JP3534868B2 - Channel switching device - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a liquid pipe switching device, and more particularly to a flow channel switching device adapted to switch a flow channel by utilizing fluctuation of static pressure of liquid.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, for example, in a beer hall or the like, beer is poured from a beer barrel into a jug or the like in order to provide it to a customer who drinks beer. In order to use carbon dioxide gas, a gas flow path connecting the carbon dioxide gas cylinder and the beer barrel and a beer line from the beer barrel to the spout are required.

However, since one beer barrel has a capacity of about several tens of liters, when the number of customers increases, it is necessary to pour from the next beer barrel, which requires the exchange of the above-mentioned flow path each time. Since it is very cumbersome to connect, usually a method of connecting a plurality of beer barrels in series is adopted.

However, this method has a problem that the quality of beer in the barrel is adversely affected if the barrel placed on the downstream side is left for a long period of time. Therefore, a method of connecting beer barrels in parallel has been tried. In this case, in order to switch the beer pouring line of the beer barrel, an opening / closing valve is generally provided on the line, and a method of automatically controlling the opening / closing of the line and an opening / closing valve in the carbon dioxide gas flow path to the beer barrel are provided. There is a method for automatically controlling the opening and closing of the opening and closing valve by automatically detecting the flow of beer by installing a photoelectric sensor, a proximity switch and the like in both of these methods.

That is, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-319487.
The publication discloses a beer sensor that detects the presence or absence of beer conveyed to a beer pipe, and a method that can accurately dispense beer with an opening / closing unit that opens and closes a passage based on the detection result. There is.

Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-319489 discloses a beer sensor for detecting the presence or absence of beer conveyed to a beer pipe and an opening / closing means for opening / closing a passage based on the detection result. Of the above, there is disclosed a method which has means for removing bubbles generated in a pipe when exchanging a beer barrel so that beer without blowout can be poured out to the end.

[0007]

However, in order to detect the flow of beer in the line and perform automatic control as described above, a series of devices such as a sensor, a switch and a valve must be used. Since power such as electricity is mainly used, the device itself is expensive and large-scale. In addition, the sensor and the like sometimes have an electrical failure, and there is a defect that the opening and closing of the valve does not work well.

In view of this, the present invention provides a flow path switching device which can switch the pouring line of a liquid such as beer with a simple mechanism without using a special power source, and has a drawback of the prior art. This is intended to be resolved.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is to pour liquid from a first liquid storage tank and then to pour it from a subsequent liquid storage tank when the liquid storage tank becomes empty. In a liquid pouring device having a plurality of liquid storage tanks as possible, with a control valve for connecting and disconnecting the pouring of the liquid in the middle of the liquid pouring line connected to each of the liquid storage tanks,
Between the respective working gas flow paths connected to the respective liquid storage tanks and for guiding the liquid to the outside of the storage tanks, when the pouring interruption from the pouring line downstream side of the control valve is detected, in the liquid pouring line Is provided with a switching valve for switching the flow path so that the gas is supplied to the subsequent liquid storage tank by the fluctuation of the static pressure.

[0010]

According to the above construction, when the first liquid storage tank is emptied, the control valve is actuated to stop the liquid from being poured out, so that the pouring pressure is eliminated, so that the gas is supplied to the subsequent liquid storage tank. The switching valve is switched as described above, and the liquid is discharged from the subsequent liquid storage tank. Then, by repeating this, the fluid is sequentially poured from the subsequent liquid storage tank.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below with reference to an embodiment shown in the drawings.

The embodiment of the flow path switching device according to the present invention shows a case where the liquid storage tank is a beer barrel. As shown in FIG. 1, beer is poured from the barrel A to the upper portion of the beer barrel A. A beer pouring line 1 which is a pipe line for supplying a beer barrel A and a carbon dioxide gas flow path 3 which is a pipe line for connecting a carbon dioxide gas cylinder 2 which is a working gas to the beer barrel A for sending out beer from the beer barrel A are dispense heads. It is attached via D.

A control valve 4 is provided in the middle of the beer pouring line 1, and a tap 5 serving as a direct spout for beer to a jug or the like is provided at the end of the beer pouring line 1a downstream of the control valve 4. Is provided.

The end of the gas flow path 3a branched from the carbon dioxide gas flow path 3 is connected to the upper part of the switching valve 6, and the lower part of the switching valve 6 is connected to the beer pouring line 1a. Further, a carbon dioxide gas flow path 3b connected to the beer barrel B is connected in the middle of the switching valve 6. In addition, beer barrel B
Beer pouring line 1'is provided so as to join the pouring line 1a. In the figure, 7 is a pressure reducing valve.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the control valve 4 in detail. The upper part of the cylinder 4a is connected to the pouring line 1 and the lower part thereof is connected to the pouring line 1a.
A float 8 made of a material such as polypropylene is incorporated in the so as to be vertically movable. The beer from the pouring line 1 passes between the inner wall of the cylindrical body 4a and the outer circumference of the float 8 and is guided to the pouring line 1a. However, the valve seat 9 is provided in the lower portion of the cylindrical body 4a, and when the float 8 descends and comes into contact with the valve seat 9, the pouring line 1a is closed.

FIG. 3 shows the details of an example of the switching valve 6. The valve body 6a has a cylinder structure, and a slidable piston 10 is built therein, and the valve body 6a in which the piston 10 is housed. One side is a gas chamber 11, and the other side is a liquid chamber 12 for beer or the like.
Each of the two is sealed by a seal ring 13, 14 provided at the end of the piston 10. A gas hose 1 forming a carbon dioxide gas flow path 3a on the gas chamber 11 side
5 is connected via a gas joint 16, and one end of a beer hose 17 forming the pouring line 1a is connected to the liquid chamber 12 side via a beer joint 18.

The other end of the beer hose 17 is connected to one port 19a of the T-shaped three-way joint 19, and the other two ports 19b and 19c of the three-way joint 19 are on the downstream side of the control valve 4 and the tap 5, respectively. The beer pouring line 1a shown in FIG. 1 is formed by being connected to the base end side.

Further, a hole 20 through which gas can communicate when the piston 10 is operated is provided at the position of the piston 10 of the valve body 6a so as to be in a direction perpendicular to the gas joint 16. This hole 20 The gas joint 21 is connected to the carbon dioxide gas flow path 3b in FIG.

Next, the operation will be described.

When beer is poured out from the beer barrel A in FIG. 1, carbon dioxide gas from the carbon dioxide gas cylinder 2 is passed through the flow path 3.
As a result, the beer in the barrel A is guided by the gas pressure from the pouring line 1 to the pouring line 1a through the control valve 4 by the operation of the dispensing head D, and is injected from the tap 5 into a jug or the like.

In this case, the switching of the flow paths is automatically performed by the pressure fluctuation. That is, the force received by the piston 10 is the static pressure P ₁ kg / cm ² received from the liquid chamber 12 side,
Gas pressure P ₂ kg / cm ² received from the gas chamber 11 side, liquid chamber 12
Side pressure receiving area S ₁ cm ² , gas chamber 11 side pressure receiving area S
₂ cm ² and the sliding resistance of the seal rings 13, 14 is Rkg
Then, S ₁ × P ₁ + R> S ₂ × P _{2 When the} beer in the beer barrel A becomes empty, there is no beer passing through the control valve 4, so the float 8 descends and the valve seat 9
To contact.

As a result, beer does not flow into the beer pouring line 1a, and the piston 10 of the switching valve 6 is balanced by pressing one side through the gas chamber 11 and the other side into the liquid chamber 12 by beer. What was there
The balance is lost due to the lack of beer in the liquid chamber 12. That is, when the beer in the beer barrel A is emptied, the static pressure P ₁ of the liquid chamber 12 becomes 0, so that the switching valve 6 operates by automatically detecting the empty state of beer in the beer barrel A.

If the condition of R <S ₂ × P ₂ is satisfied, the gas in the carbon dioxide gas channel 3a pushes the piston 10 toward the liquid chamber 12 side, so that the piston 10 moves leftward in FIG. As shown in, the gas chamber 11 and the hole 20 communicate with each other.

As a result, the gas in the carbon dioxide gas passage 3a is guided to the beer barrel B through the carbon dioxide gas passage 3b. In this way, the flow paths can be switched by selecting each of the above values S ₁ , P ₁ , S ₂ , and P ₂ .

The beer in the beer barrel B passes through the pouring line 1'by this gas pressure, joins the pouring line 1a, and reaches the tap 5. Therefore, even if beer barrel A becomes empty, beer can be continuously poured from beer barrel B.

When there are three or more beer barrels, by connecting them as shown in FIG. 5, when the beer barrel A becomes empty, the beer barrel B and the beer barrel B become empty as in the case of two beer barrels. Then, it is possible to continuously pour from the beer barrel C.

Although the flow path switching device for beer pouring has been described in the above embodiment, it can be applied to carbonated beverages such as juice and cola in exactly the same manner, and liquids other than beverages. It is needless to say that the above can also be applied to those which are poured out by gas pressure, for example, a system for supplying a photoresist solution to the surface of a semiconductor wafer or a system for supplying an amine.

[0028]

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY As described above, according to the present invention, a plurality of fluids can be poured from the first liquid storage tank so as to be poured from the subsequent liquid storage tank when the liquid storage tank becomes empty. In a liquid pouring device having a liquid storage tank, a control valve for intermittently pouring out liquid is provided in the middle of a liquid pouring line connected to each of the liquid storage tanks, and the liquid is connected to each of the liquid storage tanks. Between each working gas flow path for guiding to the outside of the storage tank, when the shutoff of the control valve from the downstream side of the pouring line is detected, the subsequent liquid storage tank due to the fluctuation of the static pressure in the liquid pouring line. By adopting a configuration in which a switching valve that switches the flow path so as to supply gas to is provided, a large-scale device that operates a sensor, a switch, a valve, etc. using electrical power as in the conventional case Is no longer needed and is inexpensive. It is possible to perform switching of fault without the flow path by Temu.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall layout explanatory view showing an embodiment of a flow path switching device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing the structure of the control valve of FIG.

3 is a sectional view showing the structure of the switching valve of FIG.

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view showing a state in which the switching valve of FIG. 3 is switched.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a connection state of control valves and switching valves when the number of liquid storage tanks in FIG. 1 is at least three or more.

[Explanation of symbols]

1, 1a, 1'fluid pouring line 3,3a, 3b Working gas flow path 4 control valve 6 switching valve A, B, C Beer barrel as liquid storage tank

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) Reference JP-A-5-319489 (JP, A) JP-A-6-263194 (JP, A) JP-A-7-96999 (JP, A) JP-A-5- 319487 (JP, A) JP-B-46-42266 (JP, B1) (58) Fields surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) B67D 1/07 B67D 1/14

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A liquid pouring device having a plurality of liquid storage tanks so that liquid can be poured out from a first liquid storage tank and can be poured out from a subsequent liquid storage tank when the liquid storage tank becomes empty. In the above, while providing a control valve for connecting and disconnecting the pouring of the liquid in the middle of the liquid pouring line connected to each of the liquid storage tanks, each for connecting the liquid storage tanks and guiding the liquid to the outside of the storage tanks. Between the working gas flow paths, when the shutoff of the pouring from the pouring line downstream side of the control valve is detected, the gas is supplied to the subsequent liquid storage tank by the fluctuation of the static pressure in the liquid pouring line. A flow path switching device comprising a switching valve for switching the flow path. 2. The switching valve has a piston slidably inserted into the valve body, and one end of the valve body is connected with a working gas flow path and the other end thereof is connected with a liquid pouring line. When the valve body on one end side of the piston is a gas chamber and the valve body on the other end side is a liquid chamber, the piston is normally closed by the piston and the hydraulic pressure in the liquid chamber disappears 2. The flow path switching device according to claim 1, wherein the flow path switching device has a gas flow path that is moved and opened to communicate with the next liquid storage tank. 3. The control valve comprises a float, which has a specific gravity smaller than that of the liquid and a diameter smaller than the inner diameter of the cylinder, inside the cylinder connected to the liquid pouring line, and the flow of the liquid at the inner lower end of the cylinder. The flow path switching device according to claim 1, further comprising a valve seat in which the float descends and closes closely when the valve is stopped.