Filling valve

Details Filling valve Filling valve

1999-01-26

2001-02-13

Rivell, John (Department: 3753)

Valves and valve actuation

With material guide or restrictor

Movable or resilient guide or restrictor

C251S205000, C251S356000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06186470

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a filling valve for dispensing metered quantities of a flow of medium, comprising:
a valve housing with a flow passage which has an inlet and an outlet opening;
an actuable valve body which is accommodated in the flow passage, for opening and closing the outlet opening;
actuating means for moving the valve body to and fro between an open position and a closed position.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A filling valve of this nature is known from EP-A-0,480,346. This document shows a valve body which substantially comprises a rod which, at its end, merges into a drop-shaped head. The rod is provided with guide fins. The guide fins centre the valve body and furthermore serve to convert any turbulence in a flow of medium supplied into a laminar flow. To this end, the guide fins are of elongate design.
A drawback of this known filling valve is that the known filling valve has a relatively long travel between opening and closure. This reduces the filling accuracy, in particular as a result of the portion of additional medium which is forced out of the flow passage by the valve body during a closure movement. Furthermore, in order to ensure a laminar flow of medium the guide fins have to have a specific minimum length and large numbers of these fins have to be arranged around the rod. The guide fins have to meet high demands on accuracy, which makes them difficult to manufacture and therefore expensive. Moreover, the guide fins are fragile. Although the laminar flow of medium leaving the outlet opening of the filling valve is stable and unidirectional, it results in a relatively high impact force of the medium at a bottom of a container to be filled, which may lead to for example the forming of foam.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the invention is to eliminate the abovementioned drawbacks, and provide a filling valve having a relatively short travel between opening and closure, while a stable, unidirectional flow pattern with a substantially flat velocity profile (so called “plug flow”) of the medium leaving the filling valve in the open position is ensured, resulting in a minimum impact force of the medium at a bottom of a container to be filled.
This object is achieved according to the invention by means of a filling valve according to claim
1
. In this case, the valve body comprises a transitional part having a substantially circular cross-section and a pointed end part. The transition between the transitional part and the end part is smooth, and ensures that this transition does not generate further turbulence in the flow of medium. The downstream pointed end part ensures that the flow of medium leaves the filling valve as a stable, parallel, unidirectional flow with a substantially flat velocity profile (“plug flow”). The streamlined transition between the transitional part and the end part runs via a convexly curved part of the valve body and an adjoining concavely curved part of the valve body and transits into the pointed end part. Owing to this particular shape of the transition, in combination with the pointed end part, only a short travel of the valve body is required in order to open and close the filling valve. The short travel keeps the drop low and therefore increases the filling accuracy. The specific design of the filling valve, and in particular the convexly/concavely curved parts thereof, results in a stable unidirectional flow pattern with a substantially flat velocity profile of the medium leaving the filling valve. The flat velocity profile advantageously provides a minimum impact force of the medium at a bottom of a container to be filled, resulting in a minimum formation of foam and thus in short filling times.
In particular the transitional part of the valve body is a cylindrical part. The cylindrical transitional part of the valve body has the role of converting any turbulence in a flow of medium which enters the valve into a unidirectional flow.
More in particular, the wall of the flow passage, at least near the outlet opening thereof, is substantially of the same shape as the outer wall of the corresponding end part of the valve body. The flow passage in the valve housing also has a transitional part which merges into a curved outlet opening which is situated downstream. The fact that the head of the valve body becomes continuously narrower, together with the opposite curved wall parts of the outlet opening, ensures that it is possible to achieve a continuous flow acceleration of the flow of medium in the flow passage in the open position of the filling valve while retaining a stable, unidirectional flow profile. The flow acceleration reaches a maximum at the outlet opening in order to achieve a stable substantially flat velocity profile.
Preferred embodiments of the invention are defined in the subclaims.


REFERENCES:
patent: 654891 (1900-07-01), Haley
patent: 854641 (1907-05-01), Haley
patent: 2035202 (1936-03-01), Smith
patent: 3317184 (1967-05-01), Usry
patent: 4565210 (1986-01-01), Heine et al.
patent: 4688755 (1987-08-01), Pluviose
patent: 4707278 (1987-11-01), Breyer et al.
patent: 5368273 (1994-11-01), Dante
patent: 5464039 (1995-11-01), Bergamini
patent: 1201013 (1965-09-01), None
patent: 3233445 (1984-03-01), None
patent: 0 480 346 (1992-04-01), None
patent: 0 559 513 (1993-09-01), None
patent: 0138571 (1981-10-01), None

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