Rotary kinetic fluid motors or pumps – Runner has spirally arranged blade or fluid passage – Extending along runner axis
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-08
2001-08-14
Ryznic, John E. (Department: 3745)
Rotary kinetic fluid motors or pumps
Runner has spirally arranged blade or fluid passage
Extending along runner axis
C074S459500
Reexamination Certificate
active
06273673
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Reciprocating apparatus in the form of positive displacement compressors or engines in which pistons move in cylinders are all worked in conditions of high friction between moving adjoined surfaces that require lubrication applied in environments of considerable heat. When used for the movement or compression of some gases, the oxidation of the lubrication is objectionable and contributes to the friction condition and the normal heat escalation of compression. This friction adds to the requirement for cooling the gas product that is compressed and to also increase the cooling requirement of the engine or compressor block itself.
In an opposite sense the fan-like turbine structures that employ blades and impellers moving in close proximity to a surrounding stator have no friction factor but are not positive in displacement and are operated at extremely high speeds to overcome the slip-bypass in the space between blade tips and the stator vanes. This usually involves the addition to the turbine shaft of an elaborate and precision gear train reduction system to bring speeds down to usable operational levels.
In many of the gas and pumping and refinery situations, line drive dependence is upon combustion engines as the prime movers for the pumping apparatus used. These waste as much as 75% of the energy input in expended heat energy that goes up the exhaust stack. Electrical prime movers are more efficient, but there is always a potential for a spark-generated explosion and, in the refinery atmospheres, corrosion problems, as well as explosion proofing, make these electrical drives high in capital cost and costly to maintain.
In each existing instance, there is a great heat loss in the compressor itself as well as the heat loss in the driving engines or motors, so efficiency is frequently as low as 40 percent. Much of the heat generated in compression is transferred to the gases being compressed, leading to substantial work and cost involved in ancillary cooling equipment required to bring down the temperature of the compressed product gas. An example is Natural Gas that, when recompressed for delivery in a pipeline, must be cooled to about 100 degrees F. before it can be put back in the line and the gas used in refinery processes, that require compression where heat input is critical, also require elaborate cooling means before return to the process.
The equipment associated with this invention involves less in capital investment because it is smaller and more simple in design and therefore it is more easy to maintain.
In refinery practice there is a requirement for the high pressure compression of hydrogen. When this is done with conventional compression techniques each of several compression steps must be followed by high output cooling apparatus that has a significant energy input and is again highly capital intensive.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The Nucleate Steam Bubble as a Bearing
This is a wet steam by-product normally associated with boiler tubes, but is also visible as the first indication of boiling in a tea kettle. This bubble can be generated in any boiler water or created from the water associated with gas combustion exhaust. It can also function as a lubricant for moving parts while exhibiting considerable pressure if confined in a small space. The nucleate bubble thus generated serves as supporting means between pistons and cylinders of a pump, compressor, engine or ball turbine rotor, and even for support of fully enclosed sealed rotating cylindrical forms that can turn on these bubbles without bearings or seals in a fully closed and sealed chamber.
Nucleate Bubble Propagation
Nucleate steam bubbles can be generated with the existence of any scratch of indentation on a metal surface, but a perforation or slit with steam driven through such an opening provides a more perfect formation. Bubbles occur around a perforated piston's outer surface and expand into the laminar space between the piston and cylinder to escape at the ends with a contribution to the propulsion force driving the piston. This propulsion happens when pressure is applied at the trailing end to help drive the piston. The steam or gas combustion pressure moves into large openings at one end of a shell/like piston and along wall porting and manifolds to exit from small diameter slits or perforations around the piston's surface. The steam escapes from these to form nucleate bubbles at each hole opening on the piston's surface. Each bubble exhibits very high pressure as the steam explosively expands in this finite dual temperature space between the cylinder wall and the piston's surface. If the piston's driving pressure is distributed efficiently inside the piston, and the bubble perforation orifice areas total less than the input area to the piston interior, this propulsion effect can be achieved successfully. The escape space area between the piston end and the cylinder wall would normally be the circumference of the piston multiplied by a few thousandths of an inch with the consequence that the velocity of steam escape expelled from the rear of the piston, as it moves forward, would normally be increased 25 to 50 times and provide this contribution to driving propulsion. The tendency is for the steam inside the laminar space to be drawn to the trailing end of the piston by the shear between the opposed moving surfaces of the piston and cylinder walls. This tends to minimize escape from the front end of the piston as it works against the compressible product. The compression driving pressure further inhibits nucleate bubble steam escape from the working piston end. This can be further reduced with mechanical means employing an expanding bellows configuration at the front end of the piston actuated by the driving pressure. This can reduce the laminar space between piston and cylinder at one end to as finite a dimension perhaps as little as one thousandths of an inch, thus limiting nucleate bubble steam escape in this one direction, while still maintaining a mechanical clearance.
Placing a slight taper of 5 to 8 degrees off the axis of the piston end and extending approximately ¼″ for each two inches of piston diameter provides a nozzle-like expansion area between the piston and the cylinder wall to help in controlling the expansion of this explosive high pressure bubble mass.
This bubble form also provides a pressure seal interfacing the compressed product and provides suspension for the piston as the bubbles expand explosively in the laminar space between the piston surface and cylinder wall. The bubbles, unlike other lubrication means, add a minute amount of water to the compressed product that can be ignored, or easily removed. There is no contamination from the oxidation of lubricants.
This nucleate bubble injection is not limited to the piston, for it can be used as a substitute for bearings as in the Rotating Valving Cylinder Wall, or like the piston, on the outer surface of the valve itself. Perforations are placed at the cylinder ends as well as around the periphery for this free running cylinder suspension that is accomplished without bearing or seals. In a like manner, nucleate bubbles are used for axial bearing support of the torus ring and rotor in the Toroidal Turbine of this invention.
Unlike conventional compression apparatus, the turbines of this invention employ Balls as a form of piston, as well as the Perforated Piston, in the reciprocating apparatus described in the method of this invention. When balls are used in this manner the Nucleate Bubble is generated with uniform scratching in the ball pathway or introduction through slits. A different pathway spacing gives room for the explosive bubble expansion providing support for the balls forcing them to roll against a portion of the enclosing surface as they are held away from the surfaces opposing their rotation.
Ball Projectiles Employed as Pistons
Balls used for this purpose are handled in a way that permits rolling rather than sliding in curving cylindrical-like con
Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz
Ryznic John E.
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