APPARATUS FOR CLASSIFYING PARTICLES

Abstract: An apparatus for classifying particles entrained by a solid-gas jet stream includes a feed nozzle (N), a cyclonic wall having an inner arcuate wall (6a), and an auxiliary inner arcuate wall (5a) provided at an outlet port (5) of the nozzle (N). The solid-­ gas stream is preliminarily bent along the auxiliary inner wall (5a) so that the particles are preliminarily or roughly classified into the undersize and oversize by the action of the centrifugal force before they are classified by the cyclonic wall. The apparatus may include a collecting port (8) disposed downstream of the nozzle outlet port and spaced slightly away from the inner arcuate wall of the cyclonic wall. The collecting port (8) permits the apparatus to collect the undersize in a more effective manner.

Description: The present invention relates to an apparatus for classifying particles comprising a feed nozzle, cyclonic wall means and a control port. There is a known method of an apparatus for sorting particles according to size by passing the feed mixture fluid containing the particles along a cyclonic arcuate surface through a jet stream from a feeding nozzle to impart a centrifugal action to the fluid. This system was reported by Mr. Okuda in International Symposium Of Particle Technology held in Kyoto in September, 1981. This report discloses test results obtained by the system in which a high speed stream or jet stream of an air entraining particle is bent at a small radius of curvature by utilizing the attachment of a stream to an adjacent surface, i.e. Coanda effect, and imparting a relatively large amount of a centrifugal force to the particles entrained in the stream of the fluid so as to separate the particles by size. A similar apparatus for classification is proposed in the US-A-4 153 541. These apparatuses employ the effect derived from the action of the stream of fluid and the centrifugal force acting on the particles contained in the stream of the fluid, and are suitable particularly for classification or separation of the particles of a small size. Fig. 13 of the accompanying drawings reillustrate a prior classifier in which a feed nozzle 3 ejects a jet stream of the solid-gas entraining the particles tangentially with respect to an arcuate wall surface 2a of a cyclonic wall 2. The stream is attached to the adjacent wall 2a by Coanda effect, and thus bent along the arcuate wall 2a for thereby forming a curved wall-attachment stream. This apparatus has a drawback in that a velocity of such wall-attachment stream flowing close to the arcuate surface 2a is drastically reduced to zero, with the result that a centrifugal force acts on the particles entrained by the wall-attachment stream only insufficiently through the length of the arcuate surface. The thus insufficient action of the centrifugal force to the particles fails to separate the particles sharply into oversize and undersize, and thus allowing the oversize to be included in the latter when the processed particles are collected. The prior apparatus achieves only a poor performance of classification. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for classifying particles, wherein the oversize particles are sharply separated from the undersize particles in the entraining stream flowing close to the cyclonic arcuate wall surface. This object is achieved by an apparatus for classifying particles having the features of the characterizing portion of the patent claim 1. Advantageous developments of the invention are subject-matter of the subclaims. Preferred embodiments of the invention are described below with reference to the drawings in which: Fig. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a classifier according to a first embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 1A is a schematic view showing an enlarged detail of the classifier shown in fig. 1; Figs. 2 and 3 are charts showing results of a simulation and a test of the classifier, respectively; Fig. 4 is an explanatory view showing the distribution of the particles being classified by the classifier; Figs. 5 and 6 are schematic views of modified nozzle outlet ports of the classifier; Fig. 7 is a schematic view showing a modification of a cyclonic wall of the classifier; Fig. 8 is a schematic cross-sectional view of the classifier according to a second embodiment of the invention; Figs. 9 and 10 are schematic cross-sectional views showing various modifications of the classifiers according to the second embodiment; Fig. 11 is an enlarged schematic view showing an inlet opening of a collecting port; Figs. 12A and 12B are charts showing test results of recovery of the particles obtained by varying the location of the collecting port; and Fig. 13 is a schematic view showing locational speed variations of the wall-attachment stream in a prior classifier. Parts which correspond to each other are indicated by similar reference numbers in the drawings. Figs. 1 and 2 show a classifier or an apparatus for classifying particles by size into the oversize and undersize called sands and slimes, respectively. The apparatus includes a feed nozzle N for supplying a jet stream of a solid-gas feed mixture fluid, a cyclonic block 6 disposed downstream of the nozzle and forming a classifying zone Z therealong, and a control port 7 tangentially merging in the classifying zone for supplying a supplemental jet stream of fluid. The cyclonic block 6 has an arcuate inner wall 6a forming a classifying zone Z, where particles in the solid-gas stream are classified into the undersize called slimes and the oversize called sands. The apparatus also includes a pair of adjacent inner and outer exhaust ports 8, 9 extending downstream from the classifying zone Z. The inner and outer exhaust ports collect the slimes and sands classified in the upstream zone Z, respectively. The feed nozzle N has an outlet port 5 including a pair of first and second arcuate side walls 5a, 5b extending parallel spaced from each other and defining a curved narrow passage or preliminary classifying zone P therebetween. The inner arcuate wall 6a merges smoothly with the first wall 5a of the nozzle outlet port 5. The jet stream of the solid-gas feed mixture from the nozzle, consisting of a compressed air and the particles in the illustrated embodiment, tends to be attached to the inner arcuate wall 6a as the jet stream is injected into the classifying zone Z from the nozzle N. This attachment of the fluid stream to the adjacent wall, known as Coanda effect, takes place as long as the fluid stream continues to flow at a sufficient speed along the surface. To this end, the stream of the feed mixture from the nozzle outlet port is accelerated by the supplemental stream supplied by the control port 7, and thereby prevented from being detached from the cyclonic inner wall 6a. As best shown in Fig. 4, the feed mixture stream passing through the curved passage P is bent by and between those arcuate walls 5a, 5b, while the particles entrained by feed mixture stream is subject to a centrifugal force, with the result that the undersize and oversize of the particles moved to the inside and outside regions of the passage P, respectively, due to the difference in their gravity. However, the particles are classified into the oversize and the undersize only insufficiently or preliminarily in the curved narrow passage P because the reed mixture stream is not yet subject to the Coanda effect. Actually, relatively small sized particles are concentrated at the inside region while the relatively large sized particles are at the outside region of the passage P. Then the stream of the preliminarily classified feed mixture flows into the classifying zone Z where the stream is accelerated by the supplemental stream from the control port 7 and thus is attached to the inner arcuate wall 6a due to the Coanda effect. At this time, the stream is forced to follow the curved path along the inner wall and thus undergoes the centrifugal force, which separates the particles further and this time sharply into the undersize and oversize. The inside wall-attachment stream flowing within a layer of air turbulence existing close to the inner arcuate wall 6a rarely contains the oversize particles. The solid-gas feed mixture stream entraining the particles thus classified sharply into the undersize and oversize advance to the exhaust ports 8, 9. Fig. 2 shows a calculated simulation performance of classification of the apparatus. The classification performance was tested by setting the width B of the nozzle outlet port at 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10 mm with a constant output speed of the feed fluid stream at 250 m/s. As the width B of the nozzle outlet port 5 was narrowed successively from 10 mm to 1 mm, size of the collected sands or oversize increased while size of the collected slimes or undersize only slightly increased. Fig. 3 shows a test result of classification of the apparatus. The classification performance was tested by setting the width B of the nozzle outlet port at 1, 2, and 5 mm with a constant output speed of the feed fluid stream set at 250 m/s. The result obtained with the width B of 5 mm in the test was similar to that of the simulation performance. However, as the width B was narrowed successively to 1 mm, size of the collected sands decreased while size of the collected slimes increased, resulting in a poor performance of classification. As it is known from those results, in case the sands is to be collected by eliminating the slimes from the feed mixture, it is not always effective to decrease the width B of the nozzle outlet port. An increase of the width B for the same purpose requires an increased amount of the fluid (or air in this particular embodiment). The range of the width B is practically 1 to 15 mm, and preferably 2 to 10 mm in view of the classifying performance. A length of the curved passage P is determined such that particles accelerated to move in a linear direction, if any, are prohibited to maintain their linear motion by inertia even when the particles are about to enter the downstream classifying zone Z. To this end, the length of the curved passage P should be long enough to influence the direction in which the stream of the particles advances. The minimum value of such length can be determined by means of a tangential angle ϑ' of Fig. 1A. The minimum tangential angle ϑ' is represented by If the length of the curved passage is greater than this minimum value obtained hereinabove, the particles entrained in the fluid stream flow without rendering a considerable decrease of their flowing speed. For example, if the radius r is 15mm and the width B is 2mm, the minimum tangential angle ϑ' becomes 28 degrees. Further if the radius r is 500 mm and the width B is 10 mm, the minimum angle ϑ' becomes 11 degrees. The apparatus may have an outlet port 10 having a pair of inner and outer arcuate walls 10a, 10b defining therebetween a curved passage or preliminary classifying zone of a relatively small length as shown in Fig. 5. The outer wall of the preliminary classifying zone may be a flat wall 10'a as shown in Fig. 6. Fig. 7 shows another modification of the first embodiment of the invention, in which the cyclonic wall 6a and the inner arcuate wall 5a are peripheral wall portions of a rotatable cylindrical wheel 20, and the outer arcuate wall 5b is disposed concentrically with the rotatable cylindrical wheel. The rotatable wheel 20 rotates rapidly in the same direction of the feed mixture stream (clockwise in fig. 7) to thereby provide a continuously forwarding wall surface immediately downstream of the feed nozzle N such that the rotating cylindrical wall, i.e. the inner walls 5a and 6a, imparts a forward pull to the feed mixture stream adjacent to the same and thus accelerate the stream. Due to the accelerated feed mixture stream the particles flowing close to the inner wall surfaces 5a and 6a are affected by an increased centrifugal force. With this arrangement, the sands remaining in the stream flowing aside the inner wall 6a in the classifying zone are deflected away from the inner wall 6a, with the result that the particles finally collected at the inner exhaust port 8 contain very few or no oversize. Figs. 8 to 10 show various modifications of a classifier according to a second embodiment of the present invention. The apparatus has a similar function as the above-described embodiment and includes a feed nozzle N for supplying a jet stream or a solid-gas feed mixture fluid, a cyclonic block 6 disposed downstream of the nozzle and having an arcuate inner wall 6a defining a classifying zone Z for classifying the particles by size, a control port 7 tangentially merging in the classifying zone for supplying a supplemental jet stream of fluid, and an exhaust port 8a disposed downstream of the classifying zone Z for conducting the particles classified in the zone Z to collector chambers (not shown). The apparatus further includes a collecting port 30 disposed adjacent to the inner arcuate wall 6a. The collecting port 30 is spaced by a predetermined distance K away from the inner arcuate wall 6a of the cyclonic wall 6 to collect the slimes exclusively. As described with reference to Fig. 13, the wall-attachment stream of the feed mixture is formed within a wall-attachment zone S extending along the inner wall 2a. Adjacent to the wall-attachment zone, there exists an outer boundary zone where turbulence of the stream takes place and thus the velocity of the stream is drastically reduced to zero. The above-mentioned predetermined distance K corresponds to a width of the wall-attachment zone S, i.e. a distance between the inner wall surface 2a and the outer boundary. Figs. 12A and 12B are charts showing recovery performance obtained in Tests A and B. As it is known from the results of the two similar tests, the distance K is most preferably within the range 0.5-3 mm, where the undersize of the order of 2 µm was collected at the recovery of more than 50 %. In Fig. 8, the wall-attachment stream flowing along the inner wall surface 6a is subject to the centrifugal force effectively while being accelerated and retained within the wall-attachment zone by the supplemental stream from the control port 7. The particles in the wall-attachment stream of the solid-gas are thus laterally displaced in such an orderly manner according to the size that the particles being smaller in size are situated closer to the inner wall while the particles being larger in size are situated more remote from the inner wall. The collecting port 30 catches a portion of the solid-gas stream entraining the undersize (fine particles) substantially exclusive of the oversize. In the outer boundary zone or turbulent stream zone, however, the solid-gas stream flows at a relatively low speed and thus undergoes the centrifugal force only insufficiently. Therefore the particles in this stream in the outer boundary zone remained not yet substantially separated into the undersize and oversize are brought to the exhaust port 8a. Figs. 9 to 11 show various modifications of the second embodiment. The classifier of Fig. 9 has a bypass channel 40 having an inlet open at the inner wall 6a of the cyclonic wall 6 and an outlet open to the outlet port 5 of the feed nozzle N. The bypass channel 43 collects a portion of the wall-attachment stream and hence the undersize, and then brings the latter back to the outlet port 5 of the nozzle N. This bypass system further improves the recovery rate of the underside by the collecting port 30. The classifier of Fig. 10 has a Laval nozzle 5' forming the nozzle outlet port. The Laval nozzle 5' is able to supply a jet stream of the high velocity up to 500 m/s, while the nozzle N described hereinabove supplies the jet stream of the velocity up to the speed of sound, i.e. approximately 340 m/s. An increase of the velocity of the wall-attachment stream permits the centrifugal force to act on the particles more effectively. Fig. 11 shows a modification of the collecting port 9. The collecting port has a pair of inner and outer side walls 31, 32 which defines an inlet opening therebetween such that a forward or upstream end 32a of the outer wall 32 is displaced rearwardly and disposed downstream of a forward end 31a of the inner wall 31. This arrangement enables the collecting port 30 to collect the undersize exclusively, since a particle having a certain amount of mass takes the course indicated by a phantom line F1 while a particle having a smaller amount of mass takes the course indicated by a solid line F2. The location of the inlet opening of the collecting port 30 with respect to the cyclonic wall 6 should be selected according to the classifying conditions of the particles. If the particles of the size of smaller than 10 µm for instance, are to be collected, it may be preferable that the tangential angle ϑ (Fig. 1) is 30 to 180 degrees and the inner forward end 31a is spaced by the distance (K) up to 2 mm away from the inner arcuate wall 6a of the cyclonic wall 6. The width, the length, and the radius of curvature of the nozzle outlet port 5 may be determined according to factors concerned with the formation of the wall-attachment stream. An increase of the distance between the inlet opening of the collecting port 9 and the inner arcuate wall 6a will enable the collecting of the oversize instead of the undersize. Alternatively, a plurality of the collecting ports 30 may be provided such that they are disposed progressively away from the inner wall 6a to collect the particles of different sizes. With the arrangement of the present invention, the particles entrained in the solid-gas stream, particularly the wall-attachment stream, are separated by size with an increased sharpness.

Claims: An apparatus for classifying particles comprising: a feed nozzle (N) having an outlet port (5,10,10') for producing a jet stream of a solid-gas mixture entraining particles; a cyclonic wall means (6) disposed downstream of and continuous to said outlet port (5,10,10') and having an inner arcuate surface (6a) defining an inner boundary surface of a first classifying zone or passage in which the solid-gas stream flows; a control port (7) merging tangentially with said passage for supplying a supplemental jet stream of a gas, characterized in that said outlet port (5,10,10') has an auxiliary inner arcuate surface (5a,10a,10'a) extending contiguous to said inner arcuate surface (6a) of said cyclonic wall means (6) so as to impart a centrifugal force to the solid-gas stream preliminarily before the stream flows along said inner arcuate surface (6a). An apparatus for classifying particles according to claim 1, characterized in that said auxiliary arcuate surface (5a,10a,10'a) is an extension of said inner arcuate surface (6a) of the cyclonic wall means (6). An apparatus for classifying particles according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that said cyclonic wall means (6) includes a rotatable circular surface (20) defining said arcuate surface (6a). An apparatus for classifying particles according to anyone of the preceding claims, characterized in that said outlet port (5,10,10') has an outer arcuate surface (5b,10b) extending parallel spaced apart from said auxiliary inner arcuate surface (5a,10a) such that the inner and outer surfaces (5a,5b,; 10a,10b) jointly define an arcuate zone or passage (P) therebetween for imparting the centrifugal force preliminarily the particles in the solid-gas stream. An apparatus for classifying particles according to anyone of the claims 1 to 3, characterized in that said outlet port (5,10,10') has an outer surface (10'b) extending linearly and disposed spaced apart from said auxiliary inner surface (10'a) for defining a preliminary classifying zone (P) therebetween where the particles in the solid-gas stream undergoes the centrifugal force. An apparatus for classifying particles according to anyone of the preceding claims, characterized in that said outlet (5,10,10') of the nozzle (N) has a width of 1-15 mm, preferably 2-10 mm. An apparatus for classifying particles according to anyone of the preceding claims, characterized by a collecting port (30) disposed downstream of said outlet port (5,10,10') of the nozzle (N) and spaced by a predetermined distance (K) away from said inner arcuate surface (6a) of the cyclonic wall means (6) for collecting the undersize. An apparatus for classifying particles according to claim 7, characterized in that said predetermined distance (K) is between 0,3 to 3 mm. An apparatus for classifying particles according to claim 7 or 8, characterized in that said collecting port (30) has an inlet aperture being defined jointly by an inner wall end and an outer wall end, said outer wall end being retarded in a downstream direction. An apparatus for classifying particles according to anyone of the preceding claims, characterized by a bypass channel (40) having an inlet open at the inner wall (6a) and an outlet open to the outlet port (5,10,10'). An apparatus for classifying particles according to anyone of the preceding claims, characterized in that said outlet port (5,10,10') is formed by a Laval nozzle.

Inventors: MURATA, HIROYUKI, NISHIKAWA, TAKAO, SUGINO, YASUO, WAKABAYASHI, MINORU, YAMAO, MASANOBU
Applicants: KABUSHIKI KAISHA KOBE SEIKO SHO ALSO KNOWN AS KOBE STEEL LTD.
Application year: 1987
Main classification: B07B7
IPC codes: B07B7