Coke oven door

Abstract

The chamber opening for a coke oven is closed by a door having side walls that support a peripheral seal adapted to abut against a frame surrounding the chamber opening. Extending from the side walls of the door at spaced locations, are bolt-type fasteners with hooked ends that support the seal by frictional contact with the side walls of the door. A second form of fastening means, at other spaced locations about the periphery of the door, includes a shaft that rotably positions a cam plate into an abutting relation with the rear edge of the seal and positions its sealing edge by rotation of the cam plate. The shaft also supports a circular plate for clamping the seal against the side wall of the door. The centers of the cam plate and the circular plate coincide with the longitudinal axis of the shaft. The cam surface has a spiral shape which is self-locking with respect to rotation of the shaft to resist the forces acting on the seal.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to a coke oven door having a peripheral seal which seats against a frame that encircles an opening leading to the coke oven chamber. More particularly, the present invention relates to a construction and relationship of parts employed to hold the seal by frictional contact against the side walls of the door and, at the same time, employed to adjustably locate the seal for uniform contact with the door frame.

In the past, it has been widely known to provide coke oven doors with side walls into which threaded shafts are received. A nut was threaded onto the shaft at the inside of the door's side walls. At the outside of the door's side walls, the shaft carried a hook-shaped extension to engage the side of the seal while the back edge of the seal was seated against the shaft where it extends from the side wall of the door. The pressure applied by the hook-shaped extension on the seal to abut it against the exterior wall of the door was such that adjustments to the seal were accomplished by directing hammer blows to the back of the seal and it was possible for the seal to be displaced relative to the hook-shaped extension. Thus, by directing the hammer blows to the back edge of the seal, it was possible to position the seal according to the shape of the oven door and to match the shape of the door frame. Both the oven door and door frame are subject to certain deformations due to thermal expansion during the coke oven operation. When this form of seal was used for a coke oven door, the door became known in the art as a hammer-blow door.

The present invention distinguishes itself from the hammer-blow type of oven door by the fact that after the seal has been positioned, the seal no longer rests against the shaft with the hook-shaped extension but, instead, the seal is held in place solely by the force of frictional contact between parts. The seal, adjusted during the assembling procedure, is matched to the constant thermal expansion curve of the coke oven door and to the frame enclosing the opening into the oven chamber. After the seal is positioned, it must remain in this position in order to insure a tight-sealing relation with the oven chamber.

Coke ovens have recently been developed with a chamber height lying with a range of heights of from 4 to almost 8 meters and this has been accompanied with a proportional increase in the pressure exerted by a coke oven door against the door frame of the oven. Moreover, the coke oven doors develop cracks and become graphitized whereby manual cleaning cannot be completely replaced by fully automatic cleaning since there is the danger that localized contamination will result in the transfer of unusually high forces to the seal in certain regions of a particular door which would overcome the frictional forces developed by the bolts with hooked-shape ends holding the seal, thus causing the seal to slip back away from the door frame.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved coke oven door and particularly an improved hammer-blow type of coke oven door by providing a construction and arrangement of parts for adjustably supporting a seal member having an edge surface adapted to uniformly contact a door frame surrounding an opening leading to a coke oven chamber.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide an improved coke oven door and particularly a hammer-blow type of door having an arrangement of parts including hook bolts for developing frictional forces to hold an edge seal to the side walls of the door and resist the forces exerted by the door frame on the seal and the arrangement of parts further includes the provision of means for developing holding forces acting on the back edge of the seal so that should any unanticipated external forces arise, no movement of the edge seal will occur.

In accordance with the present invention, there is provided the combination of a coke oven door having a peripheral seal defining an edge surface adapted to abut against a frame surrounding an opening leading into a coke oven chamber, of apparatus at spaced locations about the periphery of the door for positioning the edge surface of the seal relative to the door comprising, a shaft including a threaded end for support by the door, a cam plate supported by the shaft for an abutting relation with the rear edge of the seal, the cam plate being carried by the shaft and designed to provide a self-locking feature with respect to rotation of the shaft to resist forces acting upon the edge surface of the seal, and a circular plate supported by the shaft outwardly of the cam for clamping the seal against the door.

The present invention additionally provides, in its preferred form, that the cam plate includes a cam surface generated from a spiral form with the center thereof lying along the longitudinal axis of the shaft carrying the cam plate.

It is preferred that the aforesaid apparatus for positioning the edge surface of the seal is provided at each of spaced-apart locations about the periphery of the door and that bolts with hooked ends are located therebetween to additionally hold the seal to the side walls of the door. The ratio of the number of bolts with hooked ends to the number of shafts with cam plates and circular clamping plates must be generally determined in conformity with special local conditions which would, of course, include the actual size of the coke oven door.

The shafts with the threaded ends are positioned and held by the door so that the circular clamping plates overlap the rear portion of the edge seal and thereby define a segment of constant size. The clamping plates are held in place by developing a particularly selected torque applied between bolt heads formed on the extended ends of the shafts and nuts on the ends of the shafts. The shafts remain in position according to their given setting because of the self-locking design of the cam plates.

These features and advantages of the present invention as well as others will be more readily understood when the following description is read in light of the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a front elevational view of a coke oven door;

FIG. 2 is a side view of the coke oven door shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken along line III--III of FIG. 1;

FIGS. 4a and 4b are enlarged sectional views similar to FIG. 3 and illustrating a bolt with a hooked end to hold an edge seal at different positions;

FIGS. 5a and 5b are enlarged sectional views similar to FIG. 3 and illustrating two different positions of an edge seal as determined by a cam plate and a clamping plate according to the present invention;

FIG. 6a is a plan view of the parts shown in FIGS. 4a and 5a;

FIG. 6b is a plan view of the parts shown in FIGS. 4b and 5b;

FIG. 7 is an enlarged view of a shaft incorporating as an integral part the cam plate and clamping plate according to the present invention; and

FIG. 8 is a sectional view taken along line VIII--VIII of FIG. 7.

In FIG. 3, there is illustrated an opening 9 surrounded by a door frame 10 for the opening leading into a coke oven chamber, not shown. A coke oven door supports a peripheral seal 11 having an edge surface 11a which may have the form of a knife-edge, adapted to abut against the frame 10 and form a tight seal therewith. The body of the coke oven door has a U-shaped cross section made up of a front plate 12, side walls 13 and upper and lower end walls 14. Distributed about the periphery of the door at spaced-apart locations are holes that extend through the walls 13 and 14. Some of these holes receive bolts with hook-shaped ends and other holes receive a shaft having a cam plate and a circular clamping plate according to the features of the present invention.

With reference now to the bolts with hook-shaped ends as illustrated in FIGS. 1, 2, 4a, 4b, 6a and 6b, each of these bolts is made up of a shaft 15 having threads at one end and a hook 16 at the other end for holding the seal 11 by frictional contact in an abutting relation with the walls 13 and 14. A nut 17 is located on the threaded end of the shaft 15 at the inside of the walls. By torquing the nut on the shaft to a predetermined value, it is possible to adjust the frictional forces used to hold the seal against the walls of the door.

At select locations about the periphery of the door, the holes in the side walls thereof each receives a shaft 18 of the type shown in FIGS. 7 and 8 instead of a bolt with a hooked end as just described. In this regard, each shaft 18 has a threaded end 19 receiving a nut 17 to secure it at one side of the walls 13 or 14. The shaft projects through a hole in the walls 13 or 14 from the inside of the door where the nut 17 is located to the outside of the door where a cam plate 26 is secured on the shaft. The cam plate defines a cam surface which has the form of a spiral as clearly illustrated in FIG. 8. Located at the extended side of the cam plate 26 is a circular clamping plate 20 and at its extended side there is located a hexagonal bolt head 25. The longitudinal axis and more specifically the rotational axis of the shaft 18 is denoted by the reference numeral 21 in FIGS. 7 and 8. In this regard, it will be observed that the centers of the cam plate 26 and the clamping plate 20 lie along the longitudinal axis 21 of the shaft.

As shown in FIG. 8, a cam surface of the cam plate 26 is generated from a spiral form which begins to rise from its lowest point at surface area 22 and reaches its greatest height at surface area 23 with respect to the center of the cam and the longitudinal axis 21 of the shaft. When the coke oven door is first put into place to close the opening 9, the surface area 22 of the cam surface abuts against the rear edge of the seal 11. If, during the course of the operation, a gap occurs between the seal and the cam plate, the shaft 18 must be rotated in the direction of arrow 24 until the cam surface again comes to rest against the back edge of the seal. In the preferred form of the present invention, the cam plates which are located at the left side and the right side of the door have their cam surfaces generated to spiral in opposite directions in order to make it easier for a serviceman to make the necessary adjustments to set the knife-edge seal by always rotating each shaft 18 in the same direction irrespective of its location in the door. In this respect, in order to move the edge surface 11a relative to the door and in the direction of the frame, the serviceman may simply rotate the clamping plates located in the left side wall and right side wall of the door in the same direction in order to bring the cam plates into contact with the seal.

In FIG. 4a, the seal 11 is located such that its rear edge is resting on the shaft 15 at a given location about the periphery of the door. In FIG. 5a, a similar condition occurs where the rear edge of the seal 11 contacts the lowest portion of the cam, that is, the cam surface area 22. These relationships of parts are additionally illustrated in FIG. 6a. After the seal is adjusted relative to the hook bolts, the back edge of the seal may no longer make contact with the shaft 15 as shown in FIG. 4b. In this event, the cam plate 26 is rotated so that the cam surface is brought into contact with the rear edge of the seal as shown in FIG. 5b. The relationship of parts in this respect is additionally illustrated in FIG. 6b. Thus, it will be understood that torque is applied to the bolt head 25 to position the cam plate and rotate the clamping plate at each location about the periphery of the door where the cams are actually provided. When the cams are adjusted to contact the rear edge of the seal as illustrated in FIGS. 5b and 6b, the cam plate is self-locking with reference to rotation of the shaft 18 about its axis 21 even when external forces act on the seal. In this manner, the seal 11 remains in its fixed position due to the action by the cam plate 26. The friction developed by the hook 16 and the action of the cam plates 26 insure proper seating of the surface 11a of the seal 11 against the frame 10 of the coke oven.

The coke oven door is urged by springs 30 toward the frame 10 surrounding the opening 9. The resilient force of these springs is applied directly to the front plate 12 and resisted by crossbeams 31 that are, in turn, carried by arms extending from the frame 10.

Although the invention has been shown in connection with a certain specific embodiment, it will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes in form and arrangement of parts may be made to suit requirements without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims

We claim as our invention:

1. The combination with a coke oven door having a peripheral seal defining an edge surface adapted to abut against a frame surrounding an opening leading into a coke oven chamber, and fastening means extending from said door for supporting said seal in frictional engagement with side walls of said door, of apparatus at spaced locations about the periphery of the door for positioning said edge surface of the peripheral seal relative to said door comprising, a shaft including a threaded end for support by said door, a cam plate secured to said shaft for an abutting relation with a rear edge of said seal opposite to said edge surface, said cam plate having a cam surface generated from a spiral form with the center thereof lying along the longitudinal axis of said shaft in such a manner that the cam plate is self-locking with respect to unwanted rotation of said shaft by forces transmitted from said edge surface of the seal upon said cam plate, and a circular plate supported by said shaft for clamping said seal against said door, the centers of said cam plate and said circular plate lie along the longitudinal axis of said shaft.

2. The combination according to claim 1 wherein said cam plates at opposite sides of said door have said spiral form generated for rotational adjustments in opposite directions.

3. The combination according to claim 2 further comprising nut means carried by the threaded end of said shaft for securing said circular plate and said cam plate relative to a side wall of said door.

4. The combination according to claim 1 further comprising resilient means for urging said door toward said frame to enclose said opening leading into the coke oven chamber.