Liquid purification or separation – Flow – fluid pressure or material level – responsive – Float
Patent
1996-01-05
1997-07-15
Upton, Christopher
Liquid purification or separation
Flow, fluid pressure or material level, responsive
Float
210170, 2102423, 210923, E02B 1504
Patent
active
056479751
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for recovering pollutants spilled on the water or on the ground, as for example hydrocarbons in the sea or on the beaches.
2. Discussion of Background
To recover pollutants only on water, the document EP-A-0 005 411 describes a device whose characteristic is to separate decantation vats carried by a boat from an apparatus called a "skimming apparatus."
Such a skimming apparatus comprises a compartment with a weir adapted to receive the matter to be recovered and an emptying system of said compartment, while the weir forms or comprises at least one clean float at least partially immersed in the recovery compartment, said weir already being known and referred to as "floating weir."
When the skimming apparatus has substantial dimensions, or if the latter is affixed to a support of the storage tank, of the boat or barge type, for example, which is absolutely necessary if the emptying device is of the paddle belt type, such an apparatus is not very sensitive to the agitations or waves (such as swell or lap) of the water plane, which is a major disadvantage since there is then no consequent adaptation of the floating-weir.
FR-A-2,200,859 furthermore describes a device adapted to absorb the movement of the waves.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The inventer has designed an apparatus in which one of the objects is to maintain the weir of the recovery compartment at a substantially constant immersion level, regardless of the movements of the water plane.
To achieve this, the apparatus according to the invention, of the aforementioned floating-weir type, is notable in that the said weir is connected to at least one float borne by the exterior water plane to said compartment, in a manner to be sensitive both to the variations of level in the compartment and the relative movements of the exterior water plane.
Such an arrangement is not, indeed, known from the above mentioned devices.
The connection between the weir and the outside float is advantageously ensured by the means that enables a relative movement between said weir and outside float.
Preferably, the recovery compartment is demarcated by a weir that has the shape of a transverse float, a base, and lateral sides, said base and the weir being connected between them by a deformable partition.
Furthermore, an emptying system is known which comprises an inclined continuous belt, mounted endless between at least two drums, in which at least one is a motor, and bearing a plurality of transverse flexible paddles that are displaced in an adjusted manner in a tunnel formed of two vertical flat sides and an inclined base which is extended at its lower portion by the sides and a base demarcating the recovery compartment with the weir. The known systems of this type, from the fact that the paddles must enter the water perpendicular to the surface and that they generally comprise a projection in this area, require the said paddles to be mounted tangentially to the belt, which translates into a work and repeated bending of the paddles that wear out rapidly.
Yet, the invention makes it possible to design an apparatus equipped with such an emptying system but that is notable in that the recovery compartment reserves a space between the weir and the paddles such that the exterior edge of the said paddles can not touch the said weir, the paddles creating, at rest, an angle of about 90 degrees with the plane of the belt.
Furthermore, the floating pollutants, oil pollutants in particular, are, for the majority of time, concentrated on the beaches where they are driven ashore in substantial quantities and the existing apparatuses can not function when the depth is less than the draft and all the more so when the pollutants have run ashore on the ground, which then requires the use of special and often costly land equipment.
On the contrary, a device according to the invention, equipped with an emptying system of the aforementioned type, can permit this double function and to this end, an e
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