The Babcock & Wilcox Company

Diamond Power International, Inc.

James H Hipple

Don W Smith

Dean C Ackerman

Brett R Burton

Tony F Habib

Clinton A Brown

Jesse C Johnston

Robert W Honaker

Kamal Kassouf

Steven P Carpenter

Rodney H Elder

Michael P Michael

Steven L Shover

Francis L Brown

Neil E Reed

A sootblower of the short travel rotary furnace wall type having features which permit indexing of the angular position of the screw tube assembly during successive operating cycles. Indexing of the arc swept by the sootblower nozzle is provided through the use of a novel cam plate component and operating the sootblower in a manner which provides for indexing between operating cycles.

Sootblower with progressive cleaning arc

A sootblower for cleaning a plurality of surfaces within an interior volume of a combustion device is provided. The sootblower includes a combustion assembly configured to generate a pressure wave and a delivery assembly having an outlet for delivering the pressure wave into the interior volume of the combustion device.

Detonation / deflagration sootblower

A drive assembly for a sootblower which provides a non-constant rate of rotational motors of the lance tube through the use of non-circular gears in the drive assembly. The drive assembly is used to provide a uniform or near uniform rate of progression of a jet of cleaning medium ejected from the lance tube along a surface to be cleaned.

Sootblower mechanism providing varying lance rotational speed

A sootblower assembly for cleaning heated surfaces within a boiler or other combustion system of the long retracting oscillation type. A kinematic drive mechanism is provided for causing the sootblower lance tube to oscillate such that cleaning medium discharge from nozzles on the lance tube emit jets of clean medium against the surfaces to be cleaned. The kinematics of the oscillation drive mechanisms are related to the lance tube nozzle positions and the distance to the surfaces being cleaned in various positions to provide a constant or nearly constant rate of sootblowing medium jet progression along the surfaces to be cleaned.

Oscillating sootblower mechanism

A sootblower hub having packing for sealing between a sootblower feed tube and lance tube. A packing gland is used which provides a live loading feature for exerting an axial force on the packing. The packing gland is comprised of elements which can be separately assembled in a manner which maintains a preload on the packing loading spring, even when it is disassembled from the sootblowing mechanism. Once the packing gland is installed into a sootblower carriage a preload maintaining member can be actuated to enable the axial loading force created by the spring to be transferred to the packing.

Hub assembly for sootblower

An anti-drift mechanism for a downwardly oriented port rodder for cleaning a port opening of a recovery boiler. The anti-drift mechanism prevents a cutter of the rodder from accidentally drifting from a retracted holding position into the port upon the loss of holding power to the actuator. Two embodiments are disclosed. The first is a frictional engagement with the port rodder while the second involves the use of a valve in conjuction with the actuator to trap fluid pressure and maintain the rodder in the holding position.

Port rodder with anti-drift feature

A panel indicator (10) which includes a light transmitting indicator rod (16) in engagement with the end (40) of a fiber optic cable (14). A portion of the rod protrudes beyond a retaining housing (12) and has a conical depression (28) formed axially thereof to provide maximum radial dispersion of light from the rod for lateral viewing thereof.

Panel indicator

A local display of a fluid level is provided in connection with a fiber optic illuminating system in which a side by side, bi-color light is passed through the fluid in a level gauge having transparent viewing ports. Diverging light passing from the level gauge, refracted in response to the fluid and gauge material, is masked and one color is passed to a focusing lens and a local readout in a plane above or below the focusing lens.

Growing community of inventors

Lancaster, OH, United States of America

James H Hipple