JP4874026B2 - Drain separator, vacuum pump, and oil circulation system - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an improvement in an oil circulation system used for sealing a refrigerant such as hydrogen gas supplied to cool a heat generation point of a rotating body constituting a generator, and is particularly arranged in an oil circulation path. The present invention relates to an improvement in a drain separator, a vacuum pump, and an oil circulation system connected to a vacuum pump.

  In an AC generator installed in a thermal power plant, power is generated by rotating a turbine with water vapor obtained by burning fossil fuel or the like to boil water, and rotating a magnet connected to the turbine shaft in the coil. is doing. Since a magnet, a coil, and other parts as a rotating body easily generate heat, a cooling mechanism that cools by supplying a refrigerant such as hydrogen gas to these heat generating portions is known. In a cooling mechanism using hydrogen gas or the like, an oil seal that supplies oil with a certain pressure to the bearing portion or the like in order to prevent hydrogen gas from leaking from the bearing portion of the rotating shaft of the magnet to the outside. A structure is generally used (Patent Documents 1 and 2).

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a system configuration for circulating and supplying sealing oil to a generator having the oil seal structure as described above.
The bearings of the generator 100a equipped in the generator 100 and the heat generating parts such as the coil 100b are cooled by hydrogen gas. On the other hand, the bearing portion is provided with an oil seal portion using oil given a certain pressure to prevent hydrogen gas from leaking to the outside. For the generator 100, a supply pipe 101 for supplying sealing oil to the oil seal part, and a recovery pipe for recovering the recovered oil O containing impurities, moisture and hydrogen gas returned from the oil seal part 102 are connected to each other. The supply pipe 101 and the recovery pipe 102 are connected to the vacuum tank 105, and the recovered oil O transported via the recovery pipe 102 is temporarily stored in the vacuum tank 105 and subjected to a vacuum deaeration process. Since impurities, moisture, air, and hydrogen gas are mixed in the recovered oil, it is re-supplied to the generator 100 by the supply pipe 101 and the pump P after vacuum degassing.

  The vacuum chamber 105 has a configuration in which the discharge end 102 a of the recovery tube 102 is drawn into the vacuum chamber main body 106 and the suction end 101 a of the supply tube 101 is connected to the bottom surface. When the recovered oil O is discharged from the discharge end 102a of the recovery pipe 102 into the vacuum atmosphere in the vacuum chamber body 106, the air and hydrogen gas contained in the recovered oil are vacuum degassed, and the upper portion of the vacuum chamber body 106 Is discharged from the exhaust pipe 107 connected to the outside of the tank. The gas discharged from the exhaust pipe 107 contains oil components, moisture, and impurities. The recovered oil O remaining in the tank is resupplied to the generator 100 through the supply pipe 101.

  The exhaust pipe 107 is connected to the suction part 110 a of the vacuum pump 110, and the gas deaerated in the vacuum chamber body 106 is sucked by the negative pressure from the vacuum pump 110. An oil chamber 115 is connected to the vacuum pump 110 via a tube body 111, and a gas containing oil or the like sucked through the exhaust pipe 107 is stored in the oil chamber 115. The oil chamber 115 communicates with the outside air, exhausts the gas exhausted from the tube body 111 to the outside, and oil O ′ accumulated in the oil chamber in the rotation driving portion of the vacuum pump 110 as lubricating oil. A pipe body 117 for supplying and a pipe body 118 connected to the bottom drainage port 115a for supplying moisture and impurities in the lower layer of the oil O ′ accumulated in the oil chamber to the drain separator 120 are provided. ing.

  The drain separator 120 is a means for removing moisture from the oil O ′ accumulated in the oil chamber 115 so that oil containing moisture is not supplied to the rotary drive unit of the vacuum pump 110. is there. That is, deteriorated sludge-like oil also stays in the separator, preventing oil unsuitable for lubrication from being resupplied to the vacuum pump side. The drain separator 120 is formed over the container main body 121 communicating with the inside of the oil chamber 115 through the pipe body 118, the drainage part (drainage pipe) 122 provided at the lower part of the container main body 121, and the entire side wall of the container main body. And a glass part (transparent part) 123 for visual confirmation. Since oil is also contained in the moisture accumulated in the container main body 121, the oil and moisture are separated in a vertical position relationship. The administrator visually confirms the amount of moisture inside the container body from the glass portion 123, and when the amount of moisture has accumulated to some extent, opens the valve 122a provided in the drainage portion 122 and discharges only the moisture.

If the oil together with the water accumulated in the separator is discarded, the oil level for lubrication in the oil chamber 115 greatly decreases every time it is discarded, and the oil chamber is replenished each time. Need to occur. Moreover, when the oil in the separator is discarded together with moisture, there arises a problem that the cost of the purification device for treating the oil becomes high.
On the other hand, since the oil and water collected in the drain separator 120 are sludged by the pollutant, the pollutant easily adheres to the inner wall of the glass part 123, and actually the inside of the container body from the outside of the glass part. In many cases, it was difficult to visually check the situation. The administrator could not adjust the amount of water discharge appropriately because the boundary between the water and the oil could not be visually confirmed through the glass portion.
Therefore, conventionally, it has been necessary to disassemble the drain separator 120 and clean the glass portion 123 after closing the valve 118a provided on the tube body 118 every time the transparency of the glass portion is lowered. Since the cleaning work accompanied with a proper disassembly requires a lot of time and labor, improvement measures have been demanded.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 08-021386 JP 09-023613 A

  As described above, in the oil circulation system configured to temporarily store the sealing oil collected from the generator in the vacuum chamber, vacuum deaerate it, and then re-supply the generator, Oil accumulated in an oil chamber equipped in a vacuum pump for generating a negative pressure is supplied as a lubricating oil to a rotary drive unit of the vacuum pump. Further, a drain separator for removing moisture from the oil accumulated in the chamber is connected to the chamber. Since this moisture contains contaminants, the transparency of the transparent part for internal confirmation provided in the drain separator is reduced, making it difficult to visually check the amount of moisture in the separator, and the transparency is reduced. It was necessary to clean the transparent part after disassembling the separator.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above, and the transparent portion for visually confirming the amount of water in the drain separator visually checks the amount of water to be drained by losing transparency due to the turbid component contained in the moisture. It is an object of the present invention to provide a drain separator, a vacuum pump, and an oil circulation system in an oil circulation system that can eliminate the trouble that cannot be confirmed without taking the trouble of disassembling and cleaning the separator.

In order to achieve the above object, a drain separator according to a first aspect of the present invention includes a vacuum pump that sucks an oil mist containing a gas component and moisture, and discharges the gas component sucked by the vacuum pump to the outside. And an oil chamber for storing the oil containing the moisture at the bottom, and a drain separator for taking out and collecting the moisture accumulated in the bottom of the oil chamber in communication with a bottom drain port provided at the bottom of the oil chamber. The drain separator used in the oil circulation system, wherein the drain separator is disposed on at least a part of the container body, a drain body provided at a lower part of the container body, and a container body outer wall. A transparent portion for visual confirmation provided, a wiper for removing foreign matter adhering to the inner wall of the transparent portion by sliding contact, and the wiper The and a handle for manual operation, the transparent portion is characterized in that it has a tapered shape whose inner diameter increases toward downwardly is enlarged.

Among the oil and moisture stored in the oil chamber, the oil component floating in the upper layer is supplied to the rotary drive part (bearing part, etc.) of the vacuum pump and used for lubrication, while the oil collected in the lower layer, Moisture, foreign matter, etc. are accommodated in the separator. The outer surface of the container body constituting this separator is provided with a transparent portion for visually confirming the state of internal oil and moisture accumulation, and only the accumulated moisture is mainly discharged from the drainage portion provided at the lower portion of the container body. . However, if the transparency of the transparent part is lost due to oil or contaminants in the water, the amount of water cannot be confirmed visually. Disassembling and cleaning the separator every time the transparent part becomes dirty is an extremely complicated operation. In the present invention, since the wiper for cleaning the transparent portion by operating the handle from the outside is provided, the transparency of the transparent portion can be recovered without being disassembled.
When the inner wall surface of the transparent portion is widened, it becomes difficult for the pollutant that hinders transparency to adhere to the inner wall surface, and the pollutant once adhered is easily removed and dropped by the wiper.

A second aspect of the present invention, the inner bottom surface of the pre-SL container body and being inclined downwardly toward the drain portion.
The fallen pollutant becomes easy to go to the drainage part.
A third aspect of the present invention, prior Symbol wiper is characterized by comprising a helical blade.
By rotating the spiral blade, the pollutant adhered to the transparent portion can be effectively removed and dropped.

A fourth aspect of the present invention, the bottom of the front Symbol wiper, characterized in that in contact with the inner bottom surface of the container body.
Since the bottom of the wiper rubs against the inner bottom surface of the container body, the wiper can be pushed out to the drainage portion while removing contaminants on the bottom surface.
A vacuum pump according to a fifth aspect of the invention includes the drain separator according to any one of the first to fourth aspects.
An oil circulation system according to a sixth aspect of the invention includes the vacuum pump according to the fifth aspect.

According to the drain separator of the present invention, the wiper that removes the foreign matter adhering to the inner wall of the transparent portion for visual confirmation provided on the container body communicated with the bottom drain of the oil chamber, and the handle for manually operating the wiper Therefore, the transparency of the transparent portion can be recovered without disassembling the separator.
When the inner wall surface of the transparent portion is widened, it becomes difficult for the pollutant that hinders transparency to adhere to the inner wall surface, and the pollutant once adhered is easily removed and dropped by the wiper.

Since the inner bottom surface of the container body is inclined downward toward the drainage part, the fallen pollutant is easily directed to the drainage part.
By rotating the wiper composed of spiral blades, the contaminants attached to the transparent portion can be effectively removed and dropped.
Since the bottom of the wiper rubs against the inner bottom surface of the container body, the wiper can be pushed out to the drainage portion while removing contaminants on the bottom surface.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to embodiments shown in the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a configuration explanatory view of a drain separator according to an embodiment of the present invention, a vacuum pump including the drain separator, and an oil circulation system including the drain pump. In addition, the same code | symbol is attached | subjected and demonstrated to the same part as each component in FIG.
The drain separator 1 according to the present embodiment is configured to receive moisture and impurities in the lower layer of the oil O ′ accumulated in the oil chamber 115 via a pipe body 118 connected to the bottom drain port 115a. The drain separator 1 is a means that removes moisture from the oil O ′ accumulated in the oil chamber 115 so that moisture-containing oil is not supplied to the rotary drive unit of the vacuum pump 110. is there.
The drain separator 1 is also a component of the vacuum pump 110.

The drain separator 1 is formed on a substantially cylindrical container main body 2 communicating with the inside of the oil chamber 115 through a pipe body 118, a drainage part (drainage pipe) 3 provided at the lower part of the container main body 2, and a side wall of the container main body. And a glass part (transparent part) 4 for visual confirmation. Since oil is also contained in the moisture accumulated in the container main body 2, the oil O ″ and the moisture W having a higher specific gravity than that are separated in a vertical position relationship. The administrator visually confirms the amount of water inside the container body from the glass part 4, and when the amount of water has accumulated to some extent, opens the valve 3a provided in the drainage part 3 to perform the operation of discharging the water.
As shown in the longitudinal sectional view of FIG. 2, the characteristic configuration of the drain separator 1 of the present invention includes a wiper 20 that removes foreign matter adhering to the inner surface of the transparent portion 4 and a handle 21 that manually operates the wiper. In the configuration comprising

That is, the container body 2 includes a metal upper structure 5 that rotatably supports the handle 21, and a lower structure 10 that is connected to the lower portion of the upper structure 5. A shaft portion 21a of the handle 21 is rotatably supported by the bearing portion 7 provided in the support hole 5a provided on the upper surface of the upper structure 5, and the shaft portion 21a is inserted toward the inside of the lower structure 10. The proper position is supported by another bearing portion 7. A handle 21 is fixed to the upper end portion of the shaft portion 21a, and a wiper 20 is fixed to a lower portion of the shaft portion 21a. The wiper 20 is made of any material such as a rubber blade, a brush, and the like, and the outer peripheral edge is brought into pressure contact with the inner surface of the transparent portion 4 so as to slide and adhere to the entire inner surface of the transparent portion when the shaft portion 21a rotates. It is configured to remove the foreign matter and restore the transparency of the transparent portion.
In this example, the pipe body 118 is connected to the upper structure 5, but the pipe body 118 may be connected to the lower structure 10 side. In addition, the lower structure 10 has a configuration in which the cylindrical glass transparent portion 4 is disposed between the upper and lower flanges 11 and 12 and the flanges are connected by the bar 13, but this configuration is only an example. Absent.

When water containing oil and contaminants in the oil chamber 115 accumulates in the container main body 2 via the pipe body 118, the contaminants adhere to the inner surface of the transparent portion 4 over time and the transparency is lowered. At this time, the handle 21 is operated to rotate the wiper 20 so that the outer peripheral edge of the wiper slides on the entire inner surface of the transparent portion to remove the attached contaminants. For this reason, the transparency of the transparent part 4 is restored, and it becomes possible to visually check the amount of water in the container body (the boundary position between the water layer and the oil layer).
Therefore, without disassembling and cleaning the drain separator, the handle 21 is operated to perform cleaning, and the state inside the container body is confirmed from the outside through the transparent portion whose transparency has been restored, and a valve is used as necessary. 3a can be opened and the water | moisture content of a container main body inner bottom part can be discharged | emitted by an appropriate amount.

In addition, by rotating the wiper 20, not only the transparency of the transparent portion 4 is restored, but also a light specific gravity oil layer O ″ and a heavy moisture layer (including contaminants) by stirring the entire liquid inside. The separation of W can be promoted, and only the water that stays and settles in the lower layer and the contaminants can be discharged out of the container body.
Further, by extending the bottom portion of the wiper 20 to the inner bottom surface of the container main body and bringing it into contact, it is possible to reliably discharge contaminants and the like that are deposited by rubbing the bottom surface of the container main body when the wiper rotates.

Next, FIG. 3 is a longitudinal sectional view showing a configuration of a drain separator according to another embodiment of the present invention. The drain separator according to this embodiment is characterized in that at least the glass plate constituting the transparent portion 4 is configured such that the inner diameter is expanded toward the lower side. The wiper 20 is configured to have a taper shape whose width widens downward so that the outer peripheral edge thereof can be in sliding contact with the inner surface of the transparent portion 4.
Thus, since the transparent part is expanded so that the inner surface of the transparent part is obliquely downward, the contaminants are less likely to adhere to the inner surface of the transparent part, and the contaminants attached by the wiper 20 are easily removed.
Further, by configuring the bottom surface 2a of the container body 2 to be inclined downward toward the drainage unit 3, it is possible to promote the discharge of moisture from the drainage unit 3 and contaminants accumulated on the bottom surface. In particular, as shown by a broken line, the bottom of the wiper 20 is extended to the bottom surface, so that it is possible to surely discharge contaminants and the like that are accumulated by rubbing the bottom surface when the wiper rotates.

In the above embodiment, a plate-like or brush-like one is illustrated as the wiper 20, but the cleaning efficiency of the transparent part is improved by making a wiper in which spiral blades are integrated on the outer periphery of the shaft part 21a, for example. At the same time, moisture and contaminants can be more actively guided to the drainage part 3 at the bottom of the container body.
In the above embodiment, the outer peripheral surface of the container body provided with the transparent part is fixed and the wiper side is rotated. On the contrary, the wiper side is fixed and the container body side provided with the transparent part is provided. You may make it rotate.

It is a lineblock diagram of an oil circulation system provided with a drain separator concerning one embodiment of the present invention. It is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of the drain separator which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a longitudinal cross-sectional view which shows the structure of the drain separator which concerns on other embodiment of this invention. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a conventional system configuration for circulatingly supplying sealing oil to a generator having an oil seal structure.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Drain separator, 2 ... Container main body, 2a ... Bottom surface, 3 ... Drainage part, 3a ... Valve, 4 ... Transparent part, 5 ... Upper structure, 5a ... Support hole, 6 ... Bearing part, 7 ... Bearing part, 10 ... Lower structure, 11, 12 ... Flange, 13 ... Bar, 20 ... Wiper, 21 ... Handle, 21a ... Shaft.

Claims (6)

A vacuum pump for sucking an oil mist containing a gas component and moisture, an oil chamber for discharging the gas component sucked by the vacuum pump to the outside, and containing the oil containing the moisture at the bottom, and the oil chamber A drain separator that communicates with a bottom drain port provided at the bottom of the oil chamber and that drains and collects the water collected at the bottom of the oil chamber, and is used in an oil circulation system comprising :
The drain separator includes a container main body communicating with the bottom drain outlet, a drainage section provided at a lower part of the container main body, a transparent part for visual confirmation provided on at least a part of the outer wall of the container main body, A wiper that removes foreign matter adhering to the inner wall by sliding contact, and a handle for manually operating the wiper,
The drain part is a drain separator characterized by having a tapered shape whose inner diameter increases toward the lower side . The drain separator according to claim 1 , wherein an inner bottom surface of the container body is inclined downward toward the drainage portion. The drain separator according to claim 1 or 2 , wherein the wiper comprises a spiral blade. The drain separator according to any one of claims 1 to 3 , wherein a bottom portion of the wiper is in contact with an inner bottom surface of the container main body. A vacuum pump comprising the drain separator according to any one of claims 1 to 4 .   An oil circulation system comprising the vacuum pump according to claim 5.

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