Handling: hand and hoist-line implements – Hoistable receptacle – With discharge or loading means
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-16
2002-10-01
Walsh, Donald P. (Department: 3753)
Handling: hand and hoist-line implements
Hoistable receptacle
With discharge or loading means
C073S864630, C137S533210, C251S333000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06457760
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates, generally, to bailers. More particularly, it relates to a bailer that has a valve support and aligner assembly that is snapped into place at a lowermost end of the bailer. It also relates to a bailer having improved means for high speed insertion and improved means for preventing leakage.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Bailers are elongate cylindrical tubes that are lowered into container-held liquid fluids, natural bodies of water, and the like for the purpose of taking a sample of the liquid fluid so that laboratory tests can be performed thereon.
In the industry standard bailer, a free-floating ball valve at the lower end of the bailer unseats from its valve seat when the bailer is lowered into a liquid fluid, i.e., as liquid fluid flows upwardly into the hollow interior of the bailer. The ball valve sinks into seating relation to its valve seat when the liquid fluid stops flowing into the bailer. When properly seated, the ball valve should substantially prevent leakage of the liquid fluid from the hollow interior of the bailer.
In practice, however, the ball valve sometimes leaks profusely. The clothing of the person carrying the bailer to a vehicle that will transport the collected sample to a lab often gets wet as the liquid fluid within the bailer leaks past the ball valve. If the liquid fluid is an acid or other irritant, the leakage is more than a mere nuisance. Even if the liquid fluid is just water, the loss of sample is undesirable.
The seat for the ball valve is an annular step formed on an interior surface of a frusto-conical wall that provides a taper that interconnects the main body of the bailer with a reduced diameter downspout at the lowermost end thereof. A single grain of sand on the annular step can defeat proper seating of the ball valve. Sand particles and other particulate matter are commonly found in the liquid fluids that are collected by bailers in the field.
Moreover, leakage can occur due to manufacturing imperfections that cause the seating to be less than perfect, even when no particulate matter is present.
Since the ball valve is free-floating, it rises upwardly within the bailer as liquid fluid enters the bailer, there being no restriction that keeps the ball valve from such upward travel. After the upward flow of liquid fluid has ceased upon filling of the bailer, it takes several seconds or more for the ball valve to sink back to its valve seat at the lower end of the bailer. The ball valve sinks in water because its specific gravity is one or greater.
Thus, there are two time periods where the user of the bailer has to wait. First, the user must wait while the bailer sinks into the water or other liquid fluid and fills itself. Next, the user must wait for the free-floating ball valve to sink so that it returns to its seat. These waiting periods add up to a considerable amount of time when many samples are being taken. If the samples are being taken in hostile climates, such as polar regions, then the waiting periods are even more undesireable.
An improved bailer, more fully disclosed in the first incorporated disclosure, includes a valve seat in the form of an annular concavity formed in an interior surface of a lower part of the bailer. The lower part includes frusto-conical sidewalls. The annular concavity is configured to substantially match an exterior surface of a hemispherical valve body so that substantially no leakage of liquid fluid from the hollow interior of the bailer occurs when the hemispherical valve body is seated in the annular concavity.
The means for supporting and aligning the valve body in the first incorporated disclosure includes a spider positioned in the lower part of the bailer. The spider structure includes a plurality of legs of equal length that radiate from a hub at the center of the structure. The respective radially outermost ends of the legs are riveted or adhered to the inner sidewall of the bailer.
A central aperture is formed in the hub for slideably receiving a valve stem from which the valve body depends. In this way, the valve stem is coincident with the longitudinal axis of symmetry of the bailer, ensuring that the valve body is in proper alignment with its valve seat. The spider also limits upward travel, i.e., travel of the valve body away from the valve seat, so that the time required for the valve body to return to the valve seat is reduced.
The bailer of the first incorporated disclosure includes no means for positively locating the spider during assembly of the bailer. Instead, the assembler positions the spider in what appears to be an operable position, and secures the spider into said position by using an adhesive, rivets, or other fastening means.
The bailer of the first incorporated disclosure also includes no means for overcoming jamming problems caused by particulate entry into the central aperture formed in the hub of the spider. As a result, the valve stem may become stuck in its fully open or closed position, or any position therebetween, rendering the bailer inoperable, when sand or the like becomes wedged between a wall defining the periphery of the central aperture and the valve stem.
Nor is the spider member of the first incorporated disclosure designed to conserve materials or to speed the seating of the valve body after a sample has been taken.
The bailer of the second incorporated disclosure includes weighted members mounted to the leading and trailing ends of the bailer on an exterior surface thereof. These externally-mounted weights do not cause turbulence in the fluid being sampled as do internally-mounted weights. However, the weights are quite expensive and although they provide very fast insertion, they do not present an aerodynamic contour and thus their insertion speed is less than optimal.
It was not obvious to those of ordinary skill in this art how an improved means for positively positioning the spider and hence the valve body within the bailer could be provided, in view of the art considered as a whole at the time the present invention was made. Nor was it obvious how to overcome the jamming problem associated with particulate entry into the central aperture of the spider hub, or how to construct the spider in a way that would conserve materials. Moreover, it was not obvious how the cost of weighted bailers could be decreased and it was also not obvious how the bailer insertion speed and valve body seating speed could be increased.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The long-standing but heretofore unfulfilled need for an innovation that overcomes the limitations of the prior art is now met by a new, useful, and non-obvious invention. The present invention includes a substantially leak-free valve assembly for admitting liquid fluid into the hollow interior of a bailer as the bailer is lowered into a liquid fluid and for retaining liquid fluid within the hollow interior when the bailer is lifted from the liquid fluid. The novel assembly also provides externally-mounted inexpensive weights that are covered by an aerodynamically designed shroud to maximize insertion speed. In another embodiment, a weight housing, like the spider, can be snapped into position or otherwise attached to the leading end of the bailer.
The bailer is of the type that has an elongate cylindrical main body and a preferably separately-formed lower part or valve housing that is press fit or otherwise secured to the elongate cylindrical main body at its lowermost end. The valve housing has three parts that are integrally formed with one another. The first part is formed by cylindrical sidewalls and includes an annular shoulder formed on an external surface thereof that abuttingly engages the lowermost end of the elongate cylindrical main body of the bailer. The second part depends from the first and is formed by diameter-reducing frusto-conical sidewalls. The third part depends from the reduced diameter end of the second part and is formed by cylindrical sidewalls that form a downspout.
A valve support and alignment means in the
Chin Paul T.
Smith Ronald E.
Smith & Hopen , PA
Walsh Donald P.
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