Patent ID: 7832665

Claim:
A ball and ring coal pulverizer, comprising: a housing; a stationary top grinding ring within the housing; a lower grinding ring within the housing; a plurality of grinding balls between the top grinding ring and the lower grinding ring; an adjustable loading system for applying a compressive force exerted on the top grinding ring and grinding balls against the lower grinding ring, the adjustable loading system comprising: a single hydraulic assembly mounted on the upper portion of the housing; a gauge mounted proximate the hydraulic assembly for determining linear movement of a piston of the hydraulic assembly; a plurality of threaded rods mounted to the upper portion of the housing capable of being manually adjusted; the piston of the single hydraulic assembly passing through the upper portion of the housing to a compression spring connected to the top grinding ring; the threaded rods passing through the upper portion of the housing to a plurality of compression springs, each compression spring connected between the threaded rods and the top grinding ring; and wherein movement of the piston corresponds to an equal distance of movement of a spring gap between an upper and lower portion of the compression spring, such that the gauge indicates the change in the spring gap by moving the piston.