Technical Field

My invention is a system of mechanical apparatus for the recovery of waste heat from smokepipes, chimneys or stacks using natural draft. Background Art

Prior means for improving the heat output of natural draft stoves, boilers, furnaces or fireplaces have made use of -the following means: air blown through tubular grates set in the fire; heat exchanger and fan units have been mounted in the smokepϊpe (Magic Heat); thermal wheels have been used in large capacity commercial applications (Ljungstrom Air Preheater Co.) ; l iterature describes the horizontal phasechange heat pipes. Prior art is all limited by the need to keep the stack temperatures hot enough - and thus wasteful - to maintain adequate draft.

I know of no use oir disclosure which anticipates my key discovery of locating an exchanger at the very apex of a stack in such a manner that the draft is not impaired. Disclosure of I nvention

My invention uses a special heat exchanger mounted on a stack or chimney and baffled so that the gases go up thru the core and down thru the exchanger before release to the atmosphere.

Condensibles a re trapped out and their latent heats recovered. The column of hot gases still exists in the stack below and its normal draft is not impaired. The shrink in volume of the cooled gases and the condensing moisture within the unit actually augments the draft.

The reclaimed heat is transferred to liquid which is circulated to just those areas where it is desired. The heat obtained from fireplaces and stoves is greatly increased and without the aesthetic violence of blowers, heat tubes, or the sheer physical bulk of surface.

The fuel energy saved results in lesser environmental pollution; and of course, oil fuels conserved are available for other uses.

A number of problems arise when we install heat exchangers in various gas streams; the products of combustion vary with the nature of the fuels burned. The salient corrosives are pyrol igneous acids with wood fuels and sulphur compounds with coal and oil.

We should avoid the use of dissimilar metals with their inherent galvanic vulnerability due to their separation in the electrochemical series. This also argues against any use of brazed joints.

Some metals in the stainless steel series, while they are acid resistant, have poor thermal conductivity and thus do not lend themselves to fabrication as finned tubing where the heat travel is a relatively long path.

Any exchanger in such service will eventually foul with soot and must have a configuration which permits of access to its surfaces for clean¬ ing.

Ideally, it should be possible to enable the exchanger to be varied in capacity and function without the need for a large series of dies or die changes for different production runs.

Thus to make the basic system invention practical and perform well , it has been necessary to design a heat exchanger for it which specifically considers these criteria. Brief Descript ion of Drawings

Sheet 1 of the drawings shows a vertical section thru the equipment and a schematic of the other system elements. The exchanger unit either sits on top of a leveled masonry chimney or is supported to embrace a flue. The basic elements are: a torus shaped condensate pan (l) ; a heat exchanger scroll (2); a jacket around the scroll (3) ; a hinged cap (•+) which is tensio ed to open by a spring; the cap incorporates a dome (5) and a filler cap (6) ; short flexible hoses lead from the exchanger outlet (7) to the dome and from the dome (8) down to piping which leads to a pump; hose (9) runs

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to tubing which leads to bottle (10).

The pump circulates the heated water through any conventional heating system or device, such as baseboard heaters, convectors, radia¬ tors, unit heaters, etc. or even to a hot water storage tank. This, via supply line (11) and return (12).

Bottle (10) is open and sized to hold the volume of liquid displaced by expansion plus the small volume in dome (5)- The liquid in the dome is expelled automatically upon the generation of any steam - as would follow upon any power failure. The cap, now unloaded, is opened by the afore¬ mentioned spring. Thus the exchanger is by-passed and no liquid is boiled off or wasted out of the system.

Sheet 2 of the drawings shows the construction of the heat exchang¬ er itself. This begins as a two ply sandwich of metal strip (figure 1) ; these are embossed, fitted with liquid connections and rolled into a spiral scroll (figure 3) ; the scroll is inserted into the jacket (figure k ) which protects the scroll from abuse and resists the "hoop stress" or the spring- back of the scrol 1. Best Mode For Carrying Out The 1nveπtion

Fabrication of the exchanger (see dwg. sheet 2) starts with slitting suitable metal to width. For example - for use with wood fires - a typical choice would be type 30-4 stainless steel , fully annealed, in .007 inch (.2mm) thickness. Two metal coils are each run thru an emboss¬ ing roll and laid together in a sandwich. The embossing is in modular rows to permit varying the width of the strips without change to the rolls. Note the skew pattern across the strips (fig. 1).

One set of rolls impresses shallow tits to the interior of the sandwich (21) ; the other set of rolls impresses larger and wider spaced dimples to the outside of the sandwich (22). The small tits establish a liquid channel and will be on the concave face of the scroll ; the larger dimples maintain a gap for the gases. Both patterns serve to rigidize

and strengthen a metal gauge chosen for economy and light weight.

The edges of the lapped sheets are run thru the wheels of a resistance seam welder or a high frequency resistance welder. The skew cut (fig. 5) is parallel with the dimples and the liquid connection cuff (24) is inserted here. This piece is bench welded by Tungsten Inert Gas with filler metal , or alternately by Metal Inert Gas wire feed to embrace the half nipple (23). This cuff is a heavier gauge, say, .0375 inch (1mm plus). The cuff wraps around the nipple but gradually blends off in a tapering run until it is pinched flat at the other end (24). These two liquid connection welds are the only manual welds required in the exchanger fabrication; all others are machine made and require lesser skills.

A machine seam is run across the skew to join the thin skins to the heavier cuff, with a temporary copper chill sheet inserted (25) thru the end of the sandwich and then withdrawn and the end welded shut. The top nipple, the outlet nipple, should not be inserted deeper than 1 cm. into the sandwich. The whole is now rolled into a spiral scroll and leak tested. If quality control has been good, the scroll should be inserted into the jacket and then tested. The test is made by admitting only low pressure air to one of the ports with the other capped, and submerged in lukewarm water with a wetting agent added.

Referring to sheet 1 of the drawings: the construction of the condensate pan (1) , the cap (4) , and the dome (5) are obvious and are made by a conventional spinning or stamping as is determined by volume and labor cost intersects in the country of manufacture.

In the interests of clarity and simplicity, minor elements of construction are not shown on the drawings when they can be conveyed by description, which follows:

The interior of the jacket should have no sharp edges or protru¬ sions to gouge the exchanger scroll which may be withdrawn for ease of

c l ean ϊ ng .

Connection (13) is a stub tube inserted low so that condensate may be drained off if desired.

A weatherproof, snap-acting thermostat, set for 140° F (60 C) is surface mounted on the exterior of the jacket anywhere close under the cap - preferably near the hinge. This is to start and stop the pump when a manual-automatic switch is set to automatic position.

The dome (5) has three functions: it is an air-separation chamber where air swept out from anywhere in the whole heating system will be trapped out; it has a small superheating effect; it is an unloader to pre¬ vent boiling off liquid if the power supply were interrupted or the heating system could not absorb as much heat as was produced. If steaming occurs, the liquid in the dome is forced out via hose (9) to small diameter tubing which runs to bottle (10) thru check valve (14) which has a controlled leak in the reverse flow direction. When vapor condenses in the dome, it allows the return of liquid over a period of say half an hour to overcome the spring and again test for excessive heat. Incidentally, the cap in an open position without any firing going on, is a signal of air in the system to be bled out.

The tubes which project from the dome and to which the hoses connect, extend out over the hinge area and are given support at the out¬ board end to withstand shipping abuse.

The liquid in the heating system can well be clean, filtered rain water with only enough ethylene glycol type anti-freeze added to protect against minimum temperatures. This does not preclude other precautions against freezing which can be used.

The pump of choice selected for prototype models may be of interest. It is not universally known that small centrifugals a re available with magnetically coupled drives which eliminates weeps from stuffing boxes or mechanical seals which may develop over years of service. Such pumps also

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protect themselves in that the impeller declutches should grit from a dirty piping system be entrained. Industrial Appl icab? 1 i ty

The great amount of energy expended for heating looms foremost as an area of utility. It is an add-on; it does not require the discard of existing equipment; it improves the efficiency.

It has been demonstrated that the burning of airdry wood with a normal 25% moisture content, results in the loss of 29% of the heating value in expelling that moisture. Reducing any stack temperature to 200° F (83 ° ) , and even lower at reduced firing rates, recovers that heat. There is also a loss of latent heat in burning oil , gas and coal , not only from moisture but largely as a product of combustion of their hydrogen content.

To assess the potential impact on fuel usage let us use the follow¬ ing premises and terms:

PE Present Efficient - with existing equipment

NE New Efficiency - using this invention - 95%

PFC Projected Fuel Cost - best estimate of annual fuel cost at some future time desired

Then: PE/NE = future fuel costs as % of PFC; and when worked out for typical usages we have:

PE NE

Oil, best furnaces with typical 76% / 95% = .80

Oil , worst furnaces 53% / 95% = .558

Gas furnace 80% / 95% = .84

Wood, open fireplace 5% / 95% = .053

Wood firep ace with doors, blower 20% / 95% = .21

Wood, stove 50% / 95% = .526

Coal , poor ope rat i on 40% / 95% = .421

Coal , best ope rat i on 73% / 95% = .768

To restate: the final column in the above table is the multiplier to be used against the Projected Fuel Costs to determine costs enabled by this invention.

To take a specific example, say we have a poor oil furnace and we project our future oil bill to be $2500 per year, then with this invention it would be lowered to (2500 x -558) = $1395 for a saving of $1105 annual ly, or $22,100 in 20 years. Payout is less than a year.

This is not a distortion; there are many homes which have, or will have, such fuel bills.

The inference is plainly that the invention has utility.