Fluid sprinkling – spraying – and diffusing – Processes – Of weather control or modification
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-11
2003-06-10
Evans, Robin O. (Department: 3752)
Fluid sprinkling, spraying, and diffusing
Processes
Of weather control or modification
C239S002100, C239S014100, C239S014200, C239SDIG002, C241SDIG014
Reexamination Certificate
active
06575381
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method used for an artificial skiing ground, for example, and particularly relates to an artificial snow producing and releasing apparatus for crushing flaky or platy pieces of ice produced by primary crushing into smaller snowflaky pieces of ice and releasing it far away, and the method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A prior artificial snow producing and releasing apparatus is an apparatus for producing artificial snow by crushing lumps of ice by means of a blast-type crusher such as an ice crusher into finer snow mingled with ice and releasing it.
An apparatus shown in
FIG. 7
, for example, has a structure in which a rotor blade
34
for crushing is provided inside a casing
33
provided on a base
36
and the rotor blade
34
is covered with the casing
33
. A supply port serving both as a blast port
30
from which a blast for blowing artificial snow
38
away is supplied and a supply port
31
from which lumps of ice which are raw materials are supplied is provided at one end on the base
36
at the lower end of the casing
33
, and a discharge port
32
from which the artificial snow
38
composed of crushed ice is blown away is provided at the other end on the base
36
at the lower end of the casing
33
on the opposite side to the supply port
31
. Lumps of ice
37
supplied together with a blast from the blast port
30
on the base on the right side of
FIG. 7
are beaten against the base
36
by the rotor blade
34
rotating at high speed in the casing
33
and crushed into snow mingled with ice to make the artificial snow
38
, and subsequently the artificial snow
38
is blown away to a skiing slope from the discharge port
32
by the blast and sprinkled over the slope.
In another type of blast-type crusher shown in
FIG. 8
, a supply port
41
from which lumps of ice are supplied and a blast port
40
from which a blast for delivery is supplied are provided at separate positions of a casing
43
of the blast-type crusher, and the supply port
41
for lumps of ice
47
is provided in the upper portion of the casing
43
. While the lumps of ice supplied from the supply port
41
are rotationally forwarded by a rotor blade
44
for crushing which rotates at high speed by means of a rotating shaft
45
, the lumps of ice are beaten and crushed by the rotor blade
44
and sent to the blast port
40
at the lower end of the casing, and further finely smashed against the base
46
by the rotor blade
44
into snow mingled with ice to make artificial snow
48
, and discharged from a discharge port
42
on the opposite side at the lower end of the casing
43
and blown away by a blast.
Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Shou 62-182567 discloses an apparatus for shaving the tip of a large lump of ice into with a rotary cutter crusher to produce artificial snow composed of snow mingled with ice while moving the lump of ice forward by a conveyor, sending the artificial snow to a rotary snow throwing machine with a built-in impeller at the back, delivering it into a cylinder by the rotation of the centrifugal impeller, and further adding air from an air jet port to the delivered artificial snow within the cylinder to throw the artificial snow from within the cylinder, or instead of providing the air jet port within the cylinder and adding air to throw the artificial snow from within the cylinder, sucking in air from the opposite side to an artificial snow suction port with the impeller as a double suction type centrifuge to throw the artificial snow from within the cylinder.
These prior blast-type crushers have the following disadvantages.
In the crusher shown in
FIG. 7
, unevenness occurs in the size of particles of ice crushed by the rotor blade
34
due to variation in the supply quantity of the lumps of ice
37
to be supplied to the casing
33
from the blast port
30
. Further, when the supply of the lumps of ice
37
is excessive, there is the possibility that a space between the blast port
30
and the discharge port
32
is blocked, and thus more power than necessary is required in order to rotate the rotor blade
34
at high speed.
In the blast-type crusher shown in
FIG. 8
, in addition to the disadvantage of the aforesaid blast-type crusher shown in
FIG. 7
, when the blast power at the blast port
40
is raised in order to release crushed ice far away, not all the blast power inside the casing
43
flows to the discharge port
42
, but part of the blast power also flows backward to the supply port
41
side and leaks out from the supply port
41
, and hence the blast power necessary for releasing the artificial snow
48
composed of crushed ice from the discharge port
42
reduces. As a result, the artificial snow
48
can not be released far away, thereby requiring still more power than necessary.
In the apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Shou 62-182567, the front face of the large lump of ice is shaved with the rotary cutter crusher to make artificial snow composed of snow mingled with ice while being moved forward by a conveyor. The apparatus, however, is extremely large-sized, and the producing capacity thereof is inferior in efficiency to that of the aforesaid apparatus in which the pieces of ice are beaten by the rotor blade and the base. The obtained artificial snow is supplied to the rotary snow throwing machine by sending the artificial snow flying by only mechanical force of the rotary cutter. Consequently, a large quantity of artificial snow can not be supplied, and therefore supply efficiency is low. Accordingly, even if the artificial snow is sent into a chute used for letting snow fall in the rotary snow throwing machine by centrifugal force of the impeller, air needs to be further jetted halfway in the chute. In the apparatus in which the double suction type rotary snow throwing machine is used in place of the aforesaid rotary snow throwing machine, air sucked into the double suction type rotary snow throwing machine from an opening on the opposite side to the side of the supply port for the artificial snow is sent into the chute, with the disadvantage that a large quantity of artificial snow can not be supplied by sending it flying with the rotary cutter left unsolved. Therefore, delivery power necessary for delivering the artificial snow and air into the chute needs to be given to the double suction type rotary snow throwing machine itself, which is a burden for the double suction type rotary snow throwing machine itself, thus requiring large increase in size of the machine. Consequently, there arises a disadvantage that the apparatus becomes still larger in size combined with the aforesaid increase in size of the rotary cutter crusher. Further, in the apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Shou 62-182567, the artificial snow composed of crushed ice to be supplied to the rotary snow throwing machine is not supplied while being sent by means of air from the beginning, whereby only the artificial snow touches the impeller of the rotary snow throwing machine. Alternatively, in the double suction type rotary snow throwing machine, a partition is provided in the impeller to separate the artificial snow and air so that the artificial snow and air do not abut on the same portion of the impeller. As a result, the artificial snow, that is, flaky pieces of ice adhere to a beating portion of the rotating impeller, which causes the impeller to lose its balance and increases the load. Under a worse situation, an excess current occurs in a drive motor, which requires the stop of operation. Especially, since the flaky piece of ice is scaly ice with a thickness of 2 mm to 3 mm and a size of 100 mm
2
and the surface area thereof is large, it has a property of being prone to adhere as compared with another block-shaped ice. Accordingly, hitherto there never exist any appropriate snow producing and throwing apparatus for which flaky pieces of ice are used.
Artificial snow produced and thrown by the prior apparatus is co
Evans Robin O.
Kabushiki Kaisha Piste Snow Industries
Omori & Yaguchi USA, LLC
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