Abstract: A safety eyewash has an eyewash liquid in a container that has two flexible plastic sheets that are sealed around the bottom and end margins and are sealed at the top margin after the liquid is placed in the container. One of the sheets has two sets of holes that are covered by a removable strip of liquid-impervious material secured on that sheet. The size of the holes is such that there is no substantial passage of the liquid through the holes after the strip has been removed until the container is subjected to a compressive force that results in streams of liquid passing out of the holes. The spacing between the centers of the sets of holes is an interpupillary distance. A hand strap can be mounted on the other plastic sheet.

Abstract: A system to protect piping and containers from damage by freezing of contained aqueous liquid includes a temperature-actuated SPDT switch connected at its movable contact to a rechargable battery. The fixed contacts of the switch are connected to two input terminals of a DC motor of a motor-actuated valve having its valve opened or closed depending upon the operation of the switch. The movable contact normally engages the fixed contact that provides voltage to close the valve, if open, as the sensed temperature is above about 35.degree. F., but moves to the other fixed contact when the temperature drops to 35.degree. F. to open automatically the valve. A relay having a coil energized by AC power has a normally open contact coupling the motor and the fixed contact used to close the valve so that closing is inhibited, if the AC power is off, until power is on.

Abstract: The furnace for burning wood or coal has a cabinet with a front wall and interconnected spaces between the inner and outer walls at the sides, top, bottom and rear. One of two outer walls have an inlet and outlet for flow of air to be heated. There are aligned flue openings in the upper portion of one of the sets of spaced walls. A grate and an ash pan below are mounted within a lower portion of the cabinet. The front wall has at least one opening closed in an airtight manner by one or two doors. A damper, having a pipe and plate pivotally mounted on the top of the pipe at its front end, is connected to a bimetallic thermostat above it. Both are mounted on the front of the furnace. The thermostat is mounted for movement to open the damper. The front wall of the cabinet or the door, when there is one door, separates the thermostat from the fire chamber within the cabinet above the grate.

Abstract: A novel distillation tray useful as a horizontally disposed internal for a distillation column, especially a cryogenic distillation column, has a set of parallel horizontal pipes spaced from one another to support a pool of down-flowing liquid and to provide passage of up-flowing vapor through the spaces. At each end the pipes are connected to and communicate with a manifold. A number of these trays in a vertically tiered array are connected to one another as an assembly in the column. The assembly of the trays is provided by the manifolds at the two ends of the sets of pipes. In one construction the manifold for one set of pipes has an upward vertical extension that is also one manifold of the adjacent upper tray, while the other manifold for the first set of pipes has a downward vertical extension that is also one manifold of the adjacent lower tray.

Abstract: A system for bidirectional in-motion weighing of freight cars of a train includes a weighbridge, first and second sets of load cells, three wheel sensing devices, a control device, a device initiated by the control device for weighing operations, and a printer for the total car weight. The sets of load cells are mounted to receive the load from opposite ends of the weighbridge. Each set has a rapid change of output voltage when an axle enters or leaves the associated weighbridge end. The weighbridge is located between two spaced, aligned tracks and has a third track. The three tracks provide a path of train travel. Each wheel sensing device has a component to provide a signal when a wheel passes. Two components are mounted beside the first two tracks a predetermined distance from opposite ends of the third track. The third component is located beside one of the three tracks a predetermined distance from one end of the third track.

Abstract: A liquid level gauge for a tank, especially a pressurized railway tank car, has a housing with a bottom opening mounted at a top opening of the tank. A horizontal shaft is rotatably mounted in the housing between opposed walls having parallel flat vertical inner surfaces. A sprocket is fixedly mounted on the central part of the shaft, on each end of which is fixedly mounted a ring magnet spaced from one of these walls. Complementary ring magnets are rotatably mounted outside but adjacent these opposed walls. The four ring magnets constitute a pair of magnetic drives. A track and cable guide assembly, supported in the tank, extends from the bottom portion of the tank. A perforated tape is trained over the sprocket on the shaft and another sprocket rotatably mounted in the bottom portion of the tank so that the tape is under tension. A probe assembly connected to the tape moves vertically when the sprocket in the housing is rotated.

Abstract: A system to produce ethylene includes, in one embodiment, separately cracking a heavy hydrocarbon feed and a lighter feed, cooling the latter product in a transfer-line exchanger before admixture with the former product and cooling the mixed product in a transfer-line exchanger. Both exchangers are preferably a novel transfer-line exchanger that has a construction including a vertical tank, with a cylindrical intermediate portion and conical bottom entrance and top exit end portions, tube sheets at the top and bottom ends of the intermediate portion of the tank, vertical tubes extending between the tube sheets and in alignment with openings in the tube sheets. The tubes extend downwardly through the lower tube sheet with their ends at openings in a conical shield that is supported in the entrance conical portion of the tank by the tubes or by the conical entrance portion of the tank.

Abstract: A residual tire life prediction system uses a clock to trigger a bang generator that provides pulses of electrical energy to a pulse-echo transducer. The transducer converts pulses of electrical energy to pulses of ultrasonic vibration. The transducer is located on the tread of a steel belted tire to transmit pulses of ultrasonic energy into the tire and to receive reflected ultrasonic energy from plies of the tire casing. The transducer converts the reflected ultrasonic energy to provide bursts of electrical signals. The transducer is connected to a time varying gain control circuit that has its output connected via a full-wave rectifier to a first gate and to an input of a voltage level detector.

Abstract: A system, preferably a pulse echo reflection system, for residual tire life prediction by ultrasound includes: a transmitter transducer; means to provide pulses of electrical energy to the transmitter transducer, that converts the electrical pulses into pulses of ultrasonic vibrations and transmits them into an area of the plycontaining portion of the carcass of a tire, having a number of plies in the carcass, to be tested; clock means to control the frequency of the electrical pulses; a receiver transducer mounted relative to the transmitter transducer to receive ultrasonic energy reflected by the tire; amplifier means connected to the receiver transducer to receive reflected ultrasonic energy from different levels within that portion of the carcass of the tire, including reflected ultrasonic energy from plies of the carcass of the tire; processing means having an input connected to the amplifier; and gate means responsive to the clock means to provide, after a delay following each electrical pulse, a time-g

Abstract: A stamp vending machine has a number of stamp dispensing mechanisms. Each mechanism is capable of dispensing one or more stamps of the same denomination. The machine can dispense from one mechanism different numbers of stamps and from a number of different mechanisms stamps of different denominations in various combinations totalling the same price or different prices. This capability is provided in a programmable manner that is easily changed to other combinations of numbers of the same stamps or to the operation of different combinations of stamp dispensing mechanisms. The construction of the machine preferably includes the capability of providing a backup of one of its stamp dispensing mechanisms by another mechanism or by more than one mechanism in sequence.

Abstract: A stamp dispensing mechanism has a cylindrical feed wheel, with axially-parallel rows of projections, rotatably mounted on a front portion of a vertical support plate that is constructed to rotatably support a roll of stamps on its rear portion. A Geneva star wheel, rotatably mounted on the plate, is operatively connected to the feed wheel for its step movement with the star wheel. A Geneva driver assembly, rotatably mounted on the plate, has a driver pin on an arm rotated by a motor also mounted on the plate. During one rotation of the arm, the pin moves into and out of a slot of the star wheel for its step movement. An arcuate part of the arm is in a recess in the periphery of a tooth of the star wheel, when the pin is not in the slot, to lock that wheel.

Abstract: A system for flaw detection during a continuous welding process uses a transducer to provide a signal burst for each acoustic burst from an article being welded. The signal burst is amplified and filtered to pass frequencies between about 100 and about 550 KHz. The ring-down counter counts signals of the filtered signal burst. The first signal of the filtered signal burst initiates a timing circuit that times out to provide a reset pulse to reset the ring-down counter. If the decimal count exceeds 100 but does not exceed 1000, the ring-down counter operates circuitry to provide a latched signal to an output of a flip-flop to enable a gate before the counter is reset by the reset pulse of the timing circuit. That reset pulse is also provided to the gate to provide at its output a pulse representing one filtered signal burst having more than 100 and no more than 1000 signals during the timing operation.

Abstract: A line driver system for digital communication, using logic-level voltages, between an electronic transmitter-receiver device and an electronic receiver device, such as between a computer and a typewriter, a line printer or a cathode ray tube, has the transmitter-receiver device at a location remote from the receiver device. An output of the transmitter-receiver device is electronically coupled to an input of the receiver device using one line of a communications bus. This output of the transmitter-receiver device is coupled to that line of the bus through an optical isolator and then through a power booster. The receiver device has an output that provides a voltage signal when the receiver device is switched on-line. This voltage signal is provided at that output of the receiver device when the receiver device is capable of transforming digital information, that is provided at its input, to a readable form that is printed or displayed by the receiver device.

Abstract: The macerator-sterilizer sewage treatment system, that is useful in an overall toilet system to collect, treat and discharge toilet wastes, comprises: macerator/transfer pump means to receive flushed human waste from toilets and urinals; a collection tank connected by conduit means to the outlet of the pump means; a sterilization tank connected by power-operated valved transfer means and transfer pump means to the collection tank; heater means in the sterilization tank; power-operated valved discharge means connected to an outlet of the sterilization tank; and electrical means to control the operation of the macerator/transfer pump means, of the transfer pump means between the collection tank and the sterilization tank, of the heater means, of the power-operated valved discharge means connected to the outlet of the sterilization tank and of the power-operated valved transfer means.

Abstract: During the use of process equipment it is necessary to position control valves, change analog set-point signals for process controllers, move thermocouples to specific positions in thermowells, etc. A computer control system for these operations utilizes binary information on three sets of bits of a bus and an execute signal on another bit provided by a computer, usually at a remote area, to select the device of the equipment to be changed and to make the change. The system includes: an information interface card; a number of actuator module cards; decoder/demultiplexer means; and device select means. The interface card is connectable to first and second sets of bits of a bus that is connectable to additional systems. The device select means is connected to a third set of bits of the bus. The binary information to the device select means results in a signal only at one of its outputs, each output being connected to a different system.

Abstract: The toilet system includes an evaporator tank having an inlet and an outlet that is at the top portion of the tank, a first electrical heater mounted on the tank, macerator/transfer pump means connected to the inlet of the tank to transfer flushed waste from a toilet to that tank, a vapor treatment system including a vessel having an inlet and a vent outlet and containing a bed of catalyst, first conduit means connected to the outlet of the tank and to the inlet of the vessel to transfer vapor from the tank to the vessel, a second electrical heater mounted on the conduit means to heat vapor passing from the tank to the vessel of the vapor treatment system, and second conduit means connected to the first conduit means between the mounting of the second heater and the evaporator tank to introduce pressure air into the vapor from the tank before the heating of the vapor.

Abstract: A novel distillation tray useful as a horizontally disposed internal for a distillation column, especially a cryogenic distillation column, has a set of parallel horizontal pipes spaced from one another to support a pool of down-flowing liquid and to provide passage of up-flowing vapor through the spaces. At each end the pipes are connected to and communicate with a manifold. A number of these trays in a vertically tiered array are connected to one another as an assembly in the column. The assembly of the trays is provided by the manifolds at the two ends of the sets of pipes. In one construction the manifold for one set of pipes has an upward vertical extension that is also one manifold of the adjacent upper tray, while the other manifold for the first set of pipes has a downward vertical extension that is also one manifold of the adjacent lower tray.

Abstract: The system includes: a number of subassemblies, each containing a set of switches connectable at their pair of inputs to different sources of analog signals and containing a multiplexer/decoder having outputs connected to different switches for their selective actuation; a differential amplifier having a pair of inputs connected to the pair of outputs of all of the switches; analog/digital converter means having its input connected to the output of the amplifier and having outputs providing multi-bit digital information; and control means that provides various functions.

Abstract: At the general area of a set of BCD counter means, each to contain individual accumulated counts, a system, called a multi-counter register, is generally located for its use that permits the individual reading of the counter means in a selective mode by local readout means at the general area or by a computer at a remote area by the use of a small number of address channels extending from the location of the counter means to the computer.

Abstract: A batching system for operating each cycle of a batching process includes a communications bus to which are connected a basic processor, a control console, an analog/digital converter module, and an interface unit. The basic processor includes RAM memory means, PROM memory means and a central processing unit containing a microprocessor. The control console includes display means, a group of set-up pushbutton switch means, a group of operate pushbutton switch means, keyboard means having a number of pushbutton switch means each providing a different BCD signal, and switch means to activate alternatively the group of set-up pushbutton switch means or the group of operate pushbutton switch means. When the set-up pushbutton switch means are activated, the pressing of each button activates a different mode of the PROM memory means. By operating these switch means followed by operation of one or more buttons of the keyboard changes can be made in the digital information stored in the RAM memory means.