Abstract: A multi-stage compressor comprises a variable speed electrically driven rotodynamic compressor stage connected in series with and upstream of a water lubricated screw compressor stage and an intercooler arranged between the two compressors to reduce the temperature of gas entering the screw compressor stage. In the invention, the intercooler is a water spray intercooler, the water supply of which is shared with that of the water lubricated screw compressor.

Abstract: A regular economically producible packing of use in chemical engineering equipment is described. Physico-chemical phenomena in thermal separating and mixing apparatuses in particular are associated with contacts between different phases in cocurrent and countercurrent operation. The important feature of an appropriate packing design is to intensify transverse mixing in the flowing phases and to intensify contact between them. This purpose is served in the packing according to the invention not only by known fan-like vane elements but also by a number of channels rows which are parallel to one another and offset from one another, the effect of such rows being to boost transverse mixing and phase contact of the flowing media, more particularly when the lighter phase flows at elevated speed.

Abstract: An optical seeker comprises a rotor (16) mounted on a bearing sleeve (42) to pivot about a pivot point (26) and to rotate about an axis of rotation (28). The rotor (16) carries an imaging system having a concave mirror (50) and a secondary mirror (52). The optical axis of concave mirror (50) and secondary mirror (52) form an angle with the axis of rotation (28). A sunshade (54) is connected to the rotor (16). The bearing sleeve (42) carries an optical element (56). An axle portion (58) is provided on the element (56), on which axle portion the secondary mirror (52) is mounted. The secondary mirror (52) is connected to the sunshade (54) through a stepping-up planetary gear having internal toothing (72), planet wheel (76) and external toothing (78). The planet wheel (76) is mounted on a carrier (74) connected with the axle portion (58).

Abstract: A column packing has a multiplicity of generally horizontal superposed layers each of which is provided with adjacent pyramidal formations with open pyramidal sides so that at alternating junctions, the flow through the packing layer receives a rotational impetus in opposite senses. The vectoral sums of the rotation cancel out although the local vorticity ensures intimate mixings of the fluids. The pyramids may have triangular, square or rectangular bases and the apexes of an adjacent layer may coincide with the junctions of the bases of the next layer.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method of keeping nozzle bodies or breaker plates clean during extrusion of polymer which can be shaped from the melt which comprises preventing the formation of deposits near the nozzle orifices by gassing these orifices at the point of extrusion of the melt, said gas consisting entirely or partly of vapors of substances which have a depolymerizing action on the deposits formed from the melt at the edge of the nozzle orifice.

Abstract: The invention relates to a process for the recovery of acrylonitrile and other monomers from an aqueous polymer dispersion by continuous distillation in a thin-layer evaporator under reduced pressure, condensation of the evaporated monomers in a condenser under the same or similar reduced pressure and subsequent condensation or absorption respectively of the monomer vapors which have not been condensed in the condenser at a higher pressure.