Fluid handling – Systems – System with plural openings – one a gas vent or access opening
Patent
1993-11-22
1996-07-23
Michalsky, Gerald A.
Fluid handling
Systems
System with plural openings, one a gas vent or access opening
52192, 285154, F16K 2400
Patent
active
055380387
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention deals broadly with the subject of food processing where liquid or solid food particles (which behave as fluids) need to be stored in sealed sanitary vertical towers commonly called sanitary silos.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a siphon venting or vacuum breaking device to prevent the collapse of a silo's dome when a sanitary silo is overfilled and then is rapidly drained by an overflow pipe causing a vacuum therein.
Even more specifically, this new invention pertains to a branched tubular fitting with a confluence region between a passageway for the effluent discharge from a silo and a single sanitary air intake pipe for introduction of sanitary air into the suctional discharge in the overflow pipe thereby reducing the vacuum in the silo's dome while preserving the sanitary environment in the silo.
The present invention has no moving parts nor valves and utilizes only the basic principles of fluid mechanics and the art of plumbing for its operation.
BACKGROUND ART
Silos used in processing foods for human consumption are usually thought of as enclosed cylindrical towers for preventing air and moisture from passing in or out of the food stored therein, and in sanitary silos, which are commonly filled from their bottoms, there is often a problem of overfilling the silos causing their rupture.
In an attempt to remedy this problem, an overflow pipe is often installed vertically between the dome of the silo and a sanitary enclosure at the silo's base thereby providing a passageway for discharging the overfilled portion of the silo's content while preserving the silo's sanitary environment by preventing unclean matter from entering the silo through the outlet end of the overflow pipe.
However, because sanitary silos and their vertical overflow pipes often extend nearly 80 feet high, the internal forces exerted by several hundred tons of fluids contained therein are extremely great, especially when the silo is overfilled and the overfilled portion of the fluid enters the inlet end of the overflow pipe and begins its long decent down said pipe to its outlet end thereby initiating the siphonal discharge of the overfilled portion in the silo.
Although the principle of a siphon is well known, it shall briefly be repeated here as it relates to the present problem with sanitary silos.
It has long been known that the surfaces of two fluids will always attempt to attain the same level provided that there is a common connection between them. If, for example, the surface of one fluid is higher than another, a siphonal discharge of the higher fluid to the lower may be accomplished through a tubular conduit called a siphon. Because the pressure of the fluid at the higher end of the siphon tube is greater than the pressure at the lower end of the siphon tube, fluid will be pulled down the siphon tube by gravity until the pressure at both ends of the siphon tube are equal as demonstrated when the surfaces of both fluid levels are at the same height and therefore both sides of the siphon tube contain the same weight of fluid causing the siphon to stop.
In sanitary silos, however, there is usually only one essentially vertical overflow pipe with its inlet end entering the silo a few feet below the silo's dome which allows a headspace of sanitary atmospheric pressure above food normally stored therein. But when the silo is overfilled the atmosphere in the headspace is quickly replaced with fluid until the overflow pipe can remove it. Once the overflow pipe is full of effluent discharge from the dome there is established the required common connection between the greater pressure at the inlet end and lesser pressure at the outlet end resulting in a downward suctional acceleration of the overfilled portion thereby causing a vacuum in the head-space of the silo's dome.
One logical solution to the problem of suctional discharge in the overflow pipe would appear to be installation of some sort of siphon venting or vacuum breaking device on either the overflow pipe or in the silo'
REFERENCES:
patent: 770539 (1904-09-01), Ryan
patent: 788803 (1905-05-01), Walker
patent: 817094 (1906-04-01), Ryan
patent: 1661202 (1928-03-01), Thayer
patent: 2312659 (1943-03-01), Luff
patent: 3086543 (1963-04-01), McAuley
patent: 3374726 (1968-03-01), Takayanagi
Boytim Mark
Snoke Eric G.
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