Improvements in Apparatus for Treating Shredded or Comminuted Sugar Canes Preparatorily to Crushing.
Year: 1893

page_text: Date of Application, 11th Aug., 1893-Accepted, 16th Sept., 1893
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Apparatus for Treating Shredded or Comminuted
Sugar Canes Preparatorily to Crushing.
A communication from HECTOR KIDD, 14, Toxteth Road, Lee Point, Sydney,
New South Wales, Civil and Mechanical Engineer.
1, WILLIAM SMITH, of the Firm of A. & W. Smith & Co. of Eglinton Engine
Works, Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain, Engineers, do hereby
declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement, that is to say :-
This invention has for its object to increase the extraction of saccharine matter
from sugar canes by subjecting the cane in a shredded or comminuted state to the
action of steam whilst being conveyed from the shredding or comminuting machinery
to the roller mill, in which the juice is expressed in the ordinary way.
Apparatus constructed according to the invention is represented on two
accompanying sheets of explanatory drawings,
Figure, 1, on Sheet, 1, being a sectional side elevation, Figure, 2, a continuation of
Figure, 1, as from the right-hand end thereof; and Figures 3, and 4, Sheet, 2,
enlarged longitudinal vertical and transverse vertical sections of a part of the
apparatus.
In these drawings the same reference numerals are used to mark the same or
like parts wherever they are repeated.
The apparatus consists of an inclined trough or casing, 5, which has the shredded
or comminuted cane delivered into its lower end down a shoot, 6, from the shredding
or communicating apparatus, 7, and which delivers the treated cane from its upper
end down a shoot, 8, which guides it into the roller mill (not shown). In the
trough, 5, there passes in the lower part of its course an endless conveyer, con-
sisting of two endless chains, 9, to which are attached at intervals transverse
pronged bars or rakes, 10, additional prongs, 11, being also fixed to some of the
chain links. The endless chains, 9, pass round driving sprocket wheels, 12, at the
upper end of the trough, and round polygonal pulleys, 13, at the lower end, whilst
in the upper part of their course they pass over a series of small guide rollers, 14.
The trough, 5, which is of iron is encased with wood, and its upper side is closed
except at the extreme ends, with wood. A series of channel shaped iron pieces, 15,
are fixed at intervals across the bottom of the trough, and are supplied with steam
from branch pipes, 16, the steam issuing from the channel pieces, 15, in jets through
holes in the trough bottom into the inside of the trough, the steam jets playing
upon the cane as it is being moved upwards along the trough by the rakes, 10.
Steam jets are also made to play downwards on the cane from transverse perforated
pipes, 17, which are attached to inclined baffle plates, 18, provided for the purpose
of confining the steam, and which with the perforated pipes, 17, are connected to
upper transverse pipes, 19, arranged as rocking shafts to allow the baffle plates, 18,
to turn up over passing obstructions. Weight levers, 20, are fixed externally at
one side on the ends of the tubular shafts, 19, in a manner to press the baffle plates, 18,
downwards.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, declare that what I
claim is.
In sugar-cane machinery the improved apparatus for conveying the cane from
hiname and at the came time subiecting it to the

page_text: action of steam on its way to a crushing mill, the parts being constructed arranged
and operating substantially as herein before described.
Dated this Ninth day of Avo 1803
EDMUND HUNT,
Applicant's Agent.