Imperforate bowl: centrifugal separators – Rotatable bowl – Driven by energy of material supplied
Patent
1998-06-09
2000-08-01
Cooley, Charles E.
Imperforate bowl: centrifugal separators
Rotatable bowl
Driven by energy of material supplied
494 83, B04B 906
Patent
active
060959649
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND
This invention relates to centrifugal separators of the self-powered kind for separating particulate contaminants from a liquid, such as a vehicle engine lubricant, within a containment rotor to which contaminated liquid is supplied at elevated pressure, and particularly, but not exclusively, relates to low-cost disposable rotors for use with passenger automobile engines.
Self-powered centrifugal separators are well known for separating fluids of different densities or for separating particulate matter from liquids and have long been used in lubrication systems for engines and analogous items of vehicles. Such devices are described in, for example, GB 735658, GB 757538, GB 2160796, or GB 2283694.
The common principle of operation is that a housing contains a rotor which is supported therein to spin at high speed about a substantially vertical axis. The rotor comprises a container to which contaminated liquid lubricant is supplied at elevated pressure along the axis of rotation at one end of the rotor and is ejected from tangentially directed reaction jet nozzles at the other end of the rotor into the housing from which it drains to the engine sump. The energy lost by the ejected liquid effects rotation of the rotor about the axis at a speed, in excess of 8,000 rpm, fast enough for the liquid circulating in, and passing through, the rotor to deposit solid contaminants on radially outward surfaces. For efficient separation, and to ensure that separated contaminants do not interfere with the reaction jet nozzles, the rotor container is provided with a radially inwardly extending partition wall that effectively divides the rotor into a separation chamber, in which the solids collect, and an outflow chamber, to which the cleaned liquid passes by way of a transfer aperture sited near the rotation axis. It is common in modern designs, such as, EP 0193000 and GB 2283694, for this partition wall to extend both radially and axially as what is sometimes referred to as a separation cone, which better holds solids and liquid-containing sludge within the separation chamber if the rotation axis is tilted from the vertical.
There are several criteria associated with successful operation. Lubricant supplied to the rotor has to be available at a significant pressure if the energy lost by its passage through the reaction jet nozzles is to be sufficient to rotate the rotor fast enough to effect centrifugal separation of said contaminated particles. Also, of course, the lubricant passed through the centrifugal separator loses substantially all of its energy in effecting rotation by jet reaction, that is, it is returned directly to the sump and by-passes the normal lubrication utilisation circuits of the engine, so that the centrifugal separator operates in a so-called lubricant by-pass mode. Consequently, there is normally incorporated in the lubricant supply system a pressure responsive valve which inhibits the flow of lubricant to the centrifugal separator when the supply pressure is below a predetermined level at which the engine might be starved of lubricant if any were diverted and at which the rotor would not operate efficiently even if supplied.
Such a centrifugal separator is normally associated with a conventional full-flow, or through-flow, filter (although the small particle separation capabilities of the centrifugal separator enables a rather coarser mesh filter to be used than otherwise) and it is often arranged that both filter and separator are mounted on a specially designed interface which includes supply ducts and pressure responsive flow control valves, for example as shown in GB 2160449 and GB 2160796.
Diesel engines are particularly well suited to this form of lubricant cleaning, because of problems of small, light particles in the lubricant that result from combustion products and the generally longer intervals between servicing operation than has been normal with gasoline engines. Thus the combination of a coarse mesh, full-flow filter and centrifugal separator is particularly suited to opera
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Cooley Charles E.
The Glacier Metal Company Limited
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