Abstract:
A water meter ( 10 ) and a flow control valve ( 30 ) are housed in a common pressure vessel ( 16 ), in which the flow control valve ( 30 ) restricts flow through a metering chamber ( 18 ) to less than the normal flow, while still permitting a flow sufficient for basic human needs, rather than completely interrupting supply of the utility, and in which the flow control valve ( 30 ) is controlled electrically through a control valve ( 40 ) in an energy efficient manner so as to utilize power from a self-contained power source ( 27 ) in another device ( 25 ) at the customer site ( 50 ).

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD 
       [0001]    This invention relates to utility metering equipment and to shut-off valves for interrupting the supply of water from a public utility to a customer. 
       DESCRIPTION OF THE BACKGROUND ART 
       [0002]    Utility metering equipment is often provided with a radio transmitter or a radio transceiver (receiver/transmitter) for transmitting meter consumption data to radio receiver in a meter data collection network. Some networks for collection metering data have provided the ability to control devices at the metering site by using a two-way communication through a site transceiver. In recent years, utilities and equipment providers have been considering alternatives for shut-off of service in emergency events, for conservation purposes, or in the event of non-payment of utility bills. Therefore, various methods for remote shut-off of the utility water supply are being investigated. 
         [0003]    There are products currently be offered on the market to perform a water supply shut-off, but they require the use of a valve external to the water meter or a radio requiring an external source of power for operation. This requires the customer to run an additional power source to the meter and to modify their plumbing to accommodate the additional lay length of the external valve. 
         [0004]    Marchesi, U.S. Pat. No. 3,795,144, discloses a manually operable shut-off valve having a housing that is integrated with a water meter housing. The purpose of this construction is to prevent removal of the valve without also removing the meter and thereby causing an inconvenience to the owner of flooding of the establishment (col. 5, lines 5-8). It is thus a tamper-resistance measure. 
         [0005]    The constructions known in the art do not provide the convenience and functionality desired in controlling or limiting supply of a utility to a customer under the various conditions present today. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0006]    This invention houses a water meter and a flow control valve in a common pressure vessel, wherein the flow control valve is a flow restriction valve rather than a complete shut-off valve. 
         [0007]    In one more detailed aspect, the invention provides a flow control valve having a valve member disposed in a portion of a pressure vessel for movement between an open position allowing normal, unrestricted flow through a metering chamber and a flow restriction position in which flow in the metering chamber is limited to significantly less than the normal flow. The flow restriction allows flow through the metering chamber that is significantly less than the normal flow, but is a measureable flow sufficient for basic human needs. 
         [0008]    In another more detailed aspect, the combination has the same length as a water meter not having the flow restriction control valve so as to enable easy installation of the flow restriction apparatus. This allows the valve/meter assembly to simply replace an existing water meter, without requiring significant modifications to a customer&#39;s plumbing. 
         [0009]    In a further more detailed aspect of the invention, an electrically operable control device is provided to cause the flow control valve to restrict flow through the metering chamber to less than normal flow; and the electrical control device receives power from a self-contained power source within a radio transceiver that is located at a customer&#39;s site with the water meter. This improves over shut-off devices requiring power from a building&#39;s power system, for example 
         [0010]    In further details of this aspect of the invention, the flow control valve is controlled by an electrically operable solenoid and has an actuator which is operated by water pressure to reduce the electrical power required for actuation. This enables power to be obtained from a battery-powered remote transmitter and this is sufficient for actuation of the valve between an open position and a flow restriction position. 
         [0011]    In a more detailed aspect of the flow control valve construction, a mechanism is provided for utilizing the valve to restrict and reduce flow, rather than to completely interrupt the flow. This is provided by a type of valve in which a plurality of spaces between spool bodies are moved with the valve spool from an aligned open position with openings in a valve cage to an offset position where the spool bodies restrict flow through the openings in the valve cage. Even in the misaligned position, the lack of a resilient seal between the valve parts means that some water will still pass through the valve. This can be adjusted by adjusting the tolerance and spacing of the valve parts to allow more or less water to pass down to a minimum. By restricting the flow of water to a very low volume, instead of completely shutting off the supply the above purposes might be served while humanely allowing the customer to have a limited water supply, for basic uses. 
         [0012]    Other aspects of the invention, besides those discussed above, will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art from the description of the preferred embodiments which follows. In the description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and which illustrate examples of the invention. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0013]      FIG. 1  is a perspective sectional view of a metering assembly of the present invention with the control circuit being shown schematically; 
           [0014]      FIG. 2  is a detail view of a valve, which is part of the assembly of  FIG. 1 , in the open position; and 
           [0015]      FIG. 3  is a detail view of the valve of  FIG. 2  in a flow restriction position. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0016]      FIG. 1  shows an assembly of the present invention. A disc-type water meter  10  includes a meter housing  11  comprising a pressure vessel made from at least one of a low-lead bronze alloy casting, other metals, other metal alloys or plastics. The meter housing  11  includes a tubular inlet conduit  12  leading to a threaded spud end  13 , a tubular outlet conduit  14  leading to a threaded spud end  15  and a cylindrical body  16 . Inside the cylindrical body, a disc-type meter assembly is disposed and a cover plate (not shown) is bolted to the bottom of the housing  11  to complete the enclosure as is known in the art. The spud ends  13 ,  15  can be replaced by coupling flanges in larger sized meters. 
         [0017]    The disc-type meter assembly includes a meter casing  17 . Inside this inner casing  17  is a main metering chamber  18 . The flow from the inlet  23  to the outlet  24  of the meter housing  11  through the metering chamber  18  is not necessarily a straight path, as the inlet and outlet into the disc metering chamber are often located near each other. For an example of this flow path, reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 6,948,363, assigned to the assignee herein. Inside this chamber  18  is a nutating disc plate  19  of a type well known in the art in which a flat disc-shaped member is integrated with and supported on a pivoting ball. The rotating movement of the disc plate  19  is sensed by a magnetic pickup  21  in a meter register  20  mounted on the meter housing  11 . The magnetic pickup  21  is connected to a gear train, as disclosed in Strobel, U.S. Pat. No. 4,868,566 and other patents granted to the assignee herein, which converts revolutions of the magnetic pickup  21  to rotations of a gear representing units of consumption for water flowing through the metering chamber  18 . 
         [0018]    As known from Strobel, U.S. Pat. No. 4,868,566, these rotations are converted to electrical pulses which are counted as units of consumption of water. These signals  22  are transmitted through a cable to a radio transceiver  25  in the case of a separate assembly. In alternative embodiments, these signals  22  can also be transmitted through an internal electrical connection to a radio transceiver  25  that is assembled with the meter register  20  in a single housing or an integrated housing. 
         [0019]    The radio transceiver  25  includes a radio transmitter portion and a radio receiver portion. The radio transmitter portion converts the utility consumption signals to a radio frequency signaling protocol for transmission back to a network data collector  28  through a wireless network. Although, this embodiment includes an electromechanical type of meter register, it should be understood that the invention can be practiced with electronic types of meter registers that have been more recently developed. As long as some type of electric signal generating meter register  20  is used, it will typically be used with a radio transceiver  25 , which is a necessary element in the present embodiments to receive command signals  48  to operate a flow restriction valve  30 . 
         [0020]    Although a disc type water meter  10  is shown and described, the invention in its broadest scope can also be applied to other types of water meters, including turbine type meters, mag meters and ultrasonic meters. 
         [0021]    The invention can be practiced with several categories of flow restriction valves including poppet valve, rotating ball valves, diaphragm-actuated valves, and sliding gate valves. In the present invention, a spool valve  30  which is a more complex version of a sliding gate valve is used to restrict flow, rather than to shut-off flow entirely to a customer. 
         [0022]    The spool valve  30  is substantially vertically oriented in a location between the inlet spud end  13  and a cylindrical meter housing body  16 . A substantially vertically oriented cylindrical chamber  29  is formed there to receive the spool valve  30  which further comprises a fixed valve cage  31  with side openings  32  and a reciprocally moveable valve member  33 . The spool valve member  33  includes a spool valve shaft  34  and a plurality of disc-shaped spool bodies  35  spaced along the spool valve shaft  34 . When the spaces  33   a  in the spool valve member  33  are aligned with the side ports  32  in the cage  31 , as illustrated in  FIGS. 1 and 2 , water flows through the inlet  23  to the disc metering chamber  18  in  FIG. 1 . When the spool bodies  35  are aligned with the side ports  22  in the cage  21 , and the spaces  33   a  are offset from the side ports  22  in an axial direction, as illustrated in  FIG. 3 , water flow into the disc metering chamber  18  and beyond is restricted as further described below. 
         [0023]    The flow restriction valve  30  can be actuated using either a direct-acting electric solenoid or a hydraulic diaphragm that is controlled by a smaller pilot circuit that includes an electrically operable solenoid valve. The hydraulic actuation is preferred so that most of the energy required to actuate the valve is taken from the water pressure within the meter housing  16 . The hydraulic control circuit is further controlled by a solenoid-controlled hydraulic valve  40  that requires very little electrical energy, and can therefore be powered by a small-capacity battery source. 
         [0024]    In more detail, and with reference to  FIGS. 2 and 3 , the reciprocal movement of the spool valve member  33  is controlled by a hydraulically operable diaphragm actuator  36 . This diaphragm actuator  36  includes a non-moveable cap  37  having a port  38  for fluid communication with a diaphragm chamber  44 . The valve  40  is an electrically operable, solenoid-controlled, multi-position, hydraulic valve  40 . One of its ports is connected to the port  38  on the diaphragm valve cap  37  and another of its ports is connected to a port  39  on the meter body  16 . This port  39  opens into the spool valve chamber  29  below a flexible diaphragm  42 . 
         [0025]    A return spring  43  is disposed in the diaphragm valve chamber  44  and is held between an underside of the diaphragm valve cap  37  and the flexible diaphragm member  42 . The bottom end of the return spring  43  is fastened with a washer  45  and a threaded fastener  46  to a top end of the spool valve member  33 . The return spring  43  is compressed when the diaphragm  42  is moved upward upon an exhausting of water through port  38 , thereby relieving hydraulic pressure in the diaphragm valve chamber  44 , which allows the diaphragm valve member  42  to move upward due to pressure from below. The diaphragm valve member  42  moves downward to a valve fully open position, when the hydraulic pressure is created in the diaphragm valve chamber  44  to equalize pressure created by water flowing through the main metering chamber  18 . 
         [0026]    Therefore, it can now be understood how the operation of the spool valve  30  is controlled by the diaphragm actuator  42 , which in turn is controlled by the multi-position solenoid-operated hydraulic fluid control valve  40 . 
         [0027]    When in the open position, the side openings  32  of both the valve cage  31  and spool valve member  33  are aligned, allowing complete flow of water from the inlet  23  and through the disc metering chamber  18 . The solenoid-controlled hydraulic valve  40  is not energized, and is in an open position such that fluid pressure present within the meter body  16  is applied equally to both sides of diaphragm  42 . With no fluid pressure available to move the diaphragm  42 , the spool valve member  33  is held in the open position by the valve positioning spring  43 . 
         [0028]    As seen in  FIG. 3 , in the closed position, the solenoid valve  40  has been energized and blocks the fluid pressure at port  39  from being applied to port  38 . The position of the valve  40  also allows the fluid pressure which had been previously available on the top side of the diaphragm  42  to exhaust to atmospheric pressure through outlet  47 , because the fluid pressure within the meter housing  16  is still available to the bottom side of the diaphragm  42 . This pressure differential results in a net force that compresses the valve positioning spring  43  and raises the spool valve member  33  within the valve cage  31  until the openings  33   a ,  32  in both the spool valve member  33  and the valve cage  31  are now alternated, with the spool bodies now partially blocking the flow of water to the disc metering chamber  18 . 
         [0029]    The closed position of the valve  30  still allows a flow through the metering chamber which is less than the normal flow, but is a measureable flow sufficient for basic human needs. This restricted flow is considered to be in the range from 5% to 15% of normal flow, with 10% being typical. This type of restriction is provided by allowing a loose fit or enlarged tolerance in fit dimensions between the moveable valve member  33  and the valve cage  31 , which are made of rigid, non-elastomeric materials such as plastics and metal. This can also be affected by controlling the stroke or position of the valve member  33  relative to the openings  32  in valve cage  31 . This residual flow is also due to the lack of an elastomeric seal in the valve assembly  30  of a type that would completely interrupt or completely shut off flow to the disc metering chamber  18 . 
         [0030]    The solenoid-controlled hydraulic valve  40  receives command signals  48  from network data collector  28 , the signals being received by the radio transceiver  25 , and demodulated and decoded to provide an open or close signal to the valve  40  as seen in  FIG. 1 . The valve receives dc electrical power required for operation through a +VDC line originating from the power source  27  powering the radio transceiver  25 . This power source  27  would typically comprise at least two 3.6-Volt, 2.4 Amp-hr lithium thionyl chloride batteries. It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art, that in the future, other numbers and types of small, relatively low voltage and long-life batteries can be used. 
         [0031]    Although the sliding gate valve  30  in this disclosure is shown to be cylindrical, it should also be understood that sliding gate valves of other shapes, such as flat plates or semi-circles can be shown to work as well. There may be molding or packaging advantages for valve shapes other than cylindrical. It is also contemplated that the control valve  40  and the flow restriction valve  30 ,  36  can be integrated within the water meter housing  16  to save space and simplify the assembly of the water meter/valve combination. 
         [0032]    It should also be understood that the water meter  10  with restriction valve  30 , the meter register  20 , the radio receiver  25 , the control valve  40  are all located at a customer site  50 , which in some cases is a pit enclosure located in the ground. It should also be understood the that the network data collector  48  and radio transceiver  25  can be parts of a fixed network, or can be parts of a mobile network, where the network data collector  48  is carried in a vehicle or is carried by a person engaged in meter data collection. 
         [0033]    This has been a description of preferred embodiments, and it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that variations may be made in the details of these specific embodiments without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention, and that such variations are intended to be encompassed by the following claims.