MOLTEN METAL PUMPS

• US 3,836,280 A
• Filed: 10/17/1972
• Issued: 09/17/1974
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/1972
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Fenton C. Koch
• Original Assignee: Fenton C. Koch
• Inventors: Koch, Fenton C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Raduazo, Henry F.
• Application Number:
  US05/298,415
• Time in Patent Office: 700 Days
• Field of Search: 415/200,175,214
• US Class Current: 415/175
• CPC Class Codes: F04D 7/065 for liquid metal

Abstract

A pump having a pumping chamber, an impeller shaft enclosed in a shaft bore communicating with the chamber, and an impeller carried on a shaft in the chamber is partially immersed in liquid so that the shaft bore extends down to the chamber from a location above the liquid, and the shaft bore is pressurized with an inert gas to counteract the pressure of the liquid head and the pumping pressure and thereby prevent the liquid from rising in the bore around the shaft.

Claims

1. Pump apparatus adapted to be immersed in molten material and operated to move the material, said apparatus comprising:

a. a vertically positionable hollow structure of refractory material extendible down into the molten material and defining a submersible pump chamber in the lower end, a shaft bore extending upwardly from said pump chamber in said structure, and a discharge bore in said structure communicating with and extending upwardly from said pump chamber in the direction of said shaft bore, b. a shaft extending through said shaft bore, c. motor means operatively connected to said shaft, d. an impeller on said shaft in said pump chamber, said shaft and impeller being of a refractory material, e. said hollow structure having an inlet opening spaced above said impeller so that during operation of said pump molten material is drawn through said inlet opening into said pump chamber and is pumped out through said discharge bore, and f. means for supplying and pressurizing said shaft bore with an inert gas so that molten material entering said inelt opening is prevented from rising in said shaft bore around said shaft.