IMPROVEMENTS IN APPLIANCES FOR ELEVATING AND DISCHARGING COAL AND OTHER MATERIAL
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Henry Johnson at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 21st December 1880. A communication
from abroad by George Weston Wood, of Faribault, Rice County, Minnesota,
United States of America.
JOHN HENRY JOHNSON, of 47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the County of Middlesex,
Gentleman. * IMPROVEMENTS IN APPLIANCES FOR ELEVATING AND DISCHARGING
COAL AND OTHER MATERIAL," A communication from abroad by George Weston
Wood, of Faribault, Rice County, Minnesota, United States of America.
This Invention consists of certain mechanism or appliances, hereinafter described,
for elevating coal and other material from the holds of vessels, and discharging the
same into cars, barges, or other receptacles, and the main object of the Invention is
to so construct the apparatus that it can be readily adjusted in respect to the mass
of material to be elevated, and in respect to the cars or other receptacles which
have to receive the said material.
In carrying out this Invention a substantial frame is furnished at the base with
wheels, which may be adapted to a track on a wharf or in any other locality where
the use of the machine will be available; or the frame may in some cases be fixed
or permanent.
To guides attached to or forming part of the main frame is adapted a sliding
frame, which is preferably made in the form of a hollow cylinder, of either wood
or metal, and which admits of being raised and lowered, but cannot be turned in its
guides in the main frame. The sliding frame is operated by a vertical screw shaft
adapted to a nut secured to the bottom of the said frame, the shaft having its
bearing in a cross bar of the main frame, and being furnished with a bevel pinion
gearing into a wheel on a shaft, which may be driven by hand or power.
On the top of the sliding frame, and admitting of being turned thereon, is a
cylinder, and on the top of the latter is another cylinder, capable of being turned
independently of that below.
The two cylinders may be connected together, and the lower cylinder be
connected to the sliding frame in the following manner :-To the side of the upper
cylinder are secured at equal distances apart three plates, and each of the latter
carries two antifriction rollers, in the space between which a flange of the lower
cylinder fits freely, the two cylinders being retained in coincidence with each other
D121

page_text: by the free fitting of a small portion of the upper cylinder into the lower cylinder,
and the same plan is adopted in connecting the lower cylinder to the sliding
frame.
An inclined plate or diaphragm extends across the interior of the lower cylinder,
and near the lower edge of this plate an adjustable spout is hinged to projections
on the side of the cylinder, which has between the said projections an opening
communicating with the spout, the upper end of the latter being funnel shaped, so
that whatever is admitted to the uppermost cylinder must pass through the spout,
whether the latter be adjusted to the inclination shown or to any other inclination
within reasonable limits.
Through the sliding frame and the two cylinders passes a vertical shaft, which
has its lower bearing in the cross bar of the frame, before referred to, and its upper
bearing in a cross piece secured to the top of the upper cylinder. The shaft is
driven, as occasion may require, by hand or power from a horizontal shaft through
the medium of bevel wheels. In suitable bearings on the top of the upper cylinder
is a horizontal shaft carrying a bevel wheel, which gears into a similar wheel on the
vertical shaft, the latter being arranged to slide through but to turn with the said
wheel. On the same shaft which carries the bevel wheel is a spur wheel gearing
into a larger wheel on a shaft which is arranged to turn in bearings on wings
projecting from the upper cylinder, there being an opening or recess in the side of
the cylinder between the wings for admitting the gearing, and for permitting the
buckets hereinafter referred to to discharge their contents into the cylinder.
The bucket frame consists of two side pieces and cross pieces, the lower end of
this frame being provided with bars carrying anti-friction rollers and the shaft
last mentioned passing through slots in the frame at the upper end of the
latter.
This bucket frame may be continued downwards to below the base of the main
frame; it may, for instance, be sufficiently long to extend into the hold of the vessel
moored at the wharf, on which the main frame is situated, the rollers of the bars
resting on the bottom of the hold. The bucket frame may also be provided with
one or more joints to facilitate the adjustment of the lower end of the same.
Grooves are formed in the opposite sides of the bucket frame between plates
secured to the said frame, and in these grooves traverse two endless chains, the
links of the two chains being connected together at intervals by rods. Buckets are
connected to the two endless chains at intervals by attaching each buck to
two of the rods. The chains pass over a barrel or over pulleys on the shaft last
mentioned, the barrel or pulleys being preferably of hexagonal form with sides of a
length properly proportioned to the links of the chains, and there is at the lower
end of the bucket frame a pulley round which the chains pass. The chains may
be tightened or loosened as required by operating screws which are adapted to
threaded openings in the upper ends of the side bars of the bucket frame, and act
upon blocks which slide in the slots of the said bars and bear upon the shaft last
mentioned so that by operating the screws so as to elevate the frame the chains
will be loosened, and vice versa.
Near the lower end of the bucket frame there is a shield which prevents the
material to be elevated, coal or grain (for example), from reaching the buckets until
bucket after bucket turns at the bottom of the frame and receives its load; in the
absence of this shield the buckets would be compelled to pass through a mass of
the material to be elevated, thereby unnecessarily absorbing much of the power
required to drive the endless chains.
The shield may be constructed so as to bear against the edge of the hatchway of
a vessel into the hold of which the bucket frame is introduced, thereby preventing
any interference with the operation of the elevator due to the contact of the noses
of the buckets with the said edge of the hatchway. The nose of each of the
buckets is preferably made of steel, and is curved and pointed so as to facilitate
the entrance of the bucket into a mass of granular material, and aid in filling the
bucket, and in advance of each bucket is an apron which extends transversely from

page_text: one chain to the other and from the front edge of the bucket to the rod in advance
of the same, so that as the bucket is turning at the top of the frame the premature
discharge of its contents is prevented.
The important feature of the Invention is the facility with which the apparatus
can be adjusted, as the locality of the material to be raised and the point where it
has to be discharged may suggest. If a coal vessel, for instance, has been moored
near the wharf on which the apparatus is placed, the whole of the latter can be in
the first instance adjusted to a position where it will be most available, after which
the bucket frame can be moved outwards or inwards, or can be turned laterally
with the upper cylinder, or can be raised or lowered by operating the screw shaft,
as the position of the hatchway into which the lower end of the bucket frame has
to be introduced may suggest. The bucket frame having been adjusted the point
where the elevated coal has to be discharged must be considered, and the spout can
be moved accordingly; it can, for instance, be turned on its pivot so as to assume the
most convenient angle, or it can be turned laterally with the lower cylinder to any
position which that of the car, barge, or other receptacle may suggest as the most
convenient.
It will be seen that the coal, grain, or other material raised by the bucket will
fall into the upper cylinder and on to the inclined plate, and thence pass through
the spout to its destination, bucket after bucket as it turns at the top of the frame
tilting its load into the upper cylinder.