Hydraulic and earth engineering – Drainage or irrigation – Branched flow
Reexamination Certificate
2000-11-17
2003-09-09
Lee, Jong-Suk (James) (Department: 3673)
Hydraulic and earth engineering
Drainage or irrigation
Branched flow
C405S052000, C405S036000, C405S037000, C210S167050, C210S170050, C210S747300, C137S236100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06616375
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION AND PRIOR ART
The present invention relates to an arrangement in a drain system, said drain system having a first system section located in a building and adapted to receive drain media from one or a plurality of units as well as a second system section having a main drain conduit in common to a plurality of buildings provided with a first system section and adapted to conduct drain media to one or a plurality of devices for taking care thereof, as well as a method.
Drain media is preferably constituted by drain water, in which said units may be toilets, draining gutters, sinks, wash-hand basins, dishwashers, washing machines and the like, but any other type of drain media is also comprised, and it would for example be possible to transport organic domestic wastes ground into a finally divided form in such a drain system.
However, arrangements and methods of this type already known only transport drain water from the buildings, and a main disadvantage of this prior art is that it is necessary to think far ahead into the future when planning a settlement and try to predict each conceivable expansion of the settlement so that future settlement or buildings may be connected to the same drain system, i.e., to the same main drain conduit. The reason for this is that all the drain water in such arrangements already known has to flow in one direction in the main drain conduit and deeper and deeper into the ground should not the ground profile be inclined in the direction of the main drain conduit. Thus, it is not possible to connect new buildings located on a comparatively low level with respect to other buildings connected to the drain system at a later stage, would not this have been planned from the beginning by digging and locating the main drain conduit sufficiently deep for enabling flowing of drain water from the new settlement to the main drain conduit. Besides the disadvantage that separate drain systems may be necessary for additional settlements, the result of said planning for the future desired is that the entire drain system will be strongly over-dimensioned until the erection of buildings has been “finished”, which may well take tens of years. This means of course a bad utilizing of the investment in the drain system.
Another disadvantage is, as indicated above, that it will be necessary to put the main drain conduit comparatively deep into the ground at certain locations so as to be able to utilize the gravitation in the way desired, which results in very high costs for digging to put the conduits down and also in later problems with tubing fractures and ground water influence as a consequence of the deep localization of the conduits.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement and a method of the type defined in the introduction, through which the disadvantages mentioned above of such arrangements and methods already known are reduced to a large extent.
This object is according to the invention obtained by designing the main drain conduit of an arrangement of the type defined in the introduction as a closed ring conduit, pump members are arranged to pump drain media emanating from said first system section to and into the ring conduit for transport therein through pumping action, said devices are connected to the ring conduit through a branch each, and valve members are arranged in each connection to the ring conduit and optionally controllable so as to either open so as to allow pumping of drain media into the ring conduit in the case of a feed connection and so as to allow drainage of drain media from the ring conduit in the case of a device connection or close so as to not allow the drain media there to flow into or out of the ring conduit, as well as a method.
By designing the main drain conduit as a closed ring conduit and carrying out the transport of drain media therein through pumping action, the drain media may move in any direction in the main drain conduit. Thus, no height of fall is required along the main drain conduit between the places where drain media is intended to enter into the main drain conduit and the places in which it goes out thereof to said devices, such as purifying plants, but the places last mentioned may even be located on a higher level than those first mentioned. This means in its turn that the ring conduit may be put at a desired depth under the ground surface, for example in the order of 0.5 m, everywhere, so that the tubings may be put into the ground to a low cost. It will of course be considerably less costly than before to dig and reveal the tubings, would this against the expectations be necessary at any time in the future. It is in this way also possible to avoid problems of influence of ground water on the tubing and the environment thereof. Furthermore, it will be very easy to connect new buildings or settlements at a later stage to the main drain conduit, since there is no requirement that the conduits emanating therefrom and leading to the ring conduit have a height of fall with respect to the ring conduit. Another advantage of producing transport of drain media through pumping is that the dimensions of the tubings of the ring conduit may be made considerably smaller than the conventional main drain conduits, since filled conduits are utilized, which of course also results in a saving of costs with respect to the cost for the tubings and for digging and putting them into the ground.
According to a preferred embodiment of the invention said first system section has at least one container for collecting drain media received from said units so as to enable pumping of drain media out from the respective container to the main drain conduit through the pump members at time intervals. It will in this way be possible to utilize the volume of the main drain conduit to an optimum and let for example a certain group, such as a block, of buildings pump out water collected in said container during a certain period of time, for example one day or half a day, during a predetermined period of time into the main drain conduit, such as for example during three hours of the day, while the main drain conduit may be reserved for other groups of buildings during other parts of the day.
According to another preferred embodiment of the invention, which constitutes a further development of the preceding one, pump members are connected to different feed connections to the main drain conduit from different buildings or groups of buildings controllable to pump out drain media into the ring conduit during different periods of time of the day. By such a so called sequence pumping peaks of load on the ring conduit, such as in the morning and in the evening, are avoided and the ring conduit has not to be dimensioned for such peaks, but it may be given a comparatively small dimension by utilizing thereof to an optimum by distributing the load over different periods of time of the day.
According to another preferred embodiment of the invention the arrangement has at least one collecting conduit for drain media in common to a group of buildings and the first system section there of for a connection of the building of the group of buildings in common to the ring conduit, and the conduit is formed by a closed sub-ring conduit having a branch leading to the main drain conduit. Drain water from the different buildings of one or a plurality of blocks may by such a sub-ring conduit be efficiently absorbed.
According to another preferred embodiment of the invention the different buildings in said group of buildings have conduit connections to a place in common located on a low level for transport of drain media to said place through the influence of the gravitation, and a pump member in common is arranged in this place to pump drain media out through said feed conduit in question to the ring conduit. The number of pump members required for bringing drain media out into and transport it in the ring conduit may by this be considerably reduced. It may also be an advantage that traditional drain con
Dilworth & Barrese LLP
Lee Jong-Suk (James)
LandOfFree
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