WO2004003450A1

WO2004003450A1 - Device and system for cooling water in industrial workings

Info

Publication number: WO2004003450A1
Application number: PCT/IT2002/000422
Authority: WO
Inventors: Giovanni Neirotti
Original assignee: Giovanni Neirotti
Priority date: 2002-06-26
Filing date: 2002-06-26
Publication date: 2004-01-08
Also published as: AU2002317494A1; EP1529190A1

Abstract

A device (1) and a system (13) are disclosed for cooling water (2) in industrial workings. The device (1) comprises: one support body (3); one return duct (5) for the cooled water (2) placed inside the body (3) in order to obtain between them a cooling chamber (7) that is connected both to the return duct (5) of the cooled water (2) and to an inlet (8) for a cooling fluid (air); and nebulising means (9) of the not water (2) adapted to provide nebulised hot water (2) in the cooling chamber (7).

Description

DEVICE AND SYSTEM FOR COOLING WATER IN INDUSTRIAL WORKINGS

The present invention refers to a device and a system for cooling water in various types of industrial workings.

The application of cooling circuits in industrial workings needs a system for continuously providing cold water.

A first solution to this problem is nowadays obtained by directly using water coming from the public water network, but this implies useless wastes and ecologic problems.

A more frequently employed alternative is the use of a real refrigerator, which provides the chance of always re-using the same water in a loop, getting to a temperature decrease down to 18 °C. Such solution, though efficient for the purposes for which it was devised, it is obviously very costly and rather unfeasible for applications requiring a water cooling even only equal to 25 °C.

Therefore, nowadays, for industrial applications such as oleodynamic units or other oleodynamic circuits, dies, parts in contact with hot dies, shooting heads for machines for rubber or plastics, and the like, no cooling solutions are available that are simple, efficient and at low cost .

Object of the present invention is solving the above prior-art problems by providing a cooling device and system that can be simply realised, have an efficient cooling action and a reduced cost, since they allow the water cooling through a direct exchange between cooling fluid (for example air) and water.

The above and other objects and advantages of the invention, as will appear from the following description, are obtained by a water cooling device and system as claimed in Claims 1 and 6. Preferred embodiments and non-trivial variations of the present invention are claimed in the dependent Claims .

The present invention will be better described by some preferred embodiments thereof, given as a non-limiting example, with reference to the enclosed drawings, in which:

- Figure 1 is a schematic side sectional view of a preferred embodiment of the device of the invention; and

Figure 2 is a schematic side view of a preferred embodiment of the system of the invention.

With reference to Fig. 1, a non-limiting example of an embodiment of the device 1 for cooling water 2 in industrial workings according to the present invention is shown. Such device 1 is substantially composed of at least one support body 3 and of at least one return duct 5 for the cooled water 2: such duct 5 is placed inside the support body 3 in order to obtain a cooling chamber 7 in the space between the external support body 3 and the internal duct 5; the cooling chamber 7 is placed inside the support body 3 and is connected on one side to the return duct 5 of the cooled water 2 and on another side to an inlet 8 for the cooling fluid.

The device 1 of the invention further comprises nebulising means 9 of the hot water 2 adapted to provide nebulised hot water 2 in the cooling chamber 7, in order to allow water 2 to be cooled when it gets in contact with the cooling fluid, that is commonly composed of air pushed inside the cooling chamber 7 by venting means 18 that will be described below.

In the embodiment shown, the nebulising means 9 are composed of at least one spiral-shaped pipe wound around the return duct 5 for water 2, in order to provide the longest path possible in which water 2 to be cooled must pass. The pipe 9 is equipped on its surface with a plurality of small holes adapted to allow nebulised hot water 2 to be ejected into the cooling chamber 7, as can be seend in Fig. 1.

Alternatively, numerous variations could be provided for the nebulising means 9, such as for example a common nebuliser for sprinkling (not shown) or the like.

Moreover, in order to realise as wide a cooling chamber 7 as possible and in parallel optimum cooling paths for the water 2, as shown in Fig. 1, the support body 3 can be made in a vertical elongated shape, even if, also in this case, many variations are possible, such as for example an horizontal body or a vertically downwards squashed body whose diameter is greater than the one of the body 3 shown. Also the substantially cylindrical shape is obviously a non-limiting example. With the above-described device 1, it is possible to realise, as schematically shown in Fig. 2, a system 13 for cooling water 2 in industrial workings (therefore connected to machines and systems (not shown) that need cooled water 2), in which such system 13 obviously comprises the device 1 of the invention and further comprises at least one tank 15 for collecting cooled water 2 connected to the cooling device 1. Moreover, the system 13 comprises pumping means 16 (for example a common pump with related cock) for the cold water 2 delivered from the collecting tank 15 to downstream systems that need such water 2.

Venting means 18 are further provided, connected to the collecting tank 15: such venting means 18 are adapted, on one hand, to create a vacuum into the collecting tank 15 and are adapted, on the other hand, to push the cooling fluid (air) into the cooling device 1 (through its inlet 8 connection with the tank 15) and are further adapted to push cooled water 2 both inside the cooling chamber 7 and outside the cooling device 1, having the necessary force to collect the cooled water 2 from the chamber 7 and to push it into the duct 5 that is also opened to the tank 15. Inlet means 11 are further provided for the hot water 2, coming from the working systems upstream, into the cooling device 1, in addition to supplying means 20 of further cold water 2 connected to the collecting tank 15 for filling-in/topping-up water 2 into the tank 15 when a level indicator 22 signals that such operation is necessary.

Finally, command and control means 24 of the system 13 are provided, such as for example in the form of an electric panel.

Obviously, as will be immediately evident to the skilled people in the art, the device and system of the present invention can be realised in very different shapes and arrangements or parts. The characteristic of the invention is that it allows suitably nebulising and/or fragmenting, with one or more adequate holes or nozzles, the main hot water jet in a vented chamber. Moreover, air and water flows must be as much as possible opposed, to realise an optimum cooling (that can go up to 40 °C of decrease of the water temperature) . With the above-described arrangement, vortex movements (that can be suitable adjusted) are created in the chamber 7 that allow extracting hot vapours, while the now cold water (that contacted the air entered along the direction of arrows A, A' in Fig. 1 into the chamber 7, and that was pushed by the same air along the direction of arrows B, B' to enter in turn into the duct 5) falls due to its own weight (along the direction of arrows C, C in Fig. 1) in the collecting tank 15, ready to be re-used in the system (not shown) to be cooled. It will further be possible to recover the condensate values in order to avoid toppings-up of water 2 into the tank 15.

The device 1 and system 13 of the present invention can obviously be employed in any type of industrial working that requires a temperature lowering of working water (or other liquids) to about 25 °C, such as, for example, but not in a limiting way, industrial applications like oleodynamic units or other oleodynamic circuits, dies, parts in contact with hot dies, shooting heads for machines for rubber or plastics, and the like .

Claims

1. Device (1) for cooling water (2) in industrial workings, characterised in that it is composed of: at least one support body (3);

at least one return duct (5) for the cooled water (2) , said duct (5) being placed inside said support body (3) in order to obtain a cooling chamber (7) in a space between said external support body (3) and said internal duct (5), said cooling chamber (7) being placed inside said support body (3) and being connected on one side to said return duct (5) of the cooled water (2) and on another side to an inlet (8) for a cooling fluid; and nebulising means (9) of the hot water (2) adapted to provide nebulised hot water (2) in said cooling chamber (7).

2. Device (1) according to Claim 1, characterised in that said cooling fluid is air.

3. Device (1) according to Claim 1, characterised in that said nebulising means (9) are composed of at least one spiral-shaped pipe wound around said return duct (5) for water (2), said pipe (9) being equipped on its surface with a plurality of small holes adapted to allow nebulised hot water (2) to be ejected into the cooling chamber (7).

4. Device (1) according to Claim 1, characterised in that said nebulising means (9) are composed of a nebuliser.

5. Device (1) according to Claim 1, characterised in that said support body (3) is of a vertical elongated shape to allow water (2) to move along a sufficient cooling path.

6. System (13) for cooling water (2) in industrial workings, characterised in that it comprises: at least one cooling device (1) according to any one of the previous claims; at least one tank (15) for collecting cooled water (2) connected to said cooling device (1);

pumping means (16) for the cold water (2) delivered from said collecting tank (15) to downstream users; venting means (18) connected to said collecting tank (15), said venting means (18) being adapted to create a vacuum into said collecting tank (15) and being adapted to push a cooling fluid in said cooling device (1) and being further adapted to push cooled water (2) outside of said cooling device (1); and inlet means (11) of the hot water (2) into said cooling device (1) .

7. System (13) according to Claim 6, characterised in that it further comprises supplying means (20) of the cold water (2) connected to said collecting tank (15) for filling-in/topping-up water (2) into said tank (15) when a level indicator (22) signals that such operation is necessary.

8. System (13) according to Claim 6, characterised in that it further comprises command and control means (24) of the system (13).

9. System (13) according to Claim 8, characterised in that said command and control means (24) are composed of an electric panel.

10. System (13) according to Claim 6, characterised in that said cooling fluid is air.