Fluid handling – With cleaner – lubrication added to fluid or liquid sealing... – Cleaning or steam sterilizing
Patent
1984-07-30
1986-10-21
Walton, George L.
Fluid handling
With cleaner, lubrication added to fluid or liquid sealing...
Cleaning or steam sterilizing
137312, 13761417, 13761418, 13761419, B08B 902, F16K 5100, F16K 144
Patent
active
046179550
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a switch valve for fluids, with the switch valve including a valve chamber having an inlet, outlet or throughlet chamber having, in a wall portion thereof, a valve seat opening communicating with a branch conduit, and a valve head for opening and closing the valve seat opening by a respective displacement movement away from or towards the valve seat opening, and with the valve head being connected with a guiding or driving rod member axially reciprocal through a sealed opening in an opposite wall portion of the valve chamber, such that the rod member traverses the valve chamber and is thus exposed to the fluid therein.
Valves of the aforementioned type are used extensively in the chemical industry, in dairies, and other undertakings handling consumable liquids. The switch valves are useable, for example, for causing a battery of liquid tanks to be selectively connectable with a plurality of pipes connected with various liquid sources or receivers, such that, for example, at one time, some tanks are being filled with one liquid while others are being emptied for the same or another liquid, while still other tanks are being cleansed by a cleaning liquid.
With the use of the aforementioned switch valves, the tanks of a tank battery may be connected with the various liquid sources or receivers through a relatively low number of pipes and valves, but it is an associated condition that the switch valves are extremely effective with respect to the required separation between different liquids as passing through the respective valve chambers when the valve connection therebetween is closed.
In the handling of many chemical and consumable liquids it is even important that the switch valves by the very switch operation thereof do not give rise to any significant supply of "rest liquid" from the former operation to the new liquid flow conditions of the valve, and it is particularly important that a valve having connected a tank with a cleansing medium does not, by the switching thereof, cause any significant amount of cleansing liquid to be mixed into the new liquid to be supplied to the tank.
Similarly it is generally important that the switch over of a valve gives rise to the smallest possible contamination of the new liquid as now flowing through the valve, even upon a flow-through cleansing of the valve chamber, whereby "contamination" refers to both chemical and bacteriological contamination.
It is a primary purpose of the invention to provide a valve of the type referred to, which, in the switch over situation, is particularly non-contaminating to the liquid.
In accordance with advantageous features of the present invention, a stationary bushing is arranged closely outside of the sealed opening around the rod member, with the stationary bushing having an interior annular recess opening inwardly toward an outer surface of the rod member and communicating with the channel means for supplying the recess with a medium such as a cleansing or sterilizing medium. The annular recess has an axial length at least approximately corresponding to the valve head displacement between the open and closed positions thereof. The invention is based on the recognition that a possible source of contamination in the switch over situations is the surface of the control or guiding rod of the valve head, because such rods are reciprocated between positions inside and outside the valve chambers, whereby each rod will be reintroduced into its valve chamber still carrying on its surface a certain rest of the liquid as was present in the chamber when the rod was previously retracted therefrom. In the meantime the same surface material may well have been pronounced contaminated by bacteriological reactions outside the valve chamber. It will be appreciated, however, that such contamination is now practically avoidable, because the rods as retracted from the valve chambers may be washed or sterilized by means of a suitable fluid as supplied to the said recesses about the rods.
The invention almost naturally co
REFERENCES:
patent: 4304251 (1981-12-01), Schadel et al.
patent: 4368753 (1983-01-01), Brakelmann et al.
patent: 4373545 (1983-02-01), Knappe
patent: 4436106 (1984-03-01), Tuchenhagen et al.
patent: 4460014 (1984-07-01), Mases et al.
patent: 4461318 (1984-07-01), Brakelmann
BM Digiflow A/S
Walton George L.
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