IMPROVEMENTS IN DRYING, MIXING, AND SIFTING MACHINERY, CHIEFLY DESIGNED FOR DRYING COAL.
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robert Lake at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 20th October 1880. A cominunication
from abroad by Emmanuel Denis Farcot, of Paris, France, Engineer.
"
WILLIAM ROBERT LAKE, of the Firm of Haseltine, Lake, & Co., Patent Agents,
Southampton Buildings, London. IMPROVEMENTS IN DRYING, MIXING, AND
SIFTING MACHINERY, CHIEFLY DESIGNED FOR DRYING COAL.." [A communication
from abroad by Emmanuel Denis Farcot, of Paris, France, Engineer.]
This Invention relates to apparatus for drying, mixing, and sifting or screening
coal, seed, grain, and many other substances or materials.
In various kinds of apparatus, particularly for agricultural purposes, a cylinder
is employed having an interior screw for feeding forward fine or pulverulent
materials, such as grain or cereals; and for drying small coals a fixed cylinder with
a screw revolving therein has sometimes been employed in such a manner that the
coal is caused to travel against a current of heated air which circulates in an
opposite direction.
According to the present Invention I make use of the same principles, which I
apply in an improved manner as hereinafter described.
In carrying the said Invention into practice I construct as follows an apparatus
which is particularly applicable for the treatment of small coal as it comes from the
washing apparatus:-I provide a cylinder supported along its length upon rollers.
At its centre longitudinally this cylinder is provided with a toothed rim or wheel
which gears with a worm mounted on a horizontal shaft, which by means of a
pulley receives motion from any suitable motor. In the interior of the aforesaid
cylinder, and concentrically to the axis thereof, is arranged a tube, and a screw or
spiral blade is wound between the said tube and the cylinder, and is attached to
the latter in such a manner that the said screw or blade extends from the tube
completely to the inner surface of the cylinder, and from end to end of the latter.
The small coal leaving the washing apparatus is brought by trucks, thrown into
heaps, and then is thrown into a vat or receptacle into which a chain of buckets
dips, and these buckets lift the coal to a hopper. The bottom of the latter is
inclined, and carries a conduit or shaft which descends obliquely to one end of the
cylinder hereinbefore mentioned, which cylinder is placed close to the lower part of
this conduit or shaft. When the cylinder rotates the coal is carried along by the
blades of the screw, and having been exposed to the hot air in its passage (this air

page_text: moving in a contrary direction) is delivered dry at the opposite end, and falls
through a conduit or spout into a truck or other receptacle placed underneath the
same. The coal is deflected at each side of the delivery opening by means of a
plate supported on screw threaded bolts attached to the sides of the delivery pipe
or spout.
Each extremity of the cylinder is surrounded by a sleeve or socket, and works
freely therein with a continuous motion; one of these sleeves or sockets is con-
nected with a tube which brings heated air, for example the hot gases coming from
the chimney of the works, and the other is connected with a tube which leads to
a ventilating exhauster. Both these sleeves are on their inner side provided with
annular projections which come close up to the cylinder but do not touch the same.
They offer sufficient obstruction to the escape of air and form an airtight joint
without producing any friction. The cylinder may, if desired, be made of
perforated sheet metal so as to screen the coal during its passage through the
apparatus, and this apparatus may also be used or readily adapted for mixing the
same, or for similarly treating other materials, such as grain, or corn, or the like.