Patent ID: 8025048

Claim:
A portable outdoor heater comprising: an inlet gas line adapted to be connected to a pressurized gas fuel tank, an adjustable fuel flow rate control valve couple to the inlet gas line that controls the flow of gas from the pressurized gas fuel tank, and a gas nozzle in a discharge end of the inlet gas line; an entrainment tube with an entrainment tube axis, an inlet end fitted with a choke, an air entrainment section with a plurality of air entry apertures, a gas and air mixing section and a mixed gas and air discharge end; a nozzle support in the inlet end of the entrainment tube that supports the gas nozzle with a nozzle orifice coaxial with the entrainment tube axis; a burner supply tube fixed to the mixed gas and air discharge end of the entrainment tube, coaxial with the entrainment tube axis, and having a burner supply tube cross section area that is smaller than an entrainment tube cross section area; an igniter extending into the burner supply tube; a tubular combustion chamber attached to a supply tube discharge end of the burner supply tube to receive mixed gas and air from the burner supply tube tangentially to a tubular combustion chamber inside wall surface, and including a combustion chamber closed end, a combustion chamber discharge end, a ring member fixed to the combustion chamber inside wall surface between the burner supply tube discharge end and the combustion chamber discharge end, a central aperture through the ring member that is concentric with a tubular combustion chamber axis, a ring member surface facing toward the combustion chamber closed end and extending generally perpendicular to and away from the combustion chamber inside wall surface to the central aperture and wherein the ring member surface facing toward the combustion chamber closed end is spaced from and parallel to the entrainment tube axis; wherein a mixture of gas and air discharged from the burner supply tube is guided by the tubular combustion chamber inside wall surface and rotates around the tubular combustion chamber axis; wherein a gas in the mixture of gas and air is held in the combustion chamber by the ring member surface facing toward the combustion chamber closed end until the gas is fully burned in the combustion chamber; and a silencer connected to the combustion chamber discharge end and including a silencer discharge passage that passes products of combustion into an area that is to be heated.