Bulk material pump feeder with reduced disk jamming, compliant disks
View Patent ↗A bulk materials pump feeder having a housing and a rotating drive rotor for transferring material from an inlet to an outlet of the housing. The drive rotor has a hub. Drive disks extend away from the hub toward a housing inner wall and have a compliant edge configured to deflect or compress when presented with pinched material rather than jamming.
1. A bulk materials pump feeder comprising:
a housing having an inlet, an outlet and an inner wall extending from the inlet to the outlet;
a drive rotor having a hub rotatable about a rotation axis, a plurality of drive disks, at least one of the drive disks having an inner core and a compliant portion, the compliant portion at least partially overlapping the inner core and extending beyond an outer periphery of the inner core; and
a materials transfer duct defined by the inner wall, the drive rotor and at least two of the drive disks.
2. The bulk materials pump feeder of claim 1 wherein the compliant portion is in close tolerance with the inner wall without creating a seal.
3. The bulk materials pump feeder of claim 1 wherein the drive rotor further includes at least one drive disk that does not include a compliant portion.
4. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 1 wherein at least two of the drive disks have different flexibility characteristics.
5. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 1 wherein at least one of the drive disks having the compliant portion includes a flexibility characteristic that varies from a central portion to an outer portion.
6. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 5 wherein the variation in flexibility characteristic corresponds to a variation in materials used to fabricate the at least one drive disk.
7. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 1 wherein a first plurality of the drive disks include outer disks that are non-compliant disks and the at least one drive disk having the compliant portion is an inner disk.
8. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 1 , wherein the compliant portion is configured as an outer shell.
9. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 1 wherein the compliant portion includes a polymer.
10. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 9 wherein the polymer includes an elastomer.
11. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 1 wherein the inner core extends radially to an intermediate point of the compliant portion.
12. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 1 wherein the compliant portion includes a polymer over-mold that extends to a tip of the at least one drive disk.
13. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 1 wherein the compliant extends beyond the outer periphery of the inner core an unsupported distance and overlaps the inner core a supported distance, the ratio of unsupported distance to the supported distance being between approximately 0.1 to approximately 0.3.
14. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 1 , wherein the compliant portion overlaps substantially all of the inner core.
15. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 1 , wherein the compliant portion has a higher coefficient of friction than the inner wall.
16. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of drive disks extend from the hub perpendicular to the rotation axis.
17. The bulk material pump feeder of claim 1 , wherein the inner core is less flexible than the compliant portion.