Improvements in Continuously Acting Straining Apparatus.
Year: 1897

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Continuously Acting Straining Apparatus.
I, LADISLAUS PROCHAZKA, of Turnau, in the Province of Bohemia, in the'
Austrian Empire, Brewer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as'
follows:-
This invention relates to apparatus, by means of which the bulk of the liquid
contained in pulpy masses, such as beer mash, can be separated from the rest,
and more especially to that class of such apparatus, in which the pulp is caused,
by means of a suitable conveyer, to move over a sieve.
Strainers of this description have been made hitherto with a revolving drum
or cylinder made of wire fabric and containing either a screw conveyer turning
in the opposite direction or helical ribs secured to the sides of the drum.
The objection to this arrangement is that the cleansing of the drum is rather
difficult, and my invention has for its object to remedy this defect.
According to my invention, the revolving drum is replaced by a fixed gutter
or trough provided with a sieve bottom of semi-cylindrical shape, made by pre-
ference of slotted sheet metal. Upon both ends of the said gutter or trough
suspension brackets for the bearings of the shaft of a screw conveyer are remov-.
ably mounted and the said brackets are connected with counterweights by means
of chains passing over pulleys.
With this arrangement, after undoing the connection between the brackets
and trough, the brackets with the shaft and conveying screw can be lifted and
both the trough and screw can be easily cleaned.
The collecting tank for the liquid has the trough mounted over one half of its
open top end, so that there remains a large aperture giving easy access to the tank
for cleaning purposes.
In cases where it is desired to allow solid bodies in the strained liquid to be
deposited, an inclined gutter is arranged below the sieve trough, and from the
lower end of the said gutter a pipe leads down to the upper part of the inclined
bottom of the tank, whereby stirring up of the liquid is prevented.
There is a lateral cock at a certain height above the bottom for drawing off
the clear liquid, and another cock in the bottom for the discharge of the sediment.
Dated this 10th day of July 1897
.
Improvements in Continuously Acting Straining Apparatus.
I, LADISLAUS PROCHAZKA, of Turnau, in the Province of Bohemia, in the
Austrian Empire, Brewer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in
[Price 8d.]

page_text: what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascer-
tained in and by the following statement :-
My invention relates to apparatus, by means of which the bulk of the liquid
contained in pulpy masses, such as beer mash, can be separated from the rest, and
more especially to that class of such apparatus, in which the pulp is caused, by
means of a suitable conveyor, to move over a sieve.
Strainers of this description have been made hitherto with a revolving drum
or cylinder made of wire fabric and containing either a screw conveyor turning
in the opposite direction or helical ribs secured to the sides of the drum.
The objection to this arrangement is that the cleansing of the drum is rather
difficult, and my invention has for its object to remedy this defect.
According to my invention the revolving drum is replaced by a fixed gutter
or trough provided with a sieve bottom of semi-cylindrical shape, made by pre-
ference of slotted sheet metal. Upon both ends of the said gutter or trough
suspension brackets for the bearings of the shaft of a screw conveyor are remov-.
ably mounted, and the said brackets are connected with counterweights by means
of chains passing over pulleys.
With this arrangement, after undoing the connection between the brackets
and trough, the brackets with the shaft and conveying screw can be lifted and
both the trough and screw can be easily cleaned.
In order to enable my invention to be fully understood, I will describe the same
in detail with reference to the accompanying drawing in which:-
Figure 1 is a sectional side elevation of my continuously acting strainer (the
section being taken on the lines X-X and Y-Y, Figure 3);
Figure 2 is a vertical section on the line Z-Z, Figure 1; and,
Figure 3 is an end elevation, looking in the direction of the arrow in Figure 1.
a is a rectangular sheet iron tank, supported by angle iron legs a¹ and having
an inclined bottom a². Both end walls of the said sheet iron tank a have semi-
circular recesses a³ formed in their top portion in order to admit of the insertion
of a correspondingly shaped trough 6 having.a sieve-bottom 6¹ made of perforated
sheet metal.
b
As the said semicircular recesses a³ of the end walls of the tank a are formed near
one lateral wall, the trough b covers but one half of the open top of the tank, and
free access to the inside of the latter is afforded for cleaning purposes.
Both ends of the trough 6 are closed by sheet metal walls, bª and 63 respectively,
and while the end of the trough above the higher edge of the inclined bottom a²
is flush with the end wall of the tank a, the other end of the trough, located over
the lower edge of the inclined bottom a², protrudes beyond the end wall of the
tank, in which it is embedded, and has a drain or chute 64 riveted under an
aperture 65, formed in the bottom of its protruding portion. Angle irons 66
riveted to the ends of the tank a and to the bottom of the trough 6 serve for con-
necting both parts.
The lateral edges of the sieve-bottomed trough bare stiffened by angle-irons b
projecting beyond the end of the trough which is flush with the end wall of the
tank a.
Upon the ends of the said angle irons 67 rest suspension brackets d and d
respectively, for the shaft d² of a screw conveyor d³. The said brackets are remov-
ably connected with the angle-irons 67 by means of bolts and nuts or in any other
well known way. Chains d run upwards from the bearings d and d¹ over suit-
ably arranged pulleys do and carry weights do. By this arrangement means are
afforded for lifting the brackets d and d with the shaft and screw conveyor d³
out from the trough 6 when it is desired to clean the trough and conveyor.
At 68 the trough bis widened to form a kind of inlet-funnel, over which a
pipe is shown, through which the pulpy mass arrives.
It will be readily understood that the pulp flowing in through the funnel 68
and being carried along by the screw conveyor d³ parts with the bulk of its liquid
constituents, which pass through the sieve bottom 6' into the tank a, while the
wet solid remains are delivered through the chute b*. The drawings show located

page_text: below the chute 6' a vat 9 provided with a stirrer g¹ and closed at its bottom by
a sliding valve g². This vat y and stirrer 9', which are used, when it is required
again to dilute the strained pulp, form no part of the invention.
It is obvious that the liquid having passed through the sieve-bottom of the
trough 6 and accumulated in the tank a still contains small solid particles and it
is often required to eliminate these solid matters by sedimentation and decantation.
In order to admit of this, the tank a is provided with an inclined bottom a²,
as already described, and there are two outlet cocks, viz., a cock h arranged at a
certain height above the lowest point of the bottom for drawing off the clear
liquid, and a cock j located below the bottom for drawing off the sediment. The
pipe in which this latter cock j is placed, empties, for obvious reasons, into the
discharge pipe g³ of the vat g.
For preventing the liquid, which trickles down through the sieve-bottom b¹ of
the trough b, from stirring up the liquid in the tank a and thus retarding sedi-
mentation, a gutter k, so supported by braces k¹ as to be slightly inclined toward
the higher end of the bottom a³, is arranged below the trough b and has its lower
end made in the form of a nozzle, below which a vertical pipe m extends to the
bottom a³. The slots m¹ in the bottom end of the pipe m allow the liquid to flow
out freely.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is:-
1. In a continuously acting straining apparatus, the combination with a hori-
zontal trough having a semi-cylindrical sieve bottom and a delivery chute adapted
to one end, of suspension brackets removably connected to the ends of the said.
trough, a screw conveyor fitting the bottom of the trough and having the bearings.
of its shaft formed in the said brackets, and counterweights connected to the
brackets by chains running over pulleys, substantially as and for the purpose
described.
2. In a continuously acting straining apparatus, the combination with a sieve
surface and a conveyor adapted to move the mass to be strained over the sieve
surface, of a tank arranged below the sieve surface and having an inclined bottom
and two outlets at different levels, a gutter so arranged below the said sieve sur-
face as to be inclined toward the higher end of the bottom, and a pipe extending
from the lower end of the gutter to the bottom, substantially as and for the purpose
described.
G. F. REDFERN & Co.,
4, South Street, Finsbury, London, Agents for the Applicant.