Abstract:
An alignment tool device for use in aligning a manway cover to a manway body/flange during installation of the manway cover includes a first plate with an L-shape has body with a pair of holes and a first tongue extending transversely from the plate. A second plate with an inverted-L shape has a body with a pair of holes and a second tongue extending transversely from the plate. The first plate is oriented substantially parallel to and opposing the second plate with the first tongue extending parallel to and overlapping the second tongue, where the first and second tongues extend in opposite directions. A height adjuster displaces the first plate relative to the second plate by adjustable engagement of the tongues.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0002]    The present invention relates generally to “manway” covers for access to enclosed spaces such as tanks, conduits, storage areas, heat exchanger tubes, and the like. Particularly, the present invention relates to mechanisms to assist in the removal of “manway” covers. More particularly, the present invention relates to mechanisms for handling the removal and installation of “manway” covers that are too heavy to be handled by an unaided individual. 
         [0003]    2. Description of the Prior Art 
         [0004]    Manway covers are typically large, heavy, metal plates that are bolted to an opening. For purposes of the present invention, the definition of “manway covers” expressly means any heavy covers or closures having a weight of thirty-five (35) pounds or more used on pressure vessels, vacuum vessels, atmospheric vessels, heat exchangers, heat exchanger channel covers, heat exchanger channels, heat exchanger bonnets, or any type of blanking plate and is not construed to be limited to only covers used on openings that are dimensionally-sized to allow passage of a man. The most common are circularly-shaped and mate to a flange by way of a plurality of bolts evenly spaced around the periphery of the opening. However, it should be understood that the heavy covers may be any shape. The defined manway covers typically provide access to enclosed spaces such as tanks, conduits, storage areas, transfer tubes, pressure vessels, vacuum vessels, atmospheric vessels, heat exchangers, heat exchanger channel covers, heat exchanger channels, heat exchanger bonnets, and the like. 
         [0005]    Routine servicing and inspection requirements as well as other operating conditions necessitate periodic removal of these manway covers. In view of the typical location and weight of the manway covers, it is not a simple task to remove the cover or to re-install the same. Removal is currently accomplished with the use of hand operated davit swing arms, chain falls, ratchet hoists, portable hinge devices, and brute force. Except for davit swing arms and portable hinge devices, it is necessary during the removal process to lower the covers a distance to a level surface. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0006]    It is an object of the present invention to provide a simple, removable, reusable manway cover alignment tool to facilitate installation of a manway cover to a manway flange. 
         [0007]    The present invention achieves these and other objectives by providing an alignment tool device for use in aligning a manway cover to a manway body/flange during installation of the manway cover to the manway flange. The alignment tool includes a pair of plates with openings in each plate where the openings are spaced for alignment with manway cover bolt openings and/or manway flange bolt openings. Each plate has a tongue extending transversely from the plate where the tongues of a pair of plates are positioned to be parallel and extend opposed to each other when one of the pair of plates is removably mounted on a manway cover and the other of the pair of plates is removably mounted on a corresponding manway flange. The extending tongue of the plate mounted to the manway cover includes a height adjuster mechanism that contacts the tongue on the flange plate. The height adjuster mechanism is adjustable along an adjuster longitudinal axis of the height adjuster where the adjuster longitudinal axis is transverse to the longitudinal axis of the tongues. 
         [0008]    In one embodiment of the present invention, an alignment tool device includes a removable cover alignment plate, a removable flange alignment plate, and a height adjuster. The removable cover alignment plate defines a longitudinal plane where the cover alignment plate has an elongated cover plate body, an upper plate portion connected to the cover plate body and extending along the longitudinal plane, and a cover plate tongue that extends from the upper plate portion in a transverse orientation from the longitudinal plane. The cover plate body has an inside cover body edge, an outside cover body edge, and a pair of spaced-apart body openings located a predefined distance from the outside cover body edge. 
         [0009]    The removable flange alignment plate defines a longitudinal plane where the flange alignment plate has an elongated flange plate body, a lower plate portion connected to the flange plate body and extending along the longitudinal plane, and a flange plate tongue that extends from the lower plate portion in a transverse orientation from the longitudinal plane. The flange plate body has an inside flange body edge, an outside flange body edge and a pair of spaced-apart body openings located a predefined distance from the outside flange body edge. 
         [0010]    The height adjuster extends transversely through the cover plate tongue along a height adjuster longitudinal axis that is parallel to the longitudinal plane. The height adjuster is capable of longitudinal displacement along the height adjuster longitudinal axis relative to the cover plate tongue whereby the cover plate tongue is parallel to, above, and opposed to the flange plate tongue. When the cover alignment plate is attached to a manway cover and when the flange alignment plate is attached to a manway flange, the cover plate tongue extends towards a space defined by the lower plate portion of the flange plate and the inside flange plate edge. Similarly, the flange plate tongue extends towards a space defined by the upper plate portion of the cover plate and the inside cover plate edge. The height adjuster contacts the flange plate tongue to provide spatial, vertical displacement of the cover plate tongue relative to the flange plate tongue for adjustably aligning a plurality of manway cover bolt openings with a plurality of corresponding manway flange bolt openings. 
         [0011]    In another embodiment of the present invention, the removable cover alignment plate includes a bracing gusset directly connected to the cover tongue and the upper plate portion of the cover plate body. 
         [0012]    In still another embodiment of the present invention, the removable flange alignment plate includes a bracing gusset directly connected to the flange tongue and the lower plate portion of the flange plate body. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0013]      FIG. 1  is a perspective view of one embodiment of the present invention showing the cover plate, the flange plate and the height adjuster. 
           [0014]      FIG. 2  is a front view of one embodiment of the cover plate shown in  FIG. 1   
           [0015]      FIG. 3  is a front view of one embodiment of the flange plate shown in  FIG. 1   
           [0016]      FIG. 4  is an outside view of the embodiment shown in  FIG. 1 . 
           [0017]      FIG. 5  is a top view of the embodiment shown in  FIG. 1 . 
           [0018]      FIG. 6  is a bottom view of the embodiment shown in  FIG. 1 . 
           [0019]      FIG. 7  is a cover-side view showing the cover and flange relative to the cover alignment tool. 
           [0020]      FIG. 8  is a cover-side view showing the cover and flange relative to the cover alignment tool. 
           [0021]      FIG. 9  is a perspective view of another embodiment of the present invention showing the cover plate and flange plate with gussets. 
           [0022]      FIG. 10  is an outside view of the embodiment shown in  FIG. 9 . 
           [0023]      FIG. 11  is an inside view of the embodiment shown in  FIG. 9 . 
           [0024]      FIG. 12  is an outside view of the embodiment shown in  FIG. 1  including a partial view of the cover, flange and pins. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
       [0025]    The preferred embodiments of the present invention are illustrated in  FIGS. 1-12 .  FIG. 1  shows one embodiment of a cover alignment tool  10  of the present invention. Cover alignment tool  10  has a flange plate  20 , a cover plate  40  and a height adjuster  60 . Flange plate  20  has a flange plate body  22  and a plurality of openings  26  for receiving a pin (shown in  FIG. 12 ) that secures flange plate  20  to a manway flange. Cover plate  40  has a cover plate body  42  and a plurality of body openings  46  also for receiving a pin (shown in  FIG. 12 ) that secures the cover plate  40  to a manway cover that attaches to the manway flange. Flange plate  20  has a flange plate tongue  24  that extends in a transverse orientation from flange plate body  22 . Cover plate  40  has a cover plate tongue  46  that extends in a transverse orientation from cover plate body  42 . Cover plate tongue  44  has a tongue opening  45  for receiving height adjuster  60 . Preferably, tongue opening  45  is threaded and threadably receives height adjuster  60 . 
         [0026]      FIG. 2  illustrates a front view of cover plate  40 . As shown, cover plate body  42  has an inside cover body edge  48 , an outside cover body edge  47 , a plurality of spaced-apart body openings  46  located a predefined distance from outside cover body edge  47 , and an upper plate portion  43 . Upper plate portion  43  is co-planar with cover plate body  42  and extends from outside cover body edge  47 . In one embodiment, upper plate portion  43  and cover plate body  42  together define an inverted-L shape when cover plate  40  is oriented as shown in  FIG. 2 . Cover plate tongue  44  extends from upper plate portion  43  in a transverse orientation toward the viewer out of the plane of  FIG. 2 . Height adjuster  60  threadably engages and is threadably adjustable in position relative to cover plate tongue  44 . Upper plate portion  43  and outside cover plate edge  47  define a space  49  below upper plate portion  43 . 
         [0027]      FIG. 3  illustrates a front view of flange plate  20 . As shown, flange plate body  22  has an inside flange body edge  28 , and outside flange body edge  27 , a plurality of spaced-apart body openings  26  located a predefined distance from outside flange body edge  27 , and a lower plate portion  23 . Lower plate portion  23  is co-planar with flange body  22  and extends from outside flange body edge  27 . In one embodiment, lower plate portion  23  and flange body  22  together define an L-shape. Flange plate tongue  24  extends from lower plate portion  23  in a transverse orientation toward the viewer out of the plane of  FIG. 3 . Lower plate portion  23  and outside flange plate edge  27  define a space  29  above lower plate portion  23 . 
         [0028]    In one embodiment, flange plate  20  is substantially identical to cover plate  40  with exception of threaded opening  45  that extends through cover plate tongue  44  and the orientation of each when flange plate  20  is assembled with cover plate  40 . 
         [0029]      FIG. 4  illustrates an outside view of flange plate  20 , cover plate  40  and height adjuster  60 . In use, height adjuster  60  would contact the top surface  24   a  of flange plate tongue  24  in order to vertically adjust a cover attached to cover plate  40  in order to align the cover openings in the manway cover with their respective flange openings in the manway flange. Although flange plate tongue  24  and cover plate tongue  44  are shown to extend beyond the opposed cover plate  40  and flange plate  20 , respectively, the tongues  24 ,  44  may extend any predefined length so long as it is sufficient to accomplish the purpose of aligning the cover openings of a manway cover with the respective flange openings of a manway flange. For example, cover plate tongue  44  may be a fixed size since it incorporates height adjuster  60 , which is typically threadably fixed into and extends through a single, threaded opening  45  in cover plate tongue  44 . Cover plate tongue  44 , however, may have more than one threaded opening  45  in a longer extending tongue that provides the user with optional locations for threadably attaching height adjuster  60  to cover plate tongue  44 . Flange plate tongue  24 , in this embodiment, would extend with sufficient length to provide height adjuster  60  a contact surface (e.g., top surface  24   a ) on which height adjuster  60  makes contact for adjustably moving cover plate  40  vertically relative to flange plate  20 . It should be understood by the skilled artisan that flange plate tongue  24  of flange plate  20  may alternatively incorporate a threaded opening (not shown) for threadably receiving height adjuster  60 . In this alternative embodiment, height adjuster  60  would enter flange plate tongue  24  from the bottom surface  24   b  of flange plate tongue  24  and would contact the bottom surface  44   b  of cover plate tongue  44  in order to provide a similar adjustment to the vertical position of the cover to align the cover openings with their respective flange openings. 
         [0030]    In one embodiment, height adjuster  60  is a double-ended threaded stud configured to threadably engage both of cover plate tongue  44  and flange plate tongue  24 . One end of height adjuster  60  threadably engages a threaded opening  45  in cover plate tongue  44 ; the other end of height adjuster  60  threadably engages a threaded opening  45   a  in flange plate tongue  24 . Similar to a turnbuckle, when the double-ended threaded stud is rotated in one direction, it causes the cover plate tongue  44  and the flange plate tongue  24  to move towards each other. When the double-ended threaded stud is rotated in the opposite direction, it causes tongues  24 ,  44  to move away from each other. 
         [0031]      FIG. 5  illustrates a top view of cover alignment tool  10  while  FIG. 6  illustrates a bottom view of cover alignment tool  10 .  FIG. 7  illustrates a cover-side view of cover alignment tool  10  with the openings  3  of a cover  2  aligned with the openings  4  in a flange  1  (shown in  FIG. 8 ). As shown in the embodiment of  FIG. 7 , height adjuster  60  contacts the top surface  24   a  of flange plate tongue  24  (or is capable of contacting top surface  24   a  by advancing height adjuster  60  through threaded opening  45 ).  FIG. 8  illustrates a flange side view of cover alignment tool  10  shown in  FIG. 7  with the openings  4  of flange  1  aligned with the openings  3  of cover  2  (not shown). Openings  3 ,  4  also align with openings  26 ,  46  of flange plate  20  and cover plate  40 , respectively. 
         [0032]      FIG. 9  illustrates a perspective view of another embodiment of the present invention. For consistency, the same structural features in this embodiment use the same reference numbers for similar structural features in the embodiment shown in  FIG. 1 . In this embodiment, cover alignment tool  10  has flange plate  20 , cover plate  40 , height adjuster  60 , an optional flange gusset  30 , and an optional cover gusset  50 . Optional flange gusset  30  provides additional reinforcement between lower flange portion  23  and flange tongue  24 . Like flange gusset  30 , optional cover gusset  50  provides additional reinforcement between upper cover portion  43  and cover tongue  44 . Gussets  30 ,  50  preferably are a generally planar sheet having the general shape of a right triangle that extends along the respective flange plate tongue  24  or cover plate tongue  44  and along the respective lower plate portion  23  or upper plate portion  43 . Gussets  30 ,  50  are preferably made of metal. 
         [0033]    Gusset  30  is typically and preferably welded to flange plate tongue  24  and to lower plate portion  23 . Similarly, gusset  50  is typically and preferably welded to cover plate tongue  44  and to upper plate portion  43 . Other attachment means are acceptable, including the use of fasteners, brackets, and the like. Because the weight of manway covers vary with some covers weighing many times more than others, gussets  30 ,  50  each adds additional strength and rigidity to the respective tongues  24 ,  44  since tongues  24 ,  44  endure the full weight of cover  2  when a cover height adjustment is performed. Gussets  30 ,  50  help prevent and/or minimize potential bending of tongues  24 ,  44  during the cover height adjustment process. 
         [0034]      FIGS. 10 and 11  illustrate outside and inside views, respectively, of the gusseted cover alignment tool  10 . It is noted that gussets  30 ,  50  may be any size desired even though they are illustrated as a triangularly-shaped structure extending over the entire length of their respective tongues  24 ,  44  and between the top and bottom perimeter edges of the respective lower and upper portions  23 ,  43 . 
         [0035]      FIG. 12  illustrates an outside view of cover alignment tool  10  with a partial view of flange  1  and cover  2  with pins  90  securing flange plate  20  to flange  1  and securing cover plate  40  to cover  2 . 
         [0036]    Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described herein, the above description is merely illustrative. Further modification of the invention herein disclosed will occur to those skilled in the respective arts and all such modifications are deemed to be within the scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.