Refrigeration – Vacuumized chamber with open vapor or gas outlet
Reexamination Certificate
2000-04-11
2001-11-06
Capossela, Ronald (Department: 3744)
Refrigeration
Vacuumized chamber with open vapor or gas outlet
C062S434000, C062S515000, C165S168000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06311510
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the invention
This invention relates to a vapor condenser for use in a vacuum apparatus, and in particular, to some improvement of the vapor condenser especially developed by the present applicant before and mentioned in Japanese Patent Publication No. 58-12042 equivalent to U.S. Pat. No. 4,407,140 (hereinafter sometimes called the “prior invention”).
2. Description of the Prior Art
A vapor condenser (hereinafter sometimes called the “trap”) for use in a vacuum apparatus is widely used for the purpose of condensing and trapping the vapor of water and other solvent generated from the material to be treated within a vacuum chamber on a refrigerated surface. Thus, vacuum pressure in the vacuum chamber will be maintained at a desired value. This vapor condenser is constituting the essential part of the vacuum apparatus such as vacuum freeze drying apparatus, vacuum drying apparatus, vacuum concentration, vacuum distillation, vacuum cooling, desolvent or the like.
The trap in a vacuum apparatus, from the viewpoint of theory of heat transfer engineering, may be considered as a sort of heat exchanger between a low temperature medium (refrigerant, the first medium) and a high temperature medium (vacuum vapor, the second medium). And the refrigeration condensing vacuum vapor is provided from low tempeature of refrigerator unites. For the heat exchanger with form of heat transfer, heat flux is transferred through a boundary metal wall from high temperature fluid to low temperature medium. There are three types for the heat exchanger. The first, direct transfer type (heat is exchanging directly between the high and the low temperature medium), the second, indirect type (heat is exchanging indirectly by circulating a middle fluid between the high and the low temperature medium), and the third, triple heat exchanger type (three medium heat exchange).
Three types of the trap (vapor condenser) from
FIG. 1
to
FIG. 3
will be explained by means of each view illustrating roughly the vapor condenser for use in the vacuum freeze drying apparatus for medical products together with the basic construction of the apparatus as a whole.
FIG. 1
denotes a universally utilized standard type one in which a trap
101
is a refrigerant evaporator with the type of refrigerant direct cooling expansion.
FIG. 2
shows a locally utilized type one where a trap
102
is of an “indirect brine type” which comprises a circulating brine having been cooled with a refrigerant by means of an outside heat exchanger
7
. And, a trap
103
shown in
FIG. 3
is of a “three medium heat exchange type” where both the refrigerant and the brine circulate inside thereof.
In
FIGS. 1
to
3
, each of the vacuum system is composed of a vacuum drying chamber
1
(which is also used as a freezing chamber), a vacuum trap chamber
2
, a main connecting pipe
3
a
, a main valve
3
, a vacuum exhausting system
4
and so on (including the profile of the chamber, machinery and piping). It is wholly indicated with a thin
On the other hand, a freezing refrigerant circulating system including a refrigerator unit
11
(which includes all of a compressor, an oil separator, a condenser, an intermediate cooler used in the case of two-stage compressions, etc., and further includes the case of double freezing), a secondary refrigeration unit
12
, a heat exchanger
7
for refrigerant evaporator
7
a
, a secondary heat exchanger
8
for refrigerant evaporator
8
a
, the trap
101
of refrigerant direct cooling type, the trap
103
of the prior invention (U.S. Pat. No. 4,407,140), each refrigerant evaporator, a refrigerant pipeline, a refrigerant valve
13
, a refrigerant expansion valve
14
(indicated with a triangle mark), etc., is wholly indicated with a broken line.
The brine-system machinery including a shelf
5
(a plate which supplies a latent heat necessary for drying the material to be treated and supplies a cooling heat necessary for pre-freezing the material being treated in the instances of
FIGS. 1
to
3
), a brine heater
6
, a brine system
7
b
of the heat exchanger
7
, a brine system
8
b
of the secondary heat exchanger
8
, the trap
102
of indirect brine type and the trap
103
of the U.S. Pat. No. 4,407,140, a brine pump
9
for use in the shelf and a brine pump
10
for use in the trap and the arrangement are wholly indicated by a thick line.
In FIG.
2
and
FIG. 3
, furthermore,
15
shows a sluice valve provided in the brine circulating system. In this connection, however, it should be noted that the piping line in each system, the valves and the machinery arrangement sequence in the pipe line are not actually as shown in drawings, in other words drawings are simplified by the way of the explanation within the U.S. Pat. No. 4,407,140.
FIG.
4
and
FIG. 5
have shown each view roughly illustrating the vertical section (line A—A of
FIG. 5
) and the transverse section (line C—C of
FIG. 4
) of the trap chamber
2
and trap
103
of vacuum freeze dryer illustrated in
FIG. 3. A
thin broken line shown within a trap plate of
FIG. 4
indicates a flow passage of refrigerant R (which corresponds to the refrigerant cooling coils denoted with the numeral
26
in FIG.
6
). The rough broken line indicates a boundary of flow passage of brine within the plate (which corresponds to a partition wall denoted with the numeral
27
in FIG.
6
), and
FIG. 6
is a view illustrating one embodiment of the section of this plate.
One form of a condensing plate X of the trap
103
(vapor condenser) is shown in
FIG. 4
, and
FIG. 7
illustrates another embodiment of a small-sized trap where the inner wall of the vacuum trap chamber is constituted into cylinder. In both situations, a refrigerant evaporation coil
26
is closely contacted with the trap (vapor condensing plate)
103
by welding, press, fitting and the like, and the condensing plate X of the trap
103
performs as heat transfer fin of refrigerant R. Heat exchanges between refrigerant R and brine B through a refrigerant coil wall and the trap
103
as a fin plate, between brine B and vapor V through the condensing plate X of the trap
103
as a brine wall, and between refrigerant R and vapor V through the condensing plate X of the trap
103
as a fin of refrigerant coil
26
, respectively. Thus, heat exchange is effected between two mediums selected optionally from among three mediums, namely R, B and V through a boundary metal wall or fin plate.
28
is an outer wall of the vacuum trap chamber
2
.
The trap in vacuum apparatus as shown in
FIG. 1
to
FIG. 3
, which is a refrigerant evaporator of refrigeration unit, is usually arranged in the trap chamber. In
FIG. 1
, the trap with “refrigerant direct cooling type” is utilized. As shown in
FIG. 2
, brine being cooled by a cooler outside vacuum trap chamber by means of the heat exchanger
7
(hereinafter sometimes called the “cooler
7
”) of refrigerant evaporator
7
a
and a circulating circuit of medium fluid of the trap including a brine pump
10
is circulated through the trap
102
with “indirect brine type” in the vacuum trap chamber
2
, and a “three medium heat exchange type” where both the refrigerant and the brine circulate inside thereof is utilized as shown in FIG.
3
.
For the first form utilizing the trap
101
with “refrigerant direct cooling type”, there are some drawbacks, such as, shortage of the operational stability, uneasiness of maintenance, and difficult in controlling the temperature of the vapor condenser, the necessaries of additional secondary refrigeration units and secondary heat exchangers. In the second form utilizing the trap
102
with “indirect brine type”, although the said defects of the first form may be improved, some disadvantageous have been occurred in that the presence of the following two refrigeration capacity losses. The first loss is a temperature loss induced through the boundary film heat transfer occurred twice between the refrigerant coil surface and the brine and brine trap surface and brine duo to a indirect heat exchanging between t
Sunama Ryouji
Yao Airu
Browdy and Neimark
Capossela Ronald
Kyowa Vacuum Engineering, Ltd.
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