings, and upper sections as a unitary assembly, may be lifted from said bogies and the lower sections respectively coupled thereto.

1. driving gear means carried by said unitary assembly, and

2. driving means carried by one of said lower sections, separate from said unitary assembly and having driving pinion means engaging said driving gear means when said assembly is mounted on said bogies by connecting said upper and lower sections.

2. An improved car as claimed in claim 1 further comprising j. means for tilting said vessel in said bearings, said tilting means comprising

3. An improved car as claimed in claim 1 wherein said upper and lower sections include mutually interfitting surfaces with tapered aligning edges for accurately positioning said upper sections for said rigid connection to said lower sections by said releasable means.

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