Incinerators
United States Patent 1191 Dingwell INCINERATORS Richard A. Dingwell, PO. Box 711, Gray, Maine 04039 [22] Filed: Aug. 12, 1974 21 Appl. No.: 496,381  
  Related U.S. Application Data [62] Division of Ser. No. 341,054, March 14, 1973.  
 [76] Inventor:  
 1451 Apr. 15, 1975 Primary Examinerl(enneth W. Sprague [57] ABSTRACT An incinerator is disclosed consisting of at least one oil burner having its fuel composed at least in part of waste oil and atomized by steam. The burner is axially positioned in an outwardly flared, elongated combustion chamber through which a large volume of air is eddied to cooperate with the steam in vaporizing the oil. Non-liquid wet wastes are conveyed through a dryer to the combustion chamber via a collector. The combustion chamber includes an auxiliary chamber provided with an oil burner opening into a refuse collecting chamber having a vertical stack equipped with after burners. Other types of waste may also be discharged into the auxiliary combustion chamber. The disclosed embodiment of the invention also includes a battery of such burners with their combustion chambers in communication with a plenum in the air delivery system.  
 15 Claims, 11 Drawing Figures PATENTEEAFR I 53575 77 400 sum 3 0 5 FIG. 4  
 FIG. 5 FIG 6- INCINERATORS The present application is a division of my copending application Ser. No. 341,054, filed Mar. 14, 1973.  
 BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION While almost everyone is well aware that there is a wide range of pollution problems, many specific disposal problems are less commonly appreciated such as those relating to waste oils, oily wastes, oil-carrying and oil-saturated materials, and various other liquids, solids, and semi-solids that must or can be incinerated and materials that even if they cannot be completely burned can be broken down by heat into forms more suitable for disposal.  
  One example of such disposal problems is that represented by used crankcase oil of which substantial volumes regularly accummulate at garages and service stations and for which there is presently no market except in those few areas where re-refineries exist. Collection services are usually available but the disposition of such oil presents problems since, if conventionally burned, an oily smoke results.  
  The dangers of oil spills are featured as are the diffi culty of effecting clean ups after they occur but a troublesome consequence is the disposal of oil that cannot be reclaimed, oil-saturated hay or other materials used to absorb the oil on the shores, and oil-coated seaweed.  
  In addition, there are many other wastes that, at present cannot be processed without becoming a polution factor in one way or another. Examples of such wastes are septic tank cleanouts and manures that cannot be readily converted to fertilizers that are suitable for use, oil tank flushings, and out-dated medicaments, some of which cannot be burned but are examples of materials that can be so broken down or processed by heat that they can be safely disposed of with other noncombustible residues.  
 THE PRESENT INVENTION A principal objective of the present invention is to provide a primary incinerator useable by itself to incinerate waste oils or in combination with and as a means for at least partially incinerating waste materials delivered into its combustion chamber from a dryer or other source.  
  Another principal objective of the invention is to provide an incinerator plant consisting of a primary incinerator in communication with a waste collector having a stack. The primary incinerator provides in its combustion chamber a spinning gas stream and the plant includes means to deliver into the combustion chamber materials to be incinerated and a specific objective is to provide that such materials be introduced into the combustion chamber as a stream to cause or assist the spinning of the hot gas stream therein and supplementing the air supply.  
  A further objective of the invention is to provide the combustion chamber with an auxiliary oil burner and to employ an auxiliary combustion chamber between it and the waste collector.  
  Yet another objective of the invention is to incorpo rate in the stack of the collector a pair of after-burners arranged and disposed to cause the spinning of the exhaust stream.  
  Another objective of the invention is to provide an incinerator having a combustion chamber into which an oil burner extends, the oil burner of a type in which the fuel is discharged as a spinning, steam-atomized stream enveloped at its muzzle and by a spinning, oilatomizing air stream.  
  Yet another principal objective of the invention is to provide a waste oil incinerator consisting of an oil burner of a type having its fuel atomized by steam and air and axially located within an outwardly and forwardly tapering combustion chamber through which a substantial but adjustable air stream is established by a blower. The fuel supply includes both waste oil and commercial grade fuel oil sources, each provided with adjustable controls as is the steam source. Both the atomized fuel and the air stream are eddied or spun, desirably both in the same direction.  
  Another objective of the invention is to provide a battery of such incinerators having a common plenum in which there is a damper control for regulating the air supply for each incinerator or for isolating that incinerator from the plenum.  
 BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS A preferred embodiment of the invention is illustrated by the accompanying drawings of which FIG. 1 is a somewhat schematic plan view of an incinerator in accordance with the invention;  
  FIG. 2 is a section taken approximately along the indicated line 2-2 of FIG. 1;  
 FIG. 2A is a somewhat schematic view of the collector;  
  FIG. 3 is a fragmentary view, on an increase in scale, taken approximately along the indicated line 33 of FIG. 1;  
  FIG. 4 is a view of the inner wall of the plenum with the oil and steam conduits and part of that wall broken away;  
  FIG. 5 is a section, on an increase in scale, taken approximately along the indicated line 5-5 of FIG. 4;  
  FIG. 6 is a section, also on an increase in scale, taken approximately along the indicated line 6-6 of FIG. 4;  
  FIG. 7 is a somewhat schematic view of the oil and steam delivery system limited to that of but one of the primary incinerators to simplify the drawings;  
  FIG. 8 is a view taken approximately along the indicated line 88 of FIG. 5;  
  FIG. 9 is a section taken approximately along the indicated line 99 of FIG. 5; and  
  FIG. 10 is a longitudinal section of a commercial available oil burner that has proved effective in use.  
 THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION The preferred embodiment of an incinerator plant in accordance with the invention consists of a battery of primary incinerators generally indicated at 20, a dryer unit generally indicated at 21 feeding a collector, generally indicated at 22 and from which dried material is discharged into the combustion chamber 23 of one of the incinerators 20 which chamber is placed in communication with a refuse collector 24 by an auxiliary combustion chamber 25. The refuse collector 24 has a stack 26. The primary and auxiliary combustion chambers, therefuse collector and its stack are each conventionally lined with fire brick.  
  Turning first to the battery of primary incinerators 20, see particularly FIGS. 4 9, a plenum 27 that is or may be part of a wall of a control room, not shown,  
  chambers 23 shown as of circular cross section, each having an oil burner, generally indicated at 32 and shown in detail in FIG. 10. Each oil burner 32 is removably held axially of its combustion chamber 23 by a tubular receiver 33 that is supported at its rear end by the rear wall of the plenum 27 and at its front end by a disc 34 fitting the combustion chamber 23 and providing a transverse partition. The muzzle of each burner 32 is exposed forwardly of the disc 34 and each disc has radial ports 35 provided with vanes 36 so inclined as to impart a rotary or spinning motion to the air stream passing through it, see FIGS. and 8.  
  Each oil burner 32 has, within the plenum 27, an encircling damper assembly, generally indicated at 37. As may best be seen in FIGS. 5 and 9, each damper assembly 37 has annular supports 38 mounted on the interior surfaces of the plenum walls interconnected by rods 39, each hingedly supporting an arcuate vane 40. The vanes 39, 40 are so dimensioned that in their closed position, each rests on the hinged end of the next adjacent vane to encircle an oil burner 32. A rotatable ring 41 within the support 39 on the inner plenum wall has a series of arms 42 pivotably connected thereto, one arm for each vane and pivotally connected to the central portion of its inner surface. The ring 41 is provided with a shifter 43 extending through an arcuate slot 44 in the inner wall of the plenum and of such length that the shifter may be turned in one direction to swing the vanes 40 outwardly and in the other direction to draw them inwardly so that each combustion chamber 23 not only has a means for adjusting the volume of air supplied thereto by the blower 29 but also may be isolated from the plenum air in the event it is to be placed out of service.  
  Each oil burner 32 is shown as having an axial oil inlet 45 and, forward thereof, a steam inlet 46. While any oil burner may be used in which steam is employed to ensure the correct atomization of the particular oil to be burned and capable of completely burning the fuel used therewith, those manufactured by the DeVoe Anti-Pollution Burner Corporation of Portland, Me., have proved satisfactory in use. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,176,921 and 3,556,408.  
  Each such burner, see FIG. 10, has an axial inner tube 47 within and spaced from its outer barrel 48 with the inlet 45 in communication with the tube 47 which has a fuel spinner 49 of the same hand as the fuel spinner 50 at the muzzle of the barrel 48. The steam inlet 46 is in communication with the space between the tube 47 and the barrel 48. The steam inlet 46 is in communcation with the space between the tube 47 and the barrel 48. The space between the spinners 49 and 50 provides a chamber 51 into which both fuel and steam is delivered with the fuel being thereby subject to being atomized with the discharged fuel stream enveloped in a spinning air stream that also assists in so atomizing the oil that it is in prime condition for complete combustion.  
  While the burners 32 will of course function properly with commercial grades of fuel oil, one important feature of the invention is that various waste oils, crankcase oil, for one example, or salvaged oil even if not completely freed of water, for another example, may be efficiently and completely burned and usefully employed to incinerate other materials, for one example, or to generate steam, for another example.  
  To this end, see FIG. 7, a main oil supply conduit 52 from a waste oil tank, not shown, and provided with filtering means 53 extends through a steam operated heater 54 enabling the oil to be preheated up to about 250F depending on the viscosity of the fuel to be burned, such heating being particularly necessary with oils equivalent to No. 5, 6, and 7 fuel oils. The conduit 52 includes branch lines 55, one for each burner 32 but with only one shown to simplify the drawings. Each branch fuel line 55 is connected to the oil inlet 45 of the appropriate one of the burners 32 and is provided with, in the order named, a valve-controlled line 56 to return oil to the source tank, a shut off valve 57, a check valve 58, a volume control valve 59 and a valve 60.  
  An auxiliary oil conduit 61 from a tank, not shown, for a commercial grade of fuel oil is also provided with branch lines 62, one for each burner 32 and connected to its branch line 55 and having a volume control valve 63 and a check valve 64. Each branch line 62 is also provided with a line 65 to a pilot burner 66 for the associated oil burner 32 and provided with a manually operated valve 67 and a solenoid operated valve 68 for remote control purposes with the ignition circuit for the pilot burner indicated generally at 69.  
  A steam line 70 has a branch line 71 for each burner 32 and connected to its steam inlet 46. Each branch line 71 is provided with a reducing valve 72 located between shut-off valves 73 and a loop 74 for the pressure gauge 75. There is also a conduit 76 bypassing the pressure reducing valve 71 and provided with a shut-off valve 77 that is opened should the valve 72 require servicing or replacement, the valves 73 then being closed. Each line 71 also has an adjustable valve 78, a check valve 79 and a shut-off valve 80. A branch line 81 normally closed by a valve 82 is in communication with the oil conduit 55 between the valves 58 and 59 for use in purging that line, when needed and the line 81 also has a check valve 83, the several check valves preventing back flows in the lines in which they are incorporated.  
  From the above description of the main incinerators 20, it will be seen that oil and steam volumes and proportions delivered to each burner 32 may be controlled as needed as can the amount of regular fuel oil and air required to provide complete combustion.  
  In practice, the operation of the primary incinerators 20 depends on the condition and quality of the waste oil to be delivered to their burners 32. The preheater 54 has the important function of ensuring that the viscosity of the oil is within a range suitable for the burners. For that reason, each oil line 55 is provided with a temperature gauge 84 in order that the operator may set the valves to return oil to the tank through the line 56 if its viscosity is too high. Some waste oils can be burned cleanly by themselves while others may require the addition of auxiliary fuel oil in varying proportions.  
  The complete combustion of the waste oils in a primary incinerator results from the atomization of the fuel by spinning streams and air streams in a combustion chamber that is outwardly and forwardly tapered with all components regulatable to ensure optimum combinations. While in practice, a taper for the combustion chambers 23 in the order of 30 has proved satisfactory, the taper angle may be varied substantially as can the cross sectional areas of the chambers 23 relative to their oil burners 32. As the disclosed embodiment of the invention is concerned with complete combustion in a wide range of uses with fuel varying greatly in quality, the chambers 23 are dimensioned to insure that sufficient air may be delivered therethrough under any conditions as thermal efficiency is secondary to the objective that complete combustion be attained under even the most unfavorable conditions.  
  The auxiliary combustion chamber 25 is shown as cylindrical and of a diameter greater than that of the outlet and of the primary incinerator 20 of which it is a part, necessitating the use of an intermediate frustoconical transition section 85. The auxiliary chamber 25 is mounted on a base 86 and has a laterally disposed cylindrical housing 87 whose axis defines an acute angle with that of the chamber 25 with respect to the hot gas flow therethrough. The housing 87 is closed by a detachable end section 88 axially supporting an auxiliary oil burner 89 and blower 90.  
  The waste or refuse box or chamber 24 has a base 91 and is provided with a cleanout door 92 in one side and a service door 93 in its outer end wall provided with an inspection port 94 in a position permitting the operator to see through the chamber 25 into the primary incinerator 20 with which it is in communication. The stack 26 of the refuse box 24 is of circular section and its wall supports a pair of oppositely disposed, vertically spaced, parallel oil burners 95 each substantially tangential with respect to the inner surface of the stack 26 thereby to effect a spinning of the exhaust gases. The burners 95 and the burner 89 may be of any type that completely burns its fuel. Desirably, they are of the type in which the atomized fuel is spun.  
  The incinerator plant as thus far detailed is adapted to receive in its primary incinerator 20 materials that are to be incinerated, or to be broken down by heat for disposal purposes. In the illustrative embodiment of the invention, such materials are sufficiently wet, semisolid wastes or waste materials that are too wet to burn so that the incinerator requires the use of the dryer unit 21. While the dryer 21 may be of other types, in practice, it is of a conventional drum type receiving wet materials from a load-receiving hopper by means of a conveyor, the hopper and conveyor are shown schematically in FIG. 1 and indicated at 96 and 97, respectively.  
  The dried material is transferred into the upper end of the collector 22 through a conduit 98, the transfer being effected by suction. To achieve that result, see FIGS. 2 and 2A, the intake of a blower 99 is connected to an intake conduit 100 extending downwardly into the collector 22 well beyond the discharge end of the conduit 98. The outlet of the blower 99 includes a conduit 101 with which the discharge 102 of the collector 22 is in communication. As may be seen in H0. 2A, the escape of dried material through the discharge 102 is controlled by a rotatable gate 103 provided with a series of radial blades 104. The gate 103 has its shaft provided with a sprocket 105. A drive chain 106 is trained about the sprocket and the sprocket 107 on the shaft of a motor 108, desirably of a variable speed type. The chain and sprockets are protected by a guard 109. The conduit 101 opens into the combustion chamber 23 substantially tangentially with respect to its inner surface to convey the dried material in an air stream that assists the spinning of the flame and ensures the exposure of the dried material thereto. The above arrangement is also effective in withdrawing gases formed in the dryer 21 and delivering them into the chamber 23 where they burn. In the disclosed embodiment of the invention, no means are disclosed for separating the dried materials from the gases in the conduit 101.  
  In order that materials can be incinerated without first passing through the dryer 21, the auxiliary combustion chamber 25 supports a closed chute 110 opening into it and provided with a blower 111 and a port 112 through which materials may be delivered as by a conveyor, not shown. Under many conditions of use, it is not necessary to use the burners 95 as combustion is usually completed in the auxiliary chamber 25.  
  From the foregoing it will be appreciated that incinerator means are provided capable of incinerating a wide range of materials even where waste oils are utilized in the primary burners with the waste oils constituting low cost fuel for uses of which incinerating is but one example.  
 I claim:  
  1. An incinerator plant comprising a combustion chamber including a forward portion and a rearward portion that is forwardly and outwardly tapered to the cross sectional size and shape of the forward portion, an oil burner in said rearward portion with its muzzle axially of said chamber and including a fuel supply, means including adjustable steam and air delivery means to atomize the fuel and to provide a spinning hot gas stream thereof axially of and through said chamber, a refuse collecting chamber with which the combustion chamber is in communication and which includes a stack, and a delivery port in said combustion chamber to receive materials to be incinerated.  
  2. The incinerator of claim 1 in which the stack is circular in cross section and includes after burner means, said after burner means including a pair of diametrically opposed, parallel oil burners arranged to direct their flames against diametrically opposed portions of the interior of the stack in a manner causing the spinning of the exhaust gas streams.  
  3. The incinerator of claim 2 in which the oil burners of said pair are also vertically spaced relative to each other.  
  4. The incinerator of claim 3 in which the burners are of the type in which the oil is delivered from each burner as a spinning atomized stream.  
  5. The incinerator of claim 4 in which the fuel stream delivered by one burner is spun oppositely to the fuel stream delivered by the other.  
  6. The incinerator of claim 2 and means delivering combustible materials into said combustion chamber through said port.  
  7. The incinerator of claim 6 in which the combustible delivering means includes a dryer of a type operable to receive a supply of wet materials and deliver therefrom said materials in a combustible condition and means to transfer such delivered materials through said port.  
  8. The incinerator .of claim 7 in which the transfer means includes a blower with its intake operable to draw from the dryer gases resulting from its operation of said dryer and with its outlet blowing dried solid particles into the combustion chamber.  
  9. The incinerator of claim 8 in which the gases and the combustible materials transferred from the dryer to the combustion chamber are delivered as a stream transversely of the combustion chamber in a manner to effect the spinning thereof.  
  10. The incinerator of claim 1 and an auxiliary oil burner in the forward portion of the combustion chamber.  
  11. The incinerator of claim 10 and blower means in communication with said forward portion adjacent the auxiliary burner.  
  12. The incinerator of claim 10 in which said auxiliary oil burner is disposed at an acute angel relative to the axis of said combustion chamber.  
  13. The incinerator of claim 1 in which a housing is in communication with the forward portion of the combustion chamber and an oil burner is mounted in the housing in a position such that its axis defines an acute angle with the axis of gas flowing through the combustion chamber, and blower means are mounted on the housing with their delivery ports in communication with its interior and operable to direct air streams therethrough generally parallel to the burner axis.  
  14. The incinerator of claim 1 and a closed chute in communication with the interior of said forward portion and mounted thereon, and a blower attached to said chute and operable to deliver an air stream through the chute and into said forward portion.  
  15. The incinerator of claim 14 in which the chute provides a material pathway disposed at an acute angle relative to the axis of the gas flowing through the combustion chamber.