Material processing apparatus

Apparatus for processing material to reduce it to a state that renders the material more easily disposed of, the apparatus being adapted to process all types of refuse and garbage of the character usually collected by packer trucks from residential and commercial areas in particular.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
The ever mounting volume of trash has posed a serious community problem of 
how best to dispose of such discardable material without contaminating the 
surrounding area with air borne matter. The material most troublesome is 
the type of discardables collected by packer trucks which includes garbage 
and decaying matter, along with a mixture of metallics and non-metallics 
of various sizes and hardness. Some of the hard trash can be singled out 
on the basis of specific gravity, such as non-grindables, some may be 
ground to a more managable size for disposal by burning, some may be of 
such low specific gravity as to be easily floated off for separate 
collection, and some material may be non-burnable but not detrimental to 
equipment used to burn what can be disposed of in that manner to produce 
valuable heat values. 
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
This invention relates to material processing apparatus, and more 
particularly to apparatus having an arrangement of components which 
renders the processing of waste material more efficient. 
The preferred embodiment of this invention comprises a rotary hammer mill 
connected into a housing which receives the material to be processed and 
initiates the sorting of such material into fractions to be reduced by the 
mill, fractions which separate out on the basis of high specific gravity, 
and fractions of low specific gravity, and a system of conduits, blowers 
and separators associated with the mill and housing arranged to sort out 
the material in a predetermined manner. The apparatus representing the 
preferred embodiment operates to separate the light weight, fluffy 
fractions so such material does not need to pass through the mill, and the 
high specific gravity fractions also are separated out when not grindable.

A rotary hammer mill is represented by the mill casing 10 in which the 
hammer rotor 11 is operatively mounted above an outlet formed by a 
plurality of grate bars 12 disposed around the path of the hammers. The 
outlet is enclosed in a discharge chamber 13, while the inlet to the mill 
casing 10 is connected to the outlet 14 formed at the lower end of a 
housing 15 which extends above the mill and encloses a vibratory or 
material agitating conveyor 16 having an operating motor 16A driving an 
eccentric 17 and a drive arm 18. The conveyor 16 is supported on a base 
frame 19 which houses an air moving blower 20 driven by motor 21. The 
blower outlet conduit 22 is directed into the housing 15 at a location 
below the material fall-off lip 23 of the conveyor 16. The blower outlet 
conduit 22 is open intermediate its length to a collection conduit 24 for 
tramp material having a high specific gravity like chunks of metal, 
stones, bricks and similar solids. The lip 23 is provided with spaced 
tines 23A to prevent over-size material from falling into the conduit 22 
where it could choke conduit 24. The tines thus cause such material to 
fall into the mill 10. The conduit 24 has a bottom air seal flap 25 which 
allow exit of material but restricts air inflow. 
The material to be processed by the apparatus is brought to the inlet 
opening 26 of the housing 15 by a suitable conveyor 27 and dropped into 
the housing over the vibratory or agitator conveyor 16. The inlet 26 is 
provided with an air seal curtain 26A which limits the amount of air 
carried in with the feeding of the material to be processed. A hinged 
apron A with a position adjusting handle 15A is mounted in the upper part 
of the housing to block the material flung up by the mill from 
interferring with the material entering the inlet 26. Often times 
non-grindables will be found in the trash, and such items will be rejected 
by the mill 10 by being flung out along the curved wall of housing 15 and 
directed by the apron A into the conveyor 16 where it can fall into the 
conduit 24. The mill acts on the non-grindables, such as metals, to ball 
them up so they are less responsive to the air flow in conduit 22 and can 
easily fall into conduit 24. At a suitable top location over the conveyor 
16, the housing 15 is formed with a connection for an outlet conduit 28. 
The conduit 28 is connected into the discharge conduit 29 of a blower 30, 
such conduit 29 being connected into the mill discharge chamber 13. Mill 
outlet chamber 13, in turn, is connected by a conduit 31 into a 
conventional cyclone separator 32 which is provided with a material outlet 
rotary valve 33 and a cleaned air outlet cupola 34. The cupola 34 is 
connected by a conduit 35 to the suction inlet 36 for the blower 30, and a 
branch conduit 37 leads off conduit 35 to the suction inlet for the blower 
20. 
While the foregoing has described the principal components of the 
apparatus, there is a further important feature in the conduit 40 which 
connects into the conduit 29 on the discharge side of blower 30 and leads 
into the inlet 41 of a bag house 42 where the dust and extremely fine 
particles are captured outside the bags, while the air is drawn through 
the bags by the blower 43 and discharged through conduit 44 to ambient 
space. 
Regulation of the air movement associated with the apparatus is provided by 
replacement of a valve 38 in the conduit 28, and by placing a second valve 
39 in the conduit 37 leading to the blower 20. Valve 38 regulates the flow 
in by-pass of the mill 10, and valve 39 is set to obtain the desired air 
velocity in conduit 22 so that non-grindables and tramp material can fall 
counter to the current and pass through conduit 24 for discharge at the 
air seal flap 25. 
The material discharged at the rotary valve 33 for the cyclone separator is 
the primary material to be disposed of, either by burning or by other 
methods. The dust and fines collected in the bag house 42 is discharged at 
rotary valve 45. 
It can be appreciated that the blower 30 has the principal job of 
furnishing a sufficient flow of air in conduit 29 to move the material in 
the discharge chamber 13 to the separator 32 and to cause the separator to 
function normally so that the material conveyed thereto through conduit 31 
is capable of being discharged at the valve 33 while air substantially 
free of material is returned through conduit 35. Accordingly, the capacity 
of the blower 30 is of the order of 1500 CFM/TON of the solids in the 
airstream, producing air movement in conduit 29 of the order of 5000 FPM. 
This capacity is sufficient to supply the suction side of blower 20 so 
that the flow in conduit 22 can be of the order of 4000 to 5000 CFM. While 
the blower 20 depletes the suction to blower 30, it is observed that the 
conduit 28 does act to return a portion of the air to the conduit 29. 
The flow in the system above described is caused to operate under a 
negative pressure due to the operation of the baghouse blower 43 drawing 
off a portion of the air flow in conduit 29 to the extent of about 
one-third of the capacity of the fan 30 which results in the negative 
pressure condition. 
OPERATION OF THE APATUS 
Assuming that the several blowers 20, 30 and 43 are operating, and the 
motor 16A for the conveyor 16 is also operating, material to be processed 
is dumped through the inlet 26 past the air seal curtain 26A and into the 
vibrating conveyor 16 where the light weight, fluffy fraction is subjected 
to the suction effect at the top conduit 28, while the remainder is 
subjected to the effect of the air movement through the mill 10 and 
discharge chamber 13 to conduit 31. Such remainder material is first 
subjected to the vibratory or agitating action of conveyor 16 and the air 
flow across the drop off lip 23. The majority of the material will move to 
the mill 10 and be ground up by the hammers on the rotor 11, the heavy 
chunks of trash will fall into the discharge conduit 24 and in the fall 
will be scrubbed by the air flow in conduit 22 to separate material 
responsive to the air velocity. Regulation of the air velocity in conduit 
22 is effected by the valve 39 in conduit 37. 
As the mill 10 grinds the material it will be transported by conduit 31 to 
the cyclone separator 32 by the air supplied by blower 30 through conduit 
29. The air cleaned by the cyclone will return by conduit 35 to the 
blower, except that the necessary volume of that return air is sucked off 
by blower 20 for supplying air to conduit 22 for the above noted purposes. 
The possibility of dust and fine fluffy material contaminating the space 
adjacent the apparatus is substantially avoided by the conduit 40 
connecting the baghouse 42 into the system. The baghouse blower 43 bleeds 
off air from the system of conduits 29 and 35 across the blower 30 and 
lowers the pressure therein to less than ambient pressure so the apparatus 
is under a negative pressure condition. 
An important feature of the apparatus is the provision of the conduit 28 
which acts as an air by-pass around the mill 10, and can be regulated by 
the valve 38. Should the mill 10 become chocked with material, the air 
movement will not cease due to the by-pass safety conduit 28. Eventually 
the mill will clear any such chock-up and the apparatus will resume its 
normal operation. Another important feature of the apparatus is in the 
action of the mill 10 to disassociate non-crushables or non-gridables from 
the other material by flinging such non-crushable material out to be 
guided by the curved wall of housing 15 and the adjustable apron A back to 
the conveyor 16 where it can fall into conduit 24 and pass out at the air 
seal flap 25.