US452062A - prangey - Google Patents

Description

(No Model.) 3 Sheets-Sheet 1. LE. A. PRANGBY.

APPARATUS FOR THE MANUFAGTURB 0F SUGAR.

No. 452,062. Patented May 12,1891..

(No Model.) a Sheets-She et 2. L. E. A. PRANGEY. APPARATUS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR.

No. 452,062. Patented May 12, 1891.

(No Model.) 3 Sheets-Sheet 3. L. E. A. PRANGEY.

APPARATUS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR.

No. 452,062. Patented May 12, 1891.

llnirrn STATES PATENT Fries,

LOUIS EDME ACHILLE PRANGEY, 0F PARIS, FRANCE.

'AP PARATUS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 452,062, dated May 12, 1891.

Application filed Septemher'24,1887. Serial No. 250,562. (No model.)

To all whom, it may concern.-

Be it known that I, LoUIs EDME AOHILLE PRANGEY, a citizen of the Republic of France, residing at Paris, in said Republic, have invented a new and useful Improvementin Apparatus or Machinery for the Manufacture of Sugar, of which the following is a specification, reference being had to the accompanying drawings.

The apparatus or machinery which is the subject of this invention is designed for the performance of the process which is the subject of my application for United States patent, No. 278,640, filed July 11, 1888. The fundamental characteristic of that process is that it takes the cooked sugar mass as it arrivescooled or not. according to circumstancesfrom the pan or other apparatus between movable surfaces which reduce it to a thin sheet, and in this state cause it to traverse slowly through the whole machine in which the operation is performed in such manner that during this movement of translation it may be submitted successively to all the operations necessary, such as draining, 'clarifying, the.

jected to the preliminary operation of ordinary refining up to the stage of boiling, instead of being turned then into the frames, is conducted directly on its exit from the boiling apparatus into a reservoir A, arranged at the head of the machine, in which it is kept hot-for example, by the aid of a steam-jacket A. This reservoir A is furnished with an overflow-opening A and also with a float A which controls the valve in the inlet-pipe in such manner as always to preserve the same pressure in the lower part of the reservoirA and to facilitate the flow of the green sirup by decantation. It is desirable to place in this reservoir an agitator of any convenient kind to stir the matter.

The reservoirA is terminated at the bottom by a broad flattened throat having, for example, a width of about four hundred millimeters and a height of about thirty millimeters internally, according to the dimension which it is desirable to give to the flat continuous sheet of sugar. This throat conducts the hot cooked mass between the adjacent runs of two endless belts O Othat is to say, between the upper run of the lower one of said belts and the lower run of the upper one. These belts are carried by pulleys or drums D D D D having horizontal axes, the said pulleys or drums maintaining between the face of the lower run of the upper belt and the face of the upper run of the lower belt the hereinbeforementioned space of about thirty millimeters. These belts O C may be of brass, steel, or copper, or of any other material capable of resisting the action of sugar and of heat and sufficiently inextensible. Each of them, instead of being carried by two large pulleys, may be carried by four smaller pulleys. Packing-bands of iudiarubber may be arranged upon the mouth of the throat A and upon the pulleys D D to make such a joint between them as will prevent the saccharine matter from escaping at the sides of the belt. The cooked mass thus introduced between the pulleys D and D is kept supplied from the charge in the reservoir into the space having a rectangular section, which remains free between the belts O and O on the one part and on the other part between two narrow belts E E, carried by pulleys E,

having vertical axes situated at the right and 7 left of the machine. These latter belts constitute the lateral walls of the chamber, which is'thus closed in all parts, except at the two ends. The adjacent runs of the four belts pass together between a box F and a box F, which are disposed in such manner as to surround the said runs, (see Fig. 2,) and in which a refrigerating agent circulates in a direction the reverse of the movement of the sugar, in order to produce its methodical cooling and its solidification. I may, for example, employ for this purpose cold water, which enters at one end and passes out at the other by following the course of internal channels F. There is thus formed a comparatively thin sheet of sugar, which arrives solid and homogeneous at the end of the refrigerating-boxes. At this point the said sheet leaves the metallic belts O C, and, carried by a series of small rollers I or by an endless apron well stretched, it is caused to enter between two other metallic belts H H, which are like those C 0, except that they are perforated, and which are carried by pulleys G G G G having horizontal axes, and which cause the said sheet to pass through the remainder of the machine between an upper series of boxes I J K L M, arranged within the upper belt II, and a lower series of boxes I J K L M, arranged within the lower belt 11, the said boxes having for their purpose to subject the sugar to the operations of draining, clarifying, sucking, drying, and cooling. The said boxes I I J J K K L L M M fit closely, the upper ones to the back or interior of the lower run of the upper belt and the lower ones to the back or interior of the upper run of the lower belt, each upper box and each lower box being complete in itself, so that the fiat sides of the said boxes next the belts extend over the whole width and length of the portions of the belts at any time passing between them and so supporting the said belts to prevent their being bulged out by the sugar passing between them, and thereby to insure the parallelism of the sheet of sugar. The said sides are, however, perforated with nutnerousholes to allow air or liquids to pass through them to and from the belts. The operations above mentioned produced by the said boxes may be effected, preferably, by double action-that is to say, by pressure upon one of the faces of the sheet and by suction upon the opposite face, which. in view of the slight thickness of the sheet, permits the movement of the belts at a considerable speed, and hence the operation is very rapid. The operation may be performed by single actionthat is to say, dispensing either with the pressure on the upper face or the suction under the lower face. The belts II II have their perforations countersunk in the designed direction for clb0uc72ementthat is to say, in the upper belt the holes or slits will be widened toward the sheet of sugar, while these in the lower belt are the reverse, in order that the air or the clarifying-liquid shall easily pass through the sugar from above downward. Taken between the adjacent runs of these two perforated belts II and II the sheet of sugar is first engaged between an upper box I and a lower box I, arranged one directly over the other. If a double-action operation be intended, the upper box should be in communication with a force-pump supplying hot air and the lower one connected with a suction-pump, as will be hereinafter more fully described. The sugar is thereby submitted to a forced drainage, which purges it of green sirup. The length of the above boxes is calculated in such manner as to prolong during the necessary time the action of the hot air which should produce the drainage. The sugar, contin uing to advance, passes between the boxes J J, similar to the boxes I I, but in one of which is contained the clarifying material under pressure, while the other is in communication with the air-pu mp, which creates a vacuum under the other face and assists the passage of the clarifying material through the sheet. The same operation is repeated upon the sugar with clarifyingliquors more and more pure in its passage between boxes following suit to the boxes J J and arranged like them. The whole or a part of the clarifying-boxes, which may vary in number according to the number of the clarifications which it is desired to give to the sugar, may be connected together in such manner that the white clarifying-liquid taken front below the sheet of sugar in the last lower box shall be conveyed by the same pump into the last upper box but one, then reaspirated into the lower box situated below it by another pump, which sends it up above the sugar in the preceding box. The same clarifying-liquor will thus be utilized methodically in all the clarifying-boxes, or at least in a portion ofthem,the most pure sirup being sent through the whitest sugar and the least pure serving to clarify the sugar which has only been purged of its green sirup. After the last clarifying the sugar is subjected to a suction or forced draining by passing between the boxes K and K,in the first of which it is insuffiated with air, which may be reaspirated below the sheet of sugar by means of a pump in communication with the lower box K The sugar remains to be dried and afterward to be cooled, that it may be ready to be packed. The first of these operations is performed between the boxes L and L by injection of hot air with or without aspiration of this air below the sheet of sugar. It may be performed by an injection of dry steam. The dryingis performed,like the clarifying, in several successive boxes or in boxes with many compartments and by means of air, of which the temperature increases and diminishes progressively. The cooling finally is produced between the boxes M and M by successive injections and aspirations of colder and colder air.

In Figs. 1" and 2" may be seen the means of feeding the boxes I J K L M, which are to receive the refining agents and also the drying and cooling agents when it is desired to complete the refining by drying and cooling. The box I should receive air saturated with humidity at a temperature of about 35 centigrade. The first of the boxes J should receive the common clarifying-liquid and the second the white clarifying-liquid. The box K should receive, like the box I,air saturated with humidity at about 35 centigradc.

The

box L should receive in each of its three separate compartments moist air having a temperature of 50, of and of centigrade, respectively. Finally the box M, which serves for drying and cooling, should receive in each of its three compartments dry air having the respective temperatures of 70, 60, and 50 centigrade. To effect this feeding there are necessary reservoirs for the clarifying-liquid and three pipes for supplying air in different conditionsthat is to say, a pipe R, which supplies air saturated with humidity at about 35 centigrade, a pipe S, which supplies dry air at a natural temperature, and a pipe T, which supplies air at a temperature of centigrade. By mixing the air from these pipes the different degrees of temperature and humidity may be obtained. For this purpose, while the first two branches 0" r of the pipe R supply to the boxes I and K moist air such as the pipe R furnishes, the three other branchesr r r of the same pipe connect with the branches 3 s of the pipe S and with branches i t t of the pipe T in such manner as to permit the introduction into each of the compartments of the box L by pipes Z Z Z of air having suitable degrees of temperature and humidity, which is to be regulated by means of cocks, which are provided in the several branches. The dry-air pipes S and T are furnished, besides, with branches .9 s s and t t 25 connected two and two and furnished with cocks, which permit the sending into each of the three compartments of the box M, by the pipes 71 n n of dry air at the same temperature.

X is the reservoir for common clarifyingliquid, which is fed to the first box J through a pipenc.

X is the reservoir for the white clarifyingliquid,which is fed to the second box J through a pipe 00', the said pipes x 00' being furnished with cocks.

The lower boxes I J K L M communicate through their lower parts with a pipe U, which is connected with the suction-orifice of aVacuum-pump V, which may be of any kind whatever. This communication is obtained by means of branches to u a a a a furnished with stop-cocks. The same pipe U serves, by means of two branches u M, furnished with cocks, to produce the vacuum in the sectors of the pulleys D D D D which carry the belts O C.

The refined, dried,and cooled sheet of sugar, having run out from between the boxes M M, only requires to be reduced to small pieces to be ready for delivery to the consumer. It passes out from between the belts H and H and advances upon a table N, furnished with large series of ribbon-saws, which reduce the sugar into bars. Preferably these saws should be placed in such a manner that their points of contact with the sheets of sugar should not be upon a straight line normal to the direction of its movement, which might lead to the premature rupture of the sheet.

It is better to arrange them in lines oblique to the direction of the movement of the sheet of sugar. The new ingots produced by the saws by continuing to advance arrive under a breaker, which may have a reciprocating vertical motion or be formed by a rotary cylinder furnished with longitudinal blades. They are thus divided into parallelopipedal pieces of the usual dimensions, which, it will be understood, range against one another in such manner that it will be sufficient to push them automatically into a box placed at the end of the table and which descends by intermittent movement as fast as one row has been completed.

In case itshould not be desired to make lump or bulk sugar, and it should be desired that the sugar leave the machine in the granular state and not in the compact or compressed condition, the molding and cooling apparatus composed of the belts C O and the boxes F F is omitted, and a hopper for the reception of the sugar leaving the crystallizer, where it has been cooled after the boiling, is placed immediately in front of the pulleys G G which carry the perforated metallic belts H II. This sugar, confined be tween these belts, passes with them between the boxes I J K L M, and is subjected in this course to all or part of the operations above described, according to its nature and the degree of purification to which it is desired to subject it. As it is not thus brought to the condition of a solid sheet, but to that of granulated sugar, it is necessary to confine itlaterally by means of cheeks, which are capable of moving like the walls constituted by the belts E E, or they may be fixed. At its exit from between the boxes the granulated sugar falls into a hopper, which is not represented in the drawings, and in the bottom of which is a shaker or a conduit, in which turns an Archimedean screw, which causes the advance of the sugar to where it falls into bags, into which it is to be packed for transportation or sale. For the lower grades of sugar, in place of clarifying by means of sirups, which is too costly for certain sorts, or, on the contrary, if the sugars are not to be clarified at all, I can easily, by means of my machine, produce the clarifying or whitening by steam, expanded and superheated to anydesired degreeto prevent the melting of the sugar. One of the boxes, serving normally for the clarifying, will then receive the steam. I may also, it is hardly necessary to state, perform the clarifying by water. The bleaching by steam may also be performed to make lumps or tablets with unrefined sugar, as I have already stated. By that I should dispense with the molding and solidifying apparatus, if that should be considered necessary'or desirable. It is hardly necessary to say that the full metallic belts O C or the perforated belts H H are to be cleaned mechanically and constantly in their course behind the corresponding boxes. The verti- ICC IIO

cal shafts E, carrying the two pulleys E E, which are set opposite the exit-table, are represented as receiving their movement in the following manner: The main shaft W, by means of an endless screw \V, fast upon it, and a worm-wheel \V upon a transverse horizontal shaft drives the said transverse shaft, which carries at its extremities endless screws W V gearing with worm-wheels V fast upon the intermediate vertical shafts V which will in their turn drive the shafts of the pulleys by spur-gears W W The horizontal shafts of the pulleys D D D D G (SK-G G, which carry the endless belts C C If H, are represented as put in operation by means of worm-gears \V attached to the said pulleys and operated by endless screws fast upon shafts V which are geared by bevel-gearing, as shown in Fig. l.

The kind of drum or pulley represented in Figs. 3 and t is especially intended to assure the perfect adherence of the metallic belts O 7', and will now be described. I have supposed here that the two pulleys indicated in Fig. 1 to carry each of the belts were replaced by four smaller pulleys. These pulleys are made to operate by producing a partial vacuum in the angular space within that portion of the pulley which the belt surrounds. This angular space within the pulley, which requires to be put in communication with the air-pump, is limited by a fixed sector, which makes a tight joint with the inner wall of the pulley by means of suitable airtight packings. The vacuum is maintained. in the interior of this sector by means of a connection of the air-pump with the axle of the pulley.

In Figs. 3 and a of the drawings, a designates the circumferential wall of the pulley with the belt surrounding it to the extent of about a quarter of a circle, The sector I), composed of radiating faces I) and b b and 1), form eonjointly with the part of the belt which surrounds the sector and the pulley a closed space put in communication with an air-pump by the hollow shaft 0. The faces 1), b b and b terminate against the inner circumference of the wall A of the pulley with a groove (1, within the whole length of which is arranged the packing e, of any suitable kind, which, if not elastic itself, may be pressed outward toward the exterior by any kind of spring.

It will be easily understood that during the rotation of the pulley, when any part of the imperforate belt arrives opposite the fixed sector, it is subjected to a pneumatic action, which causes it to adhere strongly to the pulley and prevents all sliding while it is passing the sector, but at the moment it passes by the sector it receives again the atmospheric pressure upon its inner face, and is then caused to detach itself from the pulley without difficulty. Pneumatic pulleys of this kind may also be employed for the belts II 11, even though these may be perforated. It

will be snllicicnt to add around the exteriorsurface of these belts, upon the portion which is enrolled about the pulley, an imperforate cover with air-tight packing on its four sides, which with the fixed interior sector forms a closed space in which a vacuum may be produced. The joint of this exterior cover with the pulley maybe rendered tight in the same manner as the interior sector that is to say, by means of a solid packing or by a hydraulic joint. The belts C and 0, not being capable of sliding upon their pulleys, advance with a very uniform movement, and do not produce any unevenness on the sheet of sugar with which they are charged to mold and transport. The pulleys with vertical axes which carry the belts E E, which form the external walls of the mold, may be fitted up in the same manner.

I do not herein claim the process of relining sugar performed by the machine herein described, consisting in carrying the sugar in a sheet bet-ween parallel movable surfaces, and while it is so carried subjecting it to the action of cooling, heating, and refiningageuts, as such process is the subject of my application for United States Letters Patent, Serial No. 279,640, filed July 11, 1888; but

What I claim herein is 1. The combination, with two pairs of parallel endless belts having a space between them and shafts and pulleys for carrying-the same, each pairof said belts having its faces perpendicular to the faces of the other pair, of closed boxes which surround the adjacent runs of said belts for the reception of a cooling or heating fluid and the circulation of said fluid at the backs of said belts, substantially as and for the purpose herein set forth.

2. The combination, with parallel perforated belts having aspace between them and shafts and pulleys for carrying the same, of separate boxes arranged within each of the said belts close to the box of the adjacent series thereof, those sides of the said boxes next their respective belts having faces extending across the whole width and length of the parts of the belts between them to support those parts of the belts, butbeing perforated for the circulation through them and through said belts and said spaces from one box to another of the purifying, clarifying, or drying liquid, substantially as herein set forth.

The combination, with the pair of parallel imperforate belts C C and pulleys for carrying the same, the pair of parallel perforated belts 11 ll and pulleys for carrying the same, arranged in advance of the imperforated belts, of the pairof belts E E, arranged perpendicularly to the two pairs of belts G G and II ll and combining with each of said pairs 0 Cand If H to form a four-sided channel, pulleys forcarrying the said belts E E, closed boxes F F, arranged at the backs of said belts O O for the circulation of a cooling-fluid, and perforated boxes, as I l J J K K L L M M, arranged at the backs of IIO haust apparatus communicating with the interiors of such sectors through the hollow axles of said pulleys, substantially as herein described.

In testimony whereof I have signed this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

' LOUIS EDME ACHILLE PRANGEY.

Witnesses:

LoUIs GENET, ALoIDE FABER.

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