IMPROVEMENTS IN ARRANGEMENTS OR APPARATUS FOR ELEVATING, PROPELLING, CONVEYING, CARRYING, LOADING, UNLOADING, DELIVERING, AND DISTRIBUTING GRAIN, COAL, AND VARIOUS OTHER SUBSTANCES
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Woodward at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 27th October 1881.
JOHN WOODWARD, of the Firm of Adam Woodward and Sons, of Queen's
Foundry, in the City of Manchester, in the County of Lancaster. "IMPROVEMENTS
IN ARRANGEMENTS OR APPARATUS FOR ELEVATING, PROPELLING, CONVEYING,
CARRYING, LOADING, UNLOADING, DELIVERING, AND DISTRIBUTING GRAIN,
COAL, AND VARIOUS OTHER SUBSTANCES."
My Invention relates to arrangements or apparatus for elevating, propelling, and
delivering or distributing grain, coal, salt, and various other substances, and my
Invention consists in accomplishing this object by creating a partial vacuum so as
to produce a strong current of air through a pipe, channel, or passage through
which the material is to pass to be conveyed to the required destination.
I prefer to produce this draught or current by a steam jet; but a pump or other
air exhauster may be employed if desired.
I form a chamber at the highest point or at or near the destination to which
the material is to be conveyed and discharged, and extend a pipe from this chamber
to the material to be conveyed, and this pipe or channel should be internally free
from obstruction and sharp bends. I take care that the air and material to be
carried or propelled shall both enter freely, and so that the orifice does not get
blocked or choked up by having too much material at a time in front of it. In some
cases and for some material which tends to adhere and cake together I employ a
mechanical stirrer or agitator to act upon the material as it enters the pipe to
divide and separate it, and this agitator is or may be worked by hand or
machinery, or by the entering air or a part of it passing against propeller vanes or
working an air engine to drive the agitator.
I have a pipe connected with the said chamber at the delivery end of the pipe,
and I exhaust this pipe, and thus the chamber by a steam jet apparatus (by
preference), or the steam jet apparatus is directly connected with the chamber.
When in operation, the material to be elevated or propelled is drawn along the
pipe into the chamber, and when full the draught is or may be shut off and the
material allowed to pass out by gravity down a shoot to be delivered or distributed
..מ
A

page_text: as desired, and the delivery pipe from the chamber is arranged and jointed if
desired so as to be movable, or it is formed of flexible material to as to be
moveable to deliver and distribute the material as required.
The pipe where the material enters is or may also be made moveable or
flexible to bring it to a position to take up the material to be conveyed.
The chamber into which the material is drawn is or may be formed in two com-
partments, or made double, so that when one is filling another is emptying, in which
case valves are arranged to shut off the draught into and from one compartment or
chamber, and open it into and from the other, and shut the outlet for the material
from one compartment or chamber and open it from the other alternately, or the
compartments or chambers are or may be moveable by hand or by selfacting
mechanism as the compartments or chambers are alternately filled. Or the chamber
has or may have a wheel with arms or compartments, which wheel will rotate as
the compartments fill, and as one compartment fills another is emptied, the wheel
acting as a valve to prevent air from entering at the discharge outlet from the
chamber.
My Invention also consists in arranging apparatus as described on a column and
on a frame, and carrying this frame on slides or on wheels (which may when desired
run on rails) so as to be portable.
On the same frame there may also be a boiler for generating steam for the steam
jet which is to produce the draught required, or this draught is or may be produced
by a fixed steam jet or other exhauster and connected with the portable apparatus
on wheels by flexible pipe or hose.