Drying hopper as well as grinding and drying plant comprising such

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2020391221-A1
Application number	US-201816767002-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Dec 6, 2018
Priority date	Dec 7, 2017
Publication date	Dec 17, 2020
Grant date	—

Abstract

A drying hopper for drying granular material includes a hopper casing defining a plenum chamber for granular material, and an upper part and a bottom part. The hopper also includes a material inlet for the granular material arranged in the upper part; a material outlet port at the bottom part; a component for introducing hot drying gas into the hopper casing; and a gas outlet arranged in the upper part. The component for introducing hot drying gas includes gas pipes arranged to extend substantially vertically in the upper part, each gas pipe having a gas outlet port at its lower end and being connected at its upper end to an annular gas duct having a gas inlet for receiving a flow of drying gas, the gas pipes being distributed on the annular gas duct.

First claim

1 . A drying hopper for drying granular material comprises:
a hopper casing defining a plenum chamber for granular material, and having an upper part and a bottom part, said casing having a casing height; a material inlet for the granular material arranged in said upper part; a material outlet port at said bottom part; means for introducing hot drying gas into said hopper casing; a gas outlet arranged in said upper part; wherein said means for introducing hot drying gas include a plurality of gas pipes arranged to extend substantially vertically in the upper part and extend downwardly to a zone between 25% to 50% of the casing height, each gas pipe having a gas outlet port at its lower end and being connected at its upper end to an annular gas duct having a gas inlet for receiving a flow of drying gas, the gas pipes being distributed on the annular gas duct.

2 . The drying hopper according to claim 1 , wherein said gas pipes are arranged on a virtual circle having a diameter of between 0.45 and 0.75, or between 0.50 and 0.65, times the internal diameter of said casing.

3 . The drying hopper according to claim 1 , wherein said annular gas duct is arranged inside said casing in said upper part.

4 . The drying hopper according to claim 1 , wherein at least four gas pipes are connected to the annular gas duct and are equally spaced.

5 . The drying hopper according to claim 1 , wherein said material inlet is centrally arranged in a roof of said hopper casing.

6 . The drying hopper according to claim 1 , wherein said material inlet includes a nozzle.

7 . The drying hopper according to claim 1 , wherein a material distribution member is arranged below said material inlet for spreading the granular material.

8 . The drying hopper according to claim 7 , wherein the annular gas duct and distribution member are concentrically arranged.

9 . The drying hopper according to claim 1 , wherein said casing has a substantially flat bottom wall.

10 . The drying hopper according to claim 1 , wherein a diverter element is spaced from the casing bottom wall and arranged to cover the material outlet.

11 . The drying hopper according to claim 1 , comprising collecting means arranged in the bottom part to force granular material towards the material outlet.

12 . The drying hopper according to claim 1 , wherein said gas pipes comprise a downwardly widening lower portion.

13 . The drying hopper according to claim 12 , wherein said gas pipes are formed as flattened conical pipes, whereby the narrow end is connected to the annular gas duct and the gas pipes delivers gas blade at its outlet port.

14 . The drying hopper according to claim 1 , wherein the lower portion of the gas pipe is equipped with throttling means for adapting the outlet velocity of the hot drying gas leaving the pipe.

15 . (canceled)

16 . A grinding and drying plant for producing a comminuted dry material from a coarse material, the grinding and drying plant comprising:
a source of heated drying gas for providing heated drying gas at a predefined temperature; a comminuting equipment for comminuting and drying the coarse material to obtain a comminuted dry material; a drying hopper according to claim 1 , provided upstream of said comminuting equipment for drying said coarse material; conveying means for conveying the coarse material from the drying hopper into the comminuting equipment; conduits for feeding heated drying gas into the comminuting equipment and to the drying hopper; a separator downstream of the comminuting equipment for collecting and separating the comminuted dry material from the drying gas.

17 . The drying hopper according to claim 7 , wherein said material distribution member comprises a distribution cone.

18 . The drying hopper according to claim 8 , wherein the annular gas duct and distribution member are arranged at about the same height.

Assignees

• Wurth Paul Sa

Inventors

• Schmit Louis

Classifications

• F26B21/50

  Ducting arrangements from the source of air or other gases to the materials or objects being dried · CPC title

• B29B9/16

  Auxiliary treatment of granules · CPC title

• F26B3/06

  the gas or vapour flowing through the materials or objects to be dried (F26B3/14 takes precedence) · CPC title

• F26B9/063

  for drying granular material in bulk, e.g. grain bins or silos with false floor (shallow layer rotary sweep drying bins F26B9/10; perforated wall silos with drying air channels in the stack F26B9/103) · CPC title

• B02C21/00 Primary

  Disintegrating plant with or without drying of the material (for grain B02C9/04) · CPC title