Patent ID: 7475573

Claim:
A device for treatment of a traveling yarn with a gas- or steam-creating medium, comprising: a yarn treatment chamber through which a yarn travels, the yarn treatment chamber being substantially sealed off to the environment and provided with a yarn inlet opening and a yarn outlet opening, each of these openings having a yarn sluice arranged relative thereto that, on the one hand, permits a through passage of the yarn including those portions of the yarn having thickness locations and, on the other hand, permits the respective opening to be substantially closed relative to the atmosphere via the passage of the yarn traveling through the respective yarn sluice; and a pressure chamber enclosed within the yarn treatment chamber having a connection for introducing a pressurized medium into the pressure chamber portion, wherein each yarn sluice includes a respective one of a pair of elongate yarn guide elements each of which bounds, in its longitudinal direction, a yarn pass through channel, from which at least one yarn guide element is adjustable against a restoring force relative to the other yarn guide element in a direction substantially perpendicular to the yarn travel direction, wherein the respective pairs of yarn guide elements each have a semi-cylindrical cross section, and comprise, in the region of the oppositely disposed separation surfaces of the pair of yarn guide elements a recess extending in the longitudinal direction, whose cross section is set as a function of the thickness (titer) of the yarn to be treated, wherein the respective pairs of yarn guide elements are mounted within a cylinder housing for displaceable movement against a spring force, and further comprising, in the region of the yarn inlet- and the yarn outlet-sides of the yarn guide elements centering- and spreading-cone elements by means of which the pair of yarn guide elements, when they are displaced in the longitudinal direction against the spring force, are moved away from one another, wherein each centering- and spreading-cone element includes, in the region of the separation surfaces of the pair of yarn guide elements a conical bore that extends concentrically to the yarn pass through direction and that tapers in the direction from its outside towards its inside and, on the other side, comprises a truncated centering- and spreading-cone tapering in the direction of the pair of yarn guide elements from which one of the truncated centering- and spreading-cones is displaceable relative to the other truncated centering- and spreading-cone.