Apparatus for throwing containers of fire suppression materials

Abstract

The present invention discloses an apparatus for throwing containers containing fire suppression materials to extinguish fire in forests and remote areas using continuous and constant speed rotational movement with variable radius. Since quick transportation of fire extinguishers and equipment to fire fields in forests and remote areas face many problems, usually fire control takes too much time and makes considerable damages to the nature and properties among health threat of firefighters. The apparatus continuously loads containers at center of rotation and makes them going through a spiral path and throw far away at the point with largest radius.

Description

DescriptionTitle of Invention: APPARATUS FOR THROWING CONTAINERS OF FIRE SUPPRESSION MATERIALS Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to fire extinguishing apparatus for control fire in forests and remote areas. The apparatus throws containers containing fire suppression materials using a continuous and constant speed rotational movement with variable radius.Background Art

[0002] Fire happens by various reasons in forests or in remote areas but usually, quick presence of firefighters and transportation of extinguishing materials and equipment to these areas face many problems. Prolonging fire suppression time causes more damages to the nature and properties among health threat of firefighters. Furthermore, due to the vast extent of forests, it is not possible to permanently deploy expensive fire extinguishers or professional firefighters in all these areas.

[0003] While fire extinguishers are essential tools in preventing and controlling fires, it is important to understand their limitations. Water is the most obvious, efficient, and universal fire extinguisher. Retardants, such as sodium calcium borate and foaming agents in powder or liquid form have been used for their persistence and efficiency in putting out fires. But large-scale uses of these materials are limited because they are usually in short supply and application methods are not adequate.

[0004] Currently, various methods are used to control forest fires. Establishing control lines using natural or man-made boundaries, burning flammable materials and establishing a control line, extinguish fire using a mixture of soil and water or other fire retardants and fire extinguisher bombs are among the most used forest fire control methods.

[0005] Large equipment is also used to control forest fires. Such equipment usually works by pumping liquids or throwing powders and particulate solid firefighting agents with compressed air. But, even by large equipment, the throwing range of water and other fire retardants is not more than a few tens of meters.

[0006] Helicopters and airplanes are also used for temporary control of forest fires. But in addition to high costs, the required technology and skills for this method are not available in many countries.

[0007] In one method, spherical or cylindrical containers containing fire suppression materials are placed in buildings and warehouses or on the trunks of forest trees. In case of fire, these containers explode and spread fire retardant agents. These containers have an effective area of about 2 to 10 square meters. The large extent of forest areaslimits the use of this method. In this method, production, installation and maintenance costs are very high.

[0008] Throwable fire extinguishers are designed to combat fires in difficult to reach areas or confined spaces. They are well known and exist in the market. They throw by hand and disperse the extinguishing powder over an area of 8 to 10 square meters, equivalent to a standard fire extinguisher of 2.5 kg. Although they are easy to use, but since they are thrown by hand, they must be thrown from a distance very close to fire. Hand-held and conventional fire extinguishers are limited not only by capacity but the ability of their intended user to timely access the extinguisher at the time of an emergency.

[0009] Throwing objects has been interesting for various hunting and sport purposes. Disc throwers or trappers in shooting sports throw discs at a speed of about 76 km / h to a height about 46 meters. This apparatus uses the force that is stored in a coil spring by hand or electromotor. Therefore, the act of throwing is not continuous and has to be done by repeating the whole process from the beginning. Low speed and range of throw, long operational readiness time and impossibility of throwing heavier objects make its use exclusive to sport purposes.

[0010] Mechanical and compressed air type apparatus for throwing all kinds of sport balls is exist in the market. In the mechanical type, sport balls place between two rotating rubber wheels and throw. Pneumatic types use compressed air to throw the sport balls. The maximum throw range of these apparatus is about 50 meters and they are suitable for throwing sport balls, which generally have a flexible body and light weight.

[0011] Researchers have been interesting the idea of remote fire extinguishing from many years ago. Various methods and apparatus have designed or patented for throwing various types of fire suppression materials. These apparatuses generally use the compressed air, centrifugal force, bombs and rocket launch and are transported near fire fields by trucks or robots. In order to show the difference between present invention and some related inventions in this field and discuss about its performance, continue to explain some patented inventions.

[0012] US 8528652, fire extinguishing ball, containing compressed gas and fire extinguishing agents. The ball can be tossed or rolled towards fires in difficult to reach areas. Exposure to heat opens the valve to disperse the contents of the body and extinguish the flames.

[0013] US 6832604, pneumatic delivery system for containers, using pressured air throws the containers of flame retardants and material of various mixtures.

[0014] US 5242023, method and apparatus for delivering compressed particulate solid firefighting agent, delivers compressed particulate solid firefighting agent in a high- pressure gas stream. Particulate agent is sequentially compressed in the multiple nozzlestages by virtue of a pulsating gas supply effect, and ejected in a constant stream of solid slugs at speeds near or above Mach.

[0015] WO 03 / 000345 A2, thrower system, includes a container for storing a container to be thrown, a centrifugal thrower for propelling the object a distance away from the thrower system through centrifugal force, and a conveyor for transporting the containers to the centrifugal thrower. The thrower system may throw baseballs, softballs, golf balls, or similar objects.

[0016] Some inventions have combined different fire extinguisher equipment in the form of a single apparatus.

[0017] CN111184973A, wheeled fire control is thrown bullet and is put out a fire robot control system, relates to the field of firefighting robots, land vehicles and Exploding containers thrown into the fire. A missile throwing platform driving system is used for driving a throwing motor, a rotary motor, a pitching motor and a ball poking motor of the missile throwing platform to act.

[0018] TW201334832A, firefighting systems and methods, configure to deliver rescue equipment and fight high rise building fires via throw containers that filled with either rescue equipment or fire suppressant chemicals pneumatically.

[0019] CN102107054A, remote intelligent firefighting truck, adopts well-behaved off-road truck to carry intelligent rocket containers. Extinguishing chemical is released from the rocket type fire extinguisher bomb housing cloth, and scattered by large tracts of land under the effect of the speed of service and the inner thrust of fire extinguisher bomb.

[0020] In practice, each of the above inventions has shortcomings that limit their use.Centrifugal systems are usually used to disperse materials with small diameter, such as particulate solid firefighting materials, chemical fertilizers, plant seeds, sport balls or mulch materials to prevent soil erosion. These types of apparatus are more suitable to disperse fire extinguishing agents on the ground and nearby fires that don't require an accurate throwing.

[0021] Pneumatic apparatuses are more suitable for throwing powder and small particles and have many limitations for throwing larger objects. They could not throw heavier objects far. In addition, they require a large volume of compressed air to throw large number of objects. Additional equipment such as pump, tank, power supplier, pipes and connections are very bulky and transporting them to the fire fields take too much time.

[0022] Fire extinguisher bombs operate by releasing a potent combination of fire suppressants in large quantities, effectively smothering the flames by minimizing their spread. The potential application of fire extinguisher bombs extended for buildings. In case of forest fire, that needs a large amount of fire retardants, they are dropped onfire by airplanes, helicopters or rockets. Then they are more expensive than other fire extinguishers.

[0023] They contain compressed gasses or chemicals under pressure. If mishandle or tempered with, the contents of a fire extinguisher can explode, causing significant damage and posing a serious risk to individuals nearby. Missiles actually carry fire extinguisher bombs. Therefore, in addition to the limitations of bombs, they also require complex and expensive Missile launch and driving systems.Summary of Invention

[0024] The main purpose of present invention is throwing the containers containing fire suppression materials on fire over far distances. The invention has the beneficial effects that: throwing fire suppression materials to much greater distances than existing and conventional equipment in a short period of time, adjusting throw of the containers on both horizontal and vertical directions, high stability and accuracy of throwing fire suppression materials due to the use of constant speed rotational motion, using light weight containers to carry more fire suppression materials because of elimination of forces acting on the containers at the point of throw, and fast and easy transportation.

[0025] The fire suppression operation is carried out by one person that controls throwing of containers on fire, one person to drive a quad copter equipped with a camera to send the fire field pictures and a few people to carry and put the containers containing fire suppression materials in the hopper. Therefore, none of the personnel will face fire.

[0026] To throw a larger volume of fire suppression materials, a few of the apparatus can connect or join together. Therefore, tens of tons of extinguishing materials could be thrown in one hour. Also, because of stability and balance of rotation of arms and holders, rotation speed can rise up to 2000 rpm. At this speed and ignoring air drag, containers will throw several kilometers.

[0027] The present apparatus has a fix body that is stabilized and leveled using electric jacks. The rotary body is connected on it via a turntable bearing and rotates around vertical axis to adjust spread of containers containing fire suppression materials horizontally.

[0028] The driving force of the apparatus is supplied by an electromotor or a diesel engine and transmitted to power transmission shaft and sprockets through a belt and pulley. Two sprockets with the same number of teeth transmit power to main shaft via a roller chain. Two secondary shafts with attached secondary arms on them are connected to both ends of main arm.

[0029] There are two rotation increasing sprockets with different number of teeth. The smaller sprocket rotates a few more in each rotation and moves freely around main shaft. These additional rotations cause a gradual change of angle between mainand secondary arms and, as a result, create a variable radius of rotation of holders. Moreover, two other smaller sprockets with equal number of teeth are attached to center of the smaller rotation increasing sprocket and rotate secondary arms sprockets via roller chains.

[0030] The containers are in shape of an elliptical volume made of polymer materials improved with flame retardant additives and filled with fire extinguishing powder. At center of rotation, a pneumatic jack puts them one after another into holders.

[0031] To open holders and throw containers, pneumatic jack of magnetic trigger places its neodymium magnet in front of homonymous pole of holder's latch magnet and makes its appendage free. Then containers are thrown by centrifugal force.

[0032] The throw angle of containers is adjusted by a ball screw. The bottom of ball screw is connected to middle of vertical part of rotary body and top of it is connected to middle of the magnetic trigger's body. The clockwise or counterclockwise rotation of ball screw changes its length and, in this way, changes the throw angle.

[0033] Unlike all object throwing apparatus, which apply maximum force to the object at throwing point, the performance of the present invention is that all forces on containers are removed at the point of throw. Therefore, containers could be made with less thickness and weight, which have better technical performance and are more economic.Brief Description of Drawings

[0034] [Fig.1] : shows fixed and rotary body of the apparatus;

[0035] [Fig.2] : shows hopper and loading system of the containers;

[0036] [Fig.3]: shows Magnetic trigger system;

[0037] [Fig.4] : shows secondary shaft and secondary arms attached to the holders;

[0038] [Fig.5]: shows exploded view of the holder of the containers;

[0039] [Fig.6]: shows exploded view of power transmission parts of the apparatus;

[0040] [Fig.7] : shows overall view of the assembled apparatus;Description of Embodiments

[0041] As shown in [Fig.l], fixed body 1 is horizontal and all other parts of the apparatus are located on it. There are electric jacks 2 at each comer of fixed body 1 to stabilize and level the apparatus. The turntable bearing 4 is connected to fixed body 1. The rotary body 3 is connected on top of turntable bearing 4 and enables it to move around vertical axis and adjust disperse of fire suppression materials horizontally.

[0042] A helical gear box 5 is attached to fixed body 1 and equipped with a SERVO or STEP type electromotor 6. Gear 7 rotates external gear of turntable bearing 4. The seat of power transmission shaft 8, seat of main shaft 9 and seat of 90 degrees gearbox of magnetic trigger 10 are located on vertical part of rotary body 3.

[0043] The hopper and loading system of containers is shown in [Fig.2] . The container 11 is in shape of an elliptical volume cut at both ends of the larger diameter. To increase endurance of container 11 against stresses and tensions of rotational movement and air drag, semicircular grooves are embedded on its surface. This enclosure is made of polymer materials improved with flame retardant additives. The container 11 is filled with fire extinguishing powders.

[0044] A number of containers are placed inside hopper 12. The pneumatic jack 13 pushes container 11 out through outlet 15. The guide plate 14 is attached to rod of pneumatic jack 13 and prevents the next containers to fell down before complete exit of each former container. The pneumatic jack 13 in back and forth position is also shown in [Fig.2]. The loading system is attached to rotary body 3 by base 16.

[0045] The magnetic trigger system is shown in [Fig.3]. A neodymium magnet 17 is attached to rod of pneumatic jack 18 and moves back and forth by compressed air. The pneumatic jack 18 is attached to one end of magnetic trigger body 19. The other end of magnetic trigger body 19 is connected to outer surface of main shaft seat 9 and moves around it.

[0046] One end of ball screw 20 is connected to 90-degree gear box 21 that equipped with SERVO or STEP type electromotor 22. The other end of ball screw 20 is connected to middle of magnetic trigger body 19 by rod 23. The magnetic trigger body 19 moves circularly up and down by rotating clockwise or counterclockwise of ball screw 20. In this way, the throw angle of the container 11 could be Change.

[0047] The secondary arms and shaft are shown in [Fig.4]. Length of secondary arm 24 is variable. The pin 27 limits length change of secondary arm 24 and coil spring 29 returns it back to original state. The end of part 28 is attached to holder 26 and the end of part 30 is attached to secondary shaft 25.

[0048] In order to prevent the apparatus from vibrating at higher speeds and distribute weight evenly around center of rotation, each two holders 26 slide on each other around the center of rotation. Secondary arms 24 become shorter at that point, about 4 centimeters. Slow movement of holders 26 relative to each other prevents them from being hit and damaged.

[0049] The exploded view of holder 26 and its open and closed positions are shown in [Fig.5]. The main function of holder 26 is to carry and then throw container 11. The fixed jaw 31 is connected to one end of secondary arm 24. The movable jaw 40 has a hexagonal hole 36 that engages with hexagonal section of shaft 32. Since the middle part of shaft 32 is larger than its end, coupling 33 is used to fix the end of it. The spiral spring 34 is connected to one end of shaft 32 and returns back movable jaw 40 at zero radius of rotation because in this point, centrifugal force is at minimum. At themaximum required radius of rotation, the movable jaw 40 opens and container 11 releases into the air.

[0050] The movable jaw appendage 39 is engaged with one end of latch 38 and keeps it close. A neodymium magnet 37 is attached to another end of latch 38. If magnet 37 places in front of homonymous pole of trigger magnet 17, then latch 38 will move and as a result, movable jaw 40 opens. The latch 38 is returned back by spiral spring 35 at zero radius of rotation that centrifugal force is at minimum.

[0051] The driving and power transmitting parts of the apparatus are shown in [Fig.6]. The driving force of the apparatus is provided by electromotor 53 which is fixed on rotary body 3. This force is transmitted to power transmission shaft 55 through belt 54 and pulley 52. The number of teeth of two power transmission sprockets 51 and 45 is equal to each other. The sprocket 51 is fixed on power transmission shaft 55 and transmits power of electromotor 53 to sprocket 45 through roller chain 48.

[0052] The rotation increasing sprockets 56 and 44 make additional rotations that finally transfer to secondary shaft 25. The sprocket 56 is fixed on the end of power transmission shaft 55. The sprocket 44 and two attached sprockets 42 and 43 at the center of it are not fixed on main shaft 49 and move freely. The sprocket 56 has more teeth than sprocket 44. Then by each rotation of sprocket 56, sprocket 44 rotates a few more. For example, if sprockets 56 and 44 have 51 and 50 teeth respectively, then 400 rotations of sprocket 56 will make 408 rotations of sprocket 44.

[0053] This added movements are transferred by roller chains 47 and 57 to sprockets 41 and 58 respectively and rotate secondary shaft 25 in the same way. This additional movement makes a gradual change in angle between secondary arm 24 and main arm 50. It makes a variable radius of rotation of holders 26 relative to main shaft 49. When each holder 26 places in line with main shaft 49, its radial movement eliminates and makes enough time to load container 11. While the rotation continues, rotation radius of containers 11 increases and makes them going through a spiral path. At the point with largest radius, according to the required throw range, the containers 11 are released in to the air.

[0054] A capacitive proximity sensor (CPS) detects the holder 26 when it is in line with the main shaft 49. Then the presence or absence of the container 11 in holder 26 is detected by an ultrasonic sensor. If the holder 26 is empty, the pneumatic jack 13 will load the next container 11.

[0055] In order to show the position and relation of all different components of the apparatus with each other, the overall view of the assembled apparatus is shown in [Fig.7]. The arms and holders rotate counterclockwise if look at the apparatus from the left side.

Claims

AMENDED CLAIMS received by the International Bureau on 05 September 2024 (05.09.2024)

1. What is claimed is an apparatus for throwing objects, comprising: a fixed body (1) to place and fix the apparatus on the ground; a rotary body (3) to regulate spread of fire suppression materials horizontally; throwable containers containing fire suppression materials (11); secondary arms (24) joined with each two ends of rotating main arm (50) to keep holders of containers (26); rotation increasing mechanism (Fig.6) to gradually change the angle between said main arm (50) and said secondary arms (24); containers storing and loading mechanism (Fig.2) to store said containers (11) and load them to said holder (26); and adjustable magnetic trigger (Fig.3) to adjust throw angle of said container (11).

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein fixed body (1) is horizontal and stabilized and leveled using electric jacks (2) that are attached on its each bases.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein rotary body (3) located on said fixed body (1) holds all other parts of the apparatus and moves by vertical axis to regulate spread of throwing containers (11) horizontally.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein container (11) is a hollow object with a thin polymer wall in shape of an elliptical volume cut at both ends of the larger diameter with semicircular grooves embedded on its surface and is filled with fire suppression materials.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein each holder (26) has a fixed jaw (31) attached on one end of said secondary arm (24) and a movable jaw (40) joined with said fixed jaw (31) locked with magnetic latch (38) and is being loaded with said containers (11) at center of rotation.AMENDED SHEET (ARTICLE 19)

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein main arm (50) rotates by main shaft (49) that is attached to middle of it while said secondary arms (24) joined with each two ends of it via secondary shafts (25).

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein rotation increasing mechanism (Fig.6) consists of two sprockets (56 and 44) with different number of teeth to make additional rotations that transfer to said secondary shafts (25) via roller chains (47 and 57) and gradually change angle between said main arm (50) and said secondary arms (24) to change rotation radius of said holders (26) from zero to maximum arms lenth.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein storing and loading system (Fig.2) stores said containers (11) in hopper (12) and loads them one after another into said holder (26) in center of rotation using back and forth movement of power jack (13).

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein adjustable magnetic trigger (Fig.3) consists of a body (19) that moves circularly up and down by ball screw (20) to adjust throw angle of said containers (11) vertically by placing trigger magnet (17) in front of homonymous pole of holder latch magnet (37) to push said holder magnetic latch (38) and make said holders movable jaw (40) open and release said containers (11) in to the air at maximum required rotation radiusAMENDED SHEET (ARTICLE 19)

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