The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 15, 1991
Filed:
Oct. 13, 1989
Dick G Klaren, Hillegom, NL;
Eskla B.V., Schiedam, NL;
Abstract
Installations for operating physical and/or chemical processes, for example heat exchangers, comprising a bundle of parallel vertical tubes which, via tube plates, are in open connection with a bottom header and a top header, are known to operate with a granular mass maintained in a steady or quasi-steady fluidized state, at least in the tubes, by means of a medium flowing upwards through the headers and tubes. At start-up and shut-down of such installations problems are encountered because the granular mass tends to settle to form a packed bed, in particular if the upwardly flowing medium may contain solid impurities or has a rather high viscosity. The invention solves such problems by using a storage vessel, to which the granular mass is flushed at shut-down of the installation, a partial stream of the flowing medium being first fed through the tubes at start-up, after which the granular mass is flushed from the storage vessel to the tubes and only thereafter the main stream of medium is fed to the tubes. At shut-down said main stream is first reduced and then the granular mass is flushed back to the storage vessel and thereafter the partial stream of the medium is shut off.