Device for separating solid particles from a liquid

Abstract

The invention relates to a device for separating solid particles from a cooling and / or lubricating liquid (12) for cutting machine tools (11), comprising a filter device (17) which can be supplied with a liquid and comprising a collecting container (13) for liquid (12) which has been treated using the filter device (17). The collecting container (13) is paired with at least one sedimentation region (22). The aim of the invention is to improve such a device such that the solid particles contained in the liquid can be removed from the liquid circuit effectively and as completely as possible in any case, wherein the device can be operated substantially without any interruptions for cleaning purposes. According to the invention, this is achieved in that the sedimentation region (22) is made of a substantially conical funnel base (21) which is arranged in a lower part of the collecting container (13) and which comprises a liquid drain (24) arranged in the region of the cone tip (23) lying at the bottom. By virtue of the aforementioned design, solid particles on the funnel base essentially automatically reach the lowest location, i.e. the cone tip where the liquid drain is located, on the inclined base. (Fig. 3)

Description

[0001] P A T E N T A N W Ä L T E B U S C H H O F F · H E N N I C K E · A L T H A U S UNSER ZEICHEN IT118PCT IHR ZEICHENDATE 02 / 15 / 2024 / / OUR REF. YOUR REF DATE Applicant: Interlit Filtration GmbH, Chausseestraße 12, 16247 Joachimsthal Title: Device for separating solid particles from a liquid The invention relates to a device for separating solid particles from a liquid for cleaning, in particular, circulating cooling and / or lubricating liquid of metal-cutting machine tools, with a filtering device to which the liquid can be applied and with a collecting container for liquid treated by means of the filtering device, wherein at least one sedimentation area is assigned to the collecting container. A device of the type mentioned is known from DE 102004015779 B4. In this known device, three sedimentation containers with conveying devices for discharging sediment are provided. Liquid is conveyed from the first into the second or third sedimentation container by means of a pump.A separator separates the solids, which are pumped along with the liquid, into the second sedimentation tank. The liquid to be filtered is fed to the first sedimentation tank, where larger and heavier solid particles sink to the bottom and form the sediment, which is then discharged by the conveying system. Sedimentation of coarse contaminants takes place in the first sedimentation tank. The pump conveys the liquid, freed of coarse contaminants, to the separator, which separates the solids from the liquid and conveys them to the second sedimentation tank. The separated solids can enter the second sedimentation tank with a portion of the pumped liquid. There, solids that can be described as medium-grade contaminants settle and are discharged by the conveying system.Despite the presence of the separator, solids still present in the liquid, which can be described as fine impurities, pass from the separator into the third sedimentation tank, where they settle and are discharged by the conveyor. The purified liquid in the third sedimentation tank can be recycled, particularly to a machine tool associated with the filter device. The known device is complex in its design.The multi-stage sedimentation provided with it, with a total of three sedimentation tanks, which are supplied with solids-laden liquid by the pump, makes it necessary to shut down the system at regular intervals and remove solid particles "by hand" which are not removed from the system by the pump and separator, but instead accumulate, for example, in the corners of the sedimentation tanks and increasingly clog the tank. This regularly results in an interruption in production of the associated machine tool, which is naturally undesirable. The object of the invention is to create a device of the type mentioned above with which the solid particles contained in the liquid can be effectively and in any case largely completely removed from the liquid circuit, wherein the device can be operated essentially without interruptions for cleaning purposes.This object is achieved with the invention in that the sedimentation area is formed by a substantially conical funnel base arranged in a lower part of the collection container, with a liquid outlet arranged in the region of the cone tip located below. The inventive design with the sedimentation area delimited at the bottom by a funnel base has the advantage that solid particles on the funnel base generally move downwards on their own along the sloping base to the lowest point, i.e., the cone tip, where the liquid outlet is located.Unlike the sedimentation tanks known from the prior art, with their flat bottoms and poorly accessible corner areas where solids can accumulate and clog the tank from there, the invention ensures that the solids (still) contained in the liquid circuit after passing through the device are directed to the point in the liquid circuit where the liquid is withdrawn from the tank. This ensures that solid particles not captured by the device's filtration device and removed from the liquid circuit leave the tank together with the liquid and thus cannot clog it.These solid particles are generally the fine or very fine fraction of the chips generated during the machining process, which do not further impair the effectiveness of the liquid as a coolant and lubricant, provided they are recirculated to the machine tool in manageable quantities. A design in which the hopper bottom has an essentially circular cross-section has proven particularly advantageous. The funnel shape of the bottom with a circular cross-section has no edges or corners in which solids can accumulate. The hopper bottom of the sedimentation area is preferably designed at an angle of inclination to a horizontal plane of greater than or equal to 30°, preferably greater than or equal to 40°, and in particular greater than or equal to 45°.The greater the incline of the funnel bottom towards the liquid outlet, the lower the risk of solid particles remaining on the bottom. With a funnel shape with an incline of 45° or more, it can normally be assumed that solid particles will not remain on the inclined funnel bottom above the liquid outlet, even under unfavorable conditions such as very low flow velocities / low liquid throughputs. With a bottom incline of 60°, there is basically no longer any concern about particles settling on the bottom, even under unfavorable conditions. The collection container preferably has a collecting area above the sedimentation area for liquid fed in from the filtration device.The filtered liquid is then collected in the collection area and, after passing through the filtering device, reaches the collection container. The filtering device, which is preferably a belt filter device with a surrounding or continuous filter belt, for example a paper filter belt, is preferably arranged above the collection container, in particular on a cover covering the top thereof. In an advantageous development of the invention, the liquid outlet is connected to a liquid outlet line through which the liquid, with any solid particles (still) present therein, can be conveyed indirectly and / or directly to the filtering device by means of a pumping device.The solid particles removed with the liquid at the liquid drain are thus (re)fed to the filtration device and can thus be finally separated from the liquid circuit by the filter medium after one or more passes through the device. The arrangement can be such that the liquid drain line is connected to - a liquid supply to the filtration device, and / or - a liquid supply of a machine tool associated with the device, wherein the machine tool is provided with a liquid drain, via which the liquid accumulating in the machine tool can in turn be fed to the filtration device.The arrangement can preferably also be such that an additional filter is arranged upstream of the filtration device, the sedimentation area, and / or the collection area, to which at least a portion of the liquid present at the liquid outlet, including any solid particles present therein, can be fed. The additional filter (pre-)filters the cooling and / or lubricating fluid withdrawn at the liquid outlet and conveyed in the circuit, so that the solid particles withdrawn with the liquid at the lower end of the funnel-shaped sedimentation area can be separated from the liquid circuit by the additional filter before the (pre-)filtered liquid returns to the collection container.Preferably, the sedimentation area is assigned a rinsing device with at least one rinsing nozzle aligned with the funnel bottom, with which solid particles that remain on the funnel bottom, for example due to a slight incline of the funnel bottom, can be easily rinsed at the lowest point for liquid removal. The rinsing nozzle is preferably aligned approximately tangentially to the circumferential direction of the funnel bottom. Further features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description and the drawing, in which a preferred embodiment of the invention is illustrated and described using an example. It shows: Fig. 1 an embodiment of the device according to the invention in a perspective view; Fig. 2 the subject matter of Fig. 1 in a side view; and Fig.3 is a block diagram illustrating the fluid and sludge treatment in a machine tool system incorporating the device according to the invention. Figs. 1 and 2 show a device according to the invention, designated overall by 10, which serves to prepare cooling and lubricating fluid for a clamping machine tool, for example a milling machine or a lathe, which is only schematically indicated at 11 in Fig. 3 of the diagram shown there. The device 10 according to the invention, which serves to prepare the fluid 12 used in the machine tool 11, has a collecting container 13, which is round in the embodiment shown, in which the cooling and lubricating fluid 12 used in the machine tool 11 is collected and drawn off again at 14 via a line 15. The collecting container 13 is provided at the top with a cover 16 on which a filtering device 17 is arranged.The filtration device 17 is supplied with the liquid 12, which is conveyed through the line 15 by means of a pumping device P and – if necessary after passing through the machine tool 11 – is fed to the filtration device 17. The liquid filtered by the filtration device 17 flows from the bottom of the filtration device 17 into the upper collecting area 18 of the container 13, as indicated by the arrows. In this case, the filtration device 17 is a belt filter device with a continuous filter belt 19 made of suitable filter material, for example, filter paper or the like, with which the solid particles accumulating in machine tools, such as turning, milling, or grinding chips, can be effectively separated from the lubricating and cooling fluid and discharged into a chip collecting box 20, as is known and will not be explained in further detail here.It can be seen that the collecting container 13 is provided at the bottom with a substantially conical funnel base 21, which is also circular in cross-section and forms a sedimentation area 22 for those solid particles that are not initially separated from the liquid by the filtration device 17. The funnel base 21 has a liquid outlet 24 at its lowest point 14 at the conical tip 23 located there. The liquid outlet 24 can be internal or, as indicated by the dashed line in Fig. 3, external. The liquid drain 24 merges into the liquid drain line 15, through which the liquid 12, together with any solid particles still present therein that have not yet been separated by the filtering device 17, is drained from the device 10 by means of the pumping device P.The lower part of the container 13, which serves as the sedimentation area 22, with the funnel bottom 21 forms an inclined, edge- and corner-free drainage surface for the liquid and the solid particles still contained therein after passing through the filtration device 17. After settling on the bottom, the solid particles slide downwards due to gravity on the inclined bottom and thus reliably reach the lower cone tip 23 and the liquid outlet 24 arranged there. The funnel bottom 21 has a sufficiently large incline for this purpose, which in the preferred embodiment shown in Figs. 1 and 2 is approximately 45°. In Fig. 3, the bottom incline is not shown to scale.The special, inventive design of the sedimentation area of ​​the device with the inclined drainage surface of the particularly round hopper bottom 21 ensures that all chips / solid particles that have not (yet) been separated by the contaminated liquid after it has passed through the filtration device 17 are actually removed from the container of the device via the liquid outlet 24 and do not settle in corner areas and clog the container over time as sediment sludge that is difficult to remove. Particularly in cases where the greatest possible inclination of the hopper bottom 21 of 40° or more is not feasible, for example because the available construction height does not permit such an inclination, the sedimentation area 22 can additionally be assigned a rinsing device 25, which is provided with at least one, in the example according to Fig.3 is provided with a plurality of rinsing nozzle(s) 26 directed toward the funnel bottom 21. By means of the rinsing nozzle(s) 26, a liquid jet can then be directed continuously or intermittently over the funnel bottom, which, in addition to the inclination of the bottom 21, prevents solid particles from settling thereon or rinses away any remaining solid particles. The flow generated by the rinsing device 25 ensures that the solids remaining in the liquid after passing through the filtration device are kept in suspension and are thus reliably withdrawn from the container together with the liquid via the outlet 24.In the embodiment shown, the rinsing nozzles 26 are directed approximately vertically downwards onto the hopper bottom, whereby the rinsing device can have a rotatable rinsing arm (not shown) on which the rinsing nozzles are arranged and can be moved over the entire circumference of the bottom. It is also possible to align the rinsing nozzle(s) tangentially to the bottom and thus create an approximately spiral downward flow over the entire bottom surface. It is understood that, particularly with larger containers, several rinsing nozzles arranged offset from one another in terms of circumference and / or height can also be used. As can be seen from Fig. 3, the discharge line 15, via which the liquid 12 is sucked out of the container 13 of the device 10 at the liquid discharge 24, can be connected to a liquid supply 27 of the machine tool 11 assigned to the device 10.With this arrangement, solid particles that were not captured and removed by the filtering device during the processing of the cooling and / or lubricating fluid using the device 10 according to the invention are returned to the machine tool 11 in suspension together with the filtered fluid. The machine tool 11 is itself provided with a fluid outlet 28, through which the fluid accumulating in the machine tool 11, i.e., collected after use at the machining position of the respective machine tool, is returned to the filtering device 17 of the device along with the chips transported by it.It is also possible to direct at least a partial flow of the liquid withdrawn from the sedimentation tank at the liquid outlet 24 directly back through the filtration device 17 and, for this purpose, to connect a bypass line 29 (preferably with a separate bypass pump, not shown) to a liquid supply 30 to the filtration device 17. Alternatively or additionally, an additional filter 31 can also be provided, which is arranged upstream of the filtration device 17 and / or the sedimentation area. Either a partial flow of the liquid present at the liquid outlet or the entire amount of liquid withdrawn, including the solid particles present therein, is then fed to the additional filter, and the solid particles are filtered out of the liquid. This can be seen in Fig.3 further that the flushing device 25 is supplied with fluid from a flushing line 32 branching off from the line 15, wherein the three-way valve 33 installed at the branch makes it possible to supply the flushing device intermittently or permanently with a partial flow of the fluid sucked off via the line 15.

Claims

Claims:

1. A device for separating solid particles from cooling and / or lubricating fluid (12) for metal-cutting machine tools (11), comprising a filtering device (17) to which the fluid can be applied, and comprising a collecting container (13) for fluid (12) treated by the filtering device (17), wherein at least one sedimentation region (22) is assigned to the collecting container (13), characterized in that the sedimentation region (22) is formed by a substantially conical funnel base (21) arranged in a lower part of the collecting container (13) with a fluid outlet (24) arranged in the region of the conical tip (23) located below.

2. A device according to claim 1, characterized in that the funnel base (21) has a substantially circular cross-section. 3.Device according to claim 1 or claim 2, characterized in that the funnel bottom (21) of the sedimentation region (22) is formed at an inclination angle to a horizontal plane of greater than or equal to 30°, preferably greater than or equal to 40°, and in particular greater than or equal to 45°.

4. Device according to one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the collecting container (13) has a collecting region (18) formed above the sedimentation region (22) for liquid (12) supplied from the filtration device (17).

5. Device according to one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the filtration device (17) is arranged above the collecting container (13), in particular on a cover (16) covering the top thereof.Device according to one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the liquid drain (24) is connected to a drain line (15; 29) through which the liquid (12) with any solid particles present therein is drawn off by means of a. Pump device (P) can be conveyed indirectly and / or directly to the filtering device (17).

7. Device according to claim 6, characterized in that the discharge line (15; 29) is connected to - a liquid supply (30) to the filtering device (), and / or - a liquid supply (27) of a machine tool (11) assigned to the device (10), wherein the machine tool (11) is provided with a liquid discharge (28) via which the liquid accumulating in the machine tool (11) can be fed to the filtering device (17).

8. Device according to one of claims 1 to 7, characterized by an additional filter (31) arranged upstream of the filtration device (17), the sedimentation area (22) and / or the collection area (18), to which the liquid present at the liquid outlet (24) with any solid particles present therein can be fed. 9.Device according to one of claims 1 to 8, characterized in that a rinsing device (25) with at least one rinsing nozzle (26) aligned with the funnel bottom (21) is assigned to the sedimentation area (22).

10. Device according to claim 9, characterized in that the rinsing nozzle (26) is aligned approximately tangentially to the circumferential direction of the funnel bottom (21).

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