Improvements in or relating to Apparatus for Scouring and Cleaning Pipes and Conduits.
Year: 1899

page_text: Date of Application, 30th Oct., 1899-Accepted, 2nd Dec., 1899
Improvements in or relating to Apparatus for Scouring and Cleaning
Pipes and Conduits.
(A communication from FRANZ NOVOTNY, of 14 Bahnhofstrasse, Bernburg on the
Saale, Germany, and OTTO MIERISCH, of 2 Friedrichstrasse, Dresden, Germany).
I, ALFRED JULIUS BOULT of 111 Hatton Garden, in the County of London,
Chartered Patent Agent, 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 —
In tubular pipes and conduits for water or other fluids, vegetable or minerali
sediments become in time deposited on the sides and especially on the lower parts
of the conduits, which form in time a gradually thickening and hardened layer,
which it was, up to now, almost impossible to remove, especially in conduits.
extending for considerable lengths whereby not infrequently, the very existence of
an extensive plant of such pipe conduits becomes threatened.
The object of the present invention therefore is an apparatus for scouring tubular
conduits of all kinds, of any diameter and length and to remove from them the ;
said deposits.
The apparatus in question is represented in the accompanying drawings.
Figure 1 showing it at work in a straight pipe :
Figure 2 in a bent pipe while,
Figure 3 represents a section through the pipe and the "piston" a.
Figure 4 a similar section through the scraper b, and
Figure 5 a section through the brush c.
The part a consists of a parabolical or other form of body having a circular cross
section, the largest diameter of which is a few millimetres smaller than the diameter
of the pipe to be cleaned and is intended to act as a guide and piston, which, owing
to its slightly smaller diameter, can be driven, by means of compressed steam, air,
water or by any other means of pressure, to which the said body offers a resisting
surface, through and along the pipe.
The body is made of resisting material and its surface is provided with
sharpened teeth, scrapers, ribs or slots forming preferably an acute angle with the
longitudinal axis of said body, owing to which arrangement the body, in passing
through the tube, will have imparted to it a revolving motion like a screw.
By means of the movement through the pipe of this body thus armed, the
hardened deposit is cut up and loosened.
The cylindrical device ċ is provided on its cylindrical surface with bristles such as

page_text: steel wire brushes, and being of a diameter equal to the bore of the tube intended
to be scoured will remove and carry off the sediment layer already cut up and
loosened by the part b.
Figure 2 represents the apparatus in action in a bent part of the pipe conduit.
In it the parts marked a, b, c, are the same as those so inarked in Figure 1,
respectively. In order to use the apparatus one of the access chambers in the pipe
conduit system is opened, and the three devices connected together are inserted in
the order described above, the last of them being secured to a guide or safety line,
which passes out of the chamber through a packed orifice in the cover, the outer
end being fastened to a winch on which the required length of line is wound.
The chamber is then tightly closed, and the next one, towards which the apparatus
is intended to travel through the pipe about to be scoured, is opened, so as to allow
an exit of the compressed fluid about to be used and for the hardened deposit to be
removed. Pressure of the required degree is now applied in the form of compressed
steam, air, water or the like in the direction indicated by arrows in the accompanying
drawings, in consequence of which the apparatus will be effectually driven along the
tubing drawing after it the line as it unwinds from the winch. The power of the
pressure medium is sufficient to drive the fragments of the sediment loosened by the
scraper and caught by the brush c, before the latter to the next chamber, together
with the apparatus itself, the latter thus working without stoppage. After arriving,
at the next chamber, the apparatus may be taken out there, or drawn back through
the conduit by means of the guide line and winch, to the chamber where it was
inserted.
Practical experiments have proved the fact that a pipe conduit of about 1000
meters long and 250 millimeters wide can be scoured in a short time, under a
pressure of 3 atmospheres, without stoppage, and this in spite of several bends having
to be negociated in the tubular conduit.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said invention
as communicated to me by my foreign correspondents and in what manner the
same is to be performed, I declare that what I claim is :-
1. Apparatus for-seouring pipes and tubular-conduits-by-means--of--compressed
fluid-comprising-a-piston-body-and-seraper-and-a-rotatory-brush-coupled-together
substantially-us-described.
2. 1. Apparatus for scouring pipes and tubular conduits by means of compressed
fluid comprising a piston body of circular cross section, a scraper provided with a
series of scraping projections on its periphery, and a circular brush substantially
as described, and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.
3. In apparatus-of-the-kind-described a-scraper-body-provided-with-scraping-pro-
jections-on-its-outer-surface-arranged-at-an-aente-angle-to-the-longitudinal-axis-of
the-body-substantially as-described.
4. 2. The complete apparatus for scouring pipes and tubular conduits substantially
as described or illustrated in the accompanying drawings.
Dated this 30th day of October 1899.
BOULT, WADE & KILBURN,
Agents for the Applicant.