US3380461A - Pipe-cleaning head - Google Patents

Description

A ril 30, 1968 w. MAASBERG ETAL 3,

PIPE-CLEANING HEAD Filed June 2, 1966 I s Sheets-Sheet 1 Wolfgang Maasberg 0H0 Tat/fer INVENTORS.

Attorney April 3o, 1968 Filed June 2, 1966 on N w. MAASBERG ETAL PIPE-CLEANING HEAD a Shets-Sheet r.

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Wolfgang Maasberg Offo Taijfer IN VEN'IORS.

BY A 3w April 30, 1968 w. MAA SBERG ETAL 3,380,461

PIPE'CLEANING HEAD Filed June 2, 1966 3 Sheets-Sheet .5

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Wolfgang Maasberg Offo Tel/fer INVENTOR s.

United States Patent 3,380,461 PIPE-CLEANING HEAD Wolfgag Maasberg, Duisburg, and Otto Taufer, Rumeln- Kaldenhausen, Germany, assignors to Firma Woma- Apparatehau W. Maasberg 8: Co. G.m.b.H., Rheinhausen, Germany, a corporation of Germany Filed June 2, 1966, Ser. No. 554,906 Claims priority, application Germany, June 2, 1965, W 39,267 9 Claims. (Cl. 134-167) Our present invention relates to a device for the cleaning of waste pipe and, more particularly, to a selfpropelled nozzle or head for the cleaning of pipes, ducts and waste-water conduits using high-velocity streams of liquid.

It has been proposed heretofore to clean waste conduits, containing caked or loosely adherent sludge, sediment, stones and other solid articles with the aid of a self-propelled nozzle or head affixed to a flexible conduit and having a plurality of rearwardly directed jets of highvelocity liquid. In such systems, the reaction force upon the head propels it through the conduit while entraining the attached length of flexible pipe therealong. The water jets concurrently loosen adherent materials and carry them away through the pipe. When the head is retracted by drawing upon the pipe or a cable afiixed thereto, in the direction of advance of the head, the rearwardly directed streams of liquid act to scoop sediment and contaminants away from the walls of the waste-water duct and thereby provide an additional loosening and cleaning effect.

It has hitherto been the practice to form such heads as bodies of rotation centered upon an axis while the nozzle apertures are equispaced angularly about this axis of the nozzle body and have respective axes including acute angles with the body axis while being open rearwardly of the body. The liquid jets thus are uniformly distributed about the axis of the body and are directed symmetrically against all of the walls of the waste-water duct. The cleaning effect of these jets is thus applied substantially identically to all of the wall surfaces of the waste conduit as the latter is traversed by the head. While this arrangement has been found to be of advantage where the degree of sedimentation is not excessive and where the walls of the conduit are substantially uniformly coated with a loosely adherent layer of sludge, considerable difficulty is involved in the use of these devices in waste conduits which have been markedly constricted by the sludge and sediment and where such contaminants are nonuniformly deposited upon the walls of the conduit. In practice, therefore, it has not been possible to use cylindrical nozzles or bodies of the character described in larger waste conduits in which the sedimentation along the floor of the conduit is much greater than along the lateral and upper wall portions and wherein the crosssection of the waste conduit has been substantially reduced by the deposits. In fact, it has been found that a large proportion of the cleaning liquid, which is dispensed by the head at high velocity and pressure and thus in substantial volume, is used ineffectively to loosen deposits along the lateral and upper wall portions which may not be contaminated at all or, at most, are covered with sludge to a much lesser extent than the floor of the duct. For this reason, the devices have left the conduits unclean and obstructed along the floor where heavier sediments tend to accumulate in spite of the fact that the heads and the pumping means communicating therewith were dimensioned to dispense very large volumes of cleaning liquid. Furthermore, the nonuniform obstruction of the waste conduit, in the manner indicated, has prevented the self-propelled nozzle from passing eifectively through the conduit and thereby increased the time required for the cleaning of such conduits.

It is, therefore, the principal object of the present invention to provide an improved head for the cleaning of waste conduit with the aid of high-velocity jets of the cleaning liquid whereby the aforementioned disadvantages can be obviated.

A more specific object of this invention is to provide an improved self-propelled nozzle head for the dislodging of sediment, sludge and other contaminants from heavily obstructed waste conduits in which the liquid utilization and the rate of cleaning are sharply increased by comparison with earlier devices.

Yet another object of this invention is to provide a self-propelled head, for the purposes described, which can pass rapidly and easily through conduits nonuniformly constricted by contaminants, which is capable of dislodging even relatively heavy sediments, and which operates optimally with respect to deposits upon the floor of the waste conduits.

These objects and others which will be apparent hereinafter are attained, in accordance with the present invention, in a self-propelled head for the cleaning of waste conduits which has a nozzle portion connected with a guide portion forwardly of the nozzle portion in the direction of movement of the nozzle, this guide portion being of flattened configuration while the bulb-shaped nozzle portion is provided with an array of nozzles whose axes are coplanar and include an acute angle (converging rearwardly with respect to the direction of movement of the head) with the guide surface or skid formed by the guide portion. Thus, the plane of the rearwardly directed nozzles includes with the plane of the guide surface an acute angle whereas the nozzle axes include respective acute angles with a transverse median plane through the body and preferably intersecting at the forwardly convex or rounded edge of the guide portion.

Thus, when the guide surface or skid of the body rests upon the sludge, sediment or other contaminants on the floor of the waste conduit, the nozzles are directed rearwardly and downwardly to provide a sheet-flow of cleaning liquid rearwardly and downwardly to increase the scooping effect while propelling the head forwardly and somewhat upwardly to permit it to climb over the sediment even though the latter may nonuniformly obstruct the channel. The round forward end of the body is substantially flat and lies in the plane of the nozzles and the fitting provided for connecting the pipe to the rearward end of the body at the nozzle portion. This pipe, which is connected to the several nozzles by suitable ducts or passages formed in the nozzle portion, serves to supply the nozzles with water or other cleaning liquid at high velocity and at elevated pressures; for this purpose, the pipe is connected in the conventional manner with a pump means which may be maintained externally of the conduit to which access is gained via manholes, cleanout traps or branches of the conduit normally provided for this purpose.

Intermediate the rounded forward edge of the body and its rearward extremity, we provide a multiplicity of ribs, extending transversely to the plane of the nozzle axes, and Widening in the direction of movement of the head so as to constitute the guide or skid surface on the underside of said body and a corresponding guide surface along the upper side thereof. In this manner, the selfpropelled body is guided by parallel ribs in the fashion of a skid or sled with respect to sediment on the bottom of the conduit and with respect to any deposits along the upper surfaces thereof and the body will tend to assume a generally horizontal lie with slight upward inclination (in the direction of advance of the body) regardless of the manner in which the body is inserted into the conduit. The ribs form runners upon which the body rides with little chance of obstruction and substantially reduced friction effect. In general, therefore, the guide portion of the body may be considered to be of platelike configuration with a plurality of similar parallel runners transversely spaced apart on each side of the plate and extending in the direction of movement thereof. While it is most advantageous to form the body with its nozzle portion and guide portion and with the runners unitarily (i.e., as one piece) from a moldable synthetic resin or by casting it from metal, it will be understood that the runners can be welded to the plate if so desired. When the plate is mentioned, therefore, it is intended to include both a plate-like member formed integrally with the runners and a separate plate to which the runners may be affixed by conventional techniques. Corresponding numbers of runners are symmetrically disposed along the opposite surfaces of the guide plate while the nozzle portion is constituted by a bulb-like enlargement thereof at the rearward side of the body, this enlargement extending across the rearward end and having a bore communicating as a manifold with the respective nozzles and with the aforementioned pipe. The nozzles themselves diverge rearwardly relative to the transverse median plane of the body, at which the pipe is connected, in order to limit or correct any lateral or twisting movement of the body in the plane of the plate as the body is inserted or moves through the conduit.

It has been found that a conduit-cleaning head of this character advances cleanly through even highly contaminated and almost completely obstructed conduits while concentrating the jets of liquid, in sheet-like configuration, upon the heaviest sediments. In its passage through the conduit, the other walls thereof are subjected to the cleaning action of the liquid which, since it is concentrated upon the heavier sediments on the fioor, is more effective in cleaning the conduit than has been possible heretofore. Furthermore, upon encountering severe obstructions, the arrangement of the skid plane with respect to the nozzle plane ensures that the body will ride up over the obstruction and, upon clearing same, direct a sheet of liquid against the base of the obstruction to loosen it and free the conduit thereof. Upon retraction of the body, preferably by hydraulic means, a downward stream of liquid scoops out sediment from the floor of the conduit and permits such sediment to be carried away by the cleaning liquid. Substantially all of the liquid is used at the point where cleaning is most required.

The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent from the following description, reference being made to the accompanying drawing in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a cleaning head, in accordance with the present invention, showing it in action in a conduit (partly broken away);

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the body, partly broken away; and

FIG. 3 is a side-elevational view of the device.

In the drawing we show a device for the cleaning of waste-water conduits, diagrammatically represented at 1, which comprises a high-pressure water pipe 2 of the braided wall and flexible type which is connected at a fitting 22 with a nozzle body generally represented at 3. The body 3 is of generally fiat configuration and is formed with an enlarged rearward portion 23 within which a plurality of rearwardly directed nozzles 4 (four such nozzles being shown here). The nozzles 4, as can be seen in greater detail from FIG. 2, comprise plugs 24, with conical apertures 25 open rearwardly to produce respective jets 26 of liquid. The nozzle plugs 24 are threaded into respective apertures 27 lying in a common plane (represented at in FIG. 3 and parallel to the paper in FIG. 2) such that the axes 9 of the nozzles 4 are coplanar.

The nozzle portion 23 of the body 3 is unitarily connected with a guide portion 5 whose skid planes 6 (symmetrically disposed on opposite sides of the plane 10 both of the body and the axes 9) are convergent rearwardly (FIG. 3) and intersect the plane 10 in acute angles 7 as represented in this latter figure. A suitable angle for this purpose, in accordance with the invention, may be between 2 /2 and 10 and preferably is about 5". Thus, when the guide portion 5 rests upon a surface along its lower skid plane 6, the axes 9 of the nozzles 4 and their respective jets are directly downwardly.

The bulb-like enlargement 23 at the rearward side of the body 3 is integral with a guide plate 8 extending along the plane 18 and provided with runners 11 transversely spaced and equal in number on each surface of the plate 8. These mutually parallel runners 11 have outer surfaces 12 which define the skid planes 6 and lie in respective planes parallel to the median plane 28 transverse to the plate 8 and the plane of the paper in FIG. 2. The runners 11 merge into the enlargement 23 and thus serve as flanges reinforcing the junction between the guide plate 8 and the enlarged portion 23. The forward ends of the runners 12 on opposite sides of the guide plate 8 converge curvilinearly at 29 in the direction of movement (arrow 30) of the body 3 to permit the runners 11 to ride up upon any sediment in the path of the body.

As can be seen from FIG. 2, the passages 27 communicating with the nozzle plugs 24 open into the manifold bore 13 which lies in the plane 10 but extends perpendicularly to the plane 28 and to the direction of advance of the body 3. A plug 15 is threaded into the open end of the bore 13 and can be welded in place.

The nozzles 4 are oriented symmetrically on opposite sides on the transverse median plane 28 so that the inner nozzles 4 include angles 16 with the median plane 28 while the outer nozzles 4 include angles 16' therewith. In the present embodiment, the angles 16 included be tween the axes 9 of the inner nozzles and the plane 28 are 7 whereas the angles 16' are 14, these values being highly advantageous for most purposes.

The forward end of the plate 8 is rounded circularly as shown at 19 and merges with the rearwardly convergent flanks 31 of this plate (FIG. 2) while the axes 9, extended forwardly, intersect at 18 with one another with the intersection of the rounded leading edge 19 and the plane 28. The symmetrical arrangement of the nozzles and the forwardly convergent configuration of the plate 8 prevent twisting of the body 3 in the plane of the paper (FIG. 2) and thus facilitate the direct advance of the body into the waste conduit. The runners 11, moreover, function as guides restrictive of lateral movement of the devices as they engage the sludge or sediment and pass through the liquid within the waste conduit. Water at high velocity is pumped through the pipe 2 and is ejected in a sheet-like discharge 32 of liquid (FIG. 1) thereby advancing the body 3 in the forward direction (arrow 30) while loosening sediment and sludge as the jets impinge thereon. When the head 3 is advanced into the pipe, it can be withdrawn and the jets then scoop loose the sediment and sludge which is conveyed along the pipe.

The invention described and illustrated is believed to admit of many modifications within the ability of persons skilled in the art, all such modifications being considered within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

We claim:

1. A self-propelled head for the cleaning of waste conduits, comprising a generally fiat nozzle body having a rear nozzle portion "and a guide portion connected with and extending forwardly over said nozzle portion; a generally planar array of nozzles mounted in said nozzle portion for directing respective jets of a cleaning liquid rearwardly from said body, said guide portion having a skid plane for supporting said body upon its advance through a waste conduit including an acute angle with the plane of said array; and pipe means connected with said body for supplying a liquid at high pressure to said nozzles.

2. A head as defined in claim 1 wherein said guide portion is formed with a guide plate lying substantially in said plane of said nozzles and a plurality of runners extending from said plate and defining said skid ulane, said runners extending longitudinally in the direction of advance of said body into said conduit.

3. A head as defined in claim 2, a corresponding number of said runners are formed on opposite sides of said plate and define respective skid planes inclined rearwardly at respective acute angles to said plane of said array.

4. A head as defined in claim 3 wherein said nozzles are symmetrically disposed on opposite sides of a transverse median plane through said body penpendicular to said plane of said array.

5. A head as defined in claim 4 wherein said nozzles have axes convergent forwardly in the direction of movement of said body and intersecting at said median plane.

6. A head as defined in claim 5 wherein said axes of said nozzles intersect at the leading edge of said plate.

7. A head as defined in claim 6 wherein said leading edge is convex in the direction of movement of said body into said conduit.

8. A head as defined in claim 7 wherein said plate has lateral edges merging with said leading edge and convergent in the direction thereof.

9. A head as defined in claim 2 wherein said nozzle portion is a bulb-shaped arrangement integral with said plate, said nozzle portion being provided with a bore in the plane of said array communicating with said nozzles, said pipe means being connected with said enlargement at a location intermediate said nozzles.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2/1923 Sladden l34167 9/1956 Tharp 134-168 XR

Claims (1)

1. A SELF-PROPELLED HEAD FOR THE CLEANING OF WASTE CONDUITS, COMPRISING A GENERALLY FLAT NOZZLE BODY HAVING A REAR NOZZLE PORTION AND A GUIDE PORTION CONNECTED WITH AND EXTENDING FORWARDLY OVER SAID NOZZLE PORTION; A GENERALLY PLANAR ARRAY OF NOZZLES MOUNTED IN SAID NOZZLE PORTION FOR DIRECTING RESPECTIVE JETS OF A CLEANING LIQUID REARWARDLY FROM SAID BODY, SAID GUIDE PORTION HAVING A SKID PLANE FOR SUPPORTING SAID BODY UPON ITS ADVANCE THROUGH A WASTE CONDUIT INCLUDING AN ACUTE ANGLE WITH THE PLANE OF SAID ARRAY; AND PIPE MEANS CONNECTED WITH SAID BODY FOR SUPPLYING A LIQUID AT HIGH PRESSURE TO SAID NOZZLES.

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