Abstract: A rectangular clarifying tank has an inclined beach formed of sheet metal and having 575 holes per square inch, each hole having a diameter of 20 thousandths of an inch. Two side chain drives advance several scrapers along the beach. Each scraper has a rotatable knurled pipe which turns the sludge and aids dewatering through the beach. The sludge removed from the clarifier has a solids content of between eight and twelve percent. Additional dewatering may be accomplished by applying a vacuum to the last one-quarter of the beach. A tray positioned beneath the beach collects water which drains through the beach. The drain water may be returned to the clarifier tank or may be directly treated as clarified water.

Abstract: A container is readily set up by hand from a glued-up blank. The blank has a bottom panel with outwardly extending inner and outer end panels which fold up to form double thickness end walls. Two opposed parallel side panels have glue tabs which are affixed to the outer end panels. Each glue tab has a 45-degree angle fold line which allows the side panels to be folded to overlie the bottom panel during shipping. By pivoting the outer end panels to be perpendicular to the bottom panel, the side panels are brought upright by the attached glue tabs, and the inner end panels are thus positioned to be engaged over the glue tabs. The glue tabs may extend to permit rectangular adhesive attachment regions. The structure may be incorporated within a double-walled shadow box, a tray or lid, a covered box, or other container structures.

Abstract: A trash conveyor has thin upstanding right triangular teeth mounted parallel to their direction of motion. A pivoting deck is positioned over the conveyor and has fixed isosceles-triangular teeth which interdigitate with the teeth on the conveyor. The deck is angled upwardly towards trash infeed end of the conveyor. The deck is suspended by four pivot arms arranged in a rectangular pattern which allow the deck to pivot up and in the direction of the motion of the conveyor. Rows of teeth attached to the deck are offset from previous rows so that the spaces between the teeth on the deck and the teeth on the conveyor varies as the teeth on the conveyor move under the deck. A blade cleaner and conveyor is located beneath the trash conveyor which removes plastic bags from the teeth of the trash conveyor and rolls them into compact shapes to facilitate disposal for recycling.

Abstract: A milk machine detaching mechanism suitable for use in a sloping splash panel or other vertically limited space, having a pair of opposing components that can transfer load in the vertical direction, but which slide relative to one another in a lateral direction. The detacher is capable raising a milk machine support arm in a smooth and arc-shaped direction to avoid contact with a cow or a cow support platform as the support arm is being withdrawn. The detacher includes a folding arm assembly to minimize potential pinch points.

Abstract: Two flat segments of flexible plastic are sealed along the edges and at the bottom, to present an upwardly opening bag. A rectangular sheet of filter material is folded to form a filter pouch and positioned within the collapsed collection bag, with the upper edges of the folded filter material halves fused to opposing sides of the bag above a perforation or line of weakened material. When the bag is disposed within a collection mug, the upper portions of the bag extend as a shroud around the exterior of the mug, and the filter material is stretched out across the opening to the bag. A boar's penis is directed to ejaculate into the mug, and the ejaculate gel plug is retained on the filter material, while the semen passes through the filter material into the collection bag. When collection is complete, the shroud and the attached filter material are separated from the collection bag and disposed of.

Abstract: The lid dispenser of the present invention has four rods which extend from the front to the rear and which support and guide the lids. The rods are connected at the front to individual lid dispensing pagers, and are supported at the rear in arcuate tracks in an adjustment ring. The front pagers are also mounted in an adjustment ring with arcuate tracks. Both adjustment rings have serrated or ridged cylindrical edges, which allow the click-positioning of the rings at a desired position to force the rods and pagers into an evenly spaced radial position. Three plastic claws are flexibly supported on a support member which is mounted for front-to-back movement on cover guide rods. Each claw member is connected by flexible bands to positionable fasteners which are fixed in radial slots in the support member which allow some radial movement of the claws as they engage a cover. By use of such a dispenser in convenience stores and the like contact by customers with lids other than those dispensed is avoided.

Abstract: A ferromagnetic shunt is pivotally mounted to a housing to form a pendulum which swings between a reed switch and a magnet. As long as the shunt remains between the reed switch and the magnet the reed switch remains open. The shunt is held or biased between the magnet and the reed switch by the force of the magnetic attraction between the shunt and the magnet. The mass of the shunt acts as both a tilt sensor which responds to gravity and an accelerometer sensitive to crash-induced accelerations. The reed switch, magnet and shunt are mounted in a housing which positions the reed switch and magnet and controls the maximum range of motion of the shunt. The magnet is located between two sidewardly spaced pendulum arms, which allow the shunt to swing out from between the reed switch and the magnet in two opposite directions.

Abstract: A single twin-sheet thermoformed plastic part has parallel bands of plastic forming fillets which allow stiff pallet deck segments to be folded after forming and locked together into a support structure with a planar upper deck spaced above a pallet lower deck with openings for lift truck tines. The lower deck has two segments joined by side stringers to the upper deck. Two central stringer segments extend along folding fillets from lower deck half segments to lock into place with the upper deck. The pallet is locked in its assembled configuration by a rod which passes through knuckles formed beneath the central stringers. The monocoque construction of the pallet provides for advantageous stiffness and load support capacity, while at the same time being economical to produce. For increased load-carrying capability, the pallet may be formed with a reinforcing substrate reinforced with a tubular steel insert.

Abstract: A combination toy vehicle and book having a toy vehicle with an inner rigid frame and an outer flexible three-dimensional shell that alleviates possible pinch points when the vehicle is opened to reveal the book and the internal book has page tabs that extend out of an opening in the toy vehicle to assist opening toy vehicle when desired.

Abstract: Flanged musket percussion caps are stored and dispensed from a portable hand held capper which has a linear channel defined in a housing formed of sheet material. The housing has a through channel which has a floor which is parallel to two partial top walls with a central slot. The top walls are connected to the floor by side walls which are inclined outwardly from the floor. By this inclined wall shape of the housing, the flanged caps are accommodated, while at the same time the narrow flanges of the caps are prevented from binding against any structure of the capper. The user presses a pusher forward to position a single cap through an outlet between a flexible steel spring and a dispensing wall, where the cap can be dispensed onto a black powder firearm nipple. The housing has a T-shaped hole in one side wall, through which caps can be loaded into the dispensing channel. Musket caps without a flange may also be dispensed from the capper.

Abstract: A bar screen is combined with a wire or punch screen which is suspended beneath the screen deck from a pair of oscillating bar support beams so that a single bar screen, screen combination, may not only size materials for thickness but remove small particulate material from the chips or materials which pass through the screen deck of the bar screen.

Abstract: A press of the Beloit Extended Nip.RTM. type has a nip defined between a backing roll and an elongate shoe. A paper web travels on a dryer felt through the nip and is supported over the shoe by a bearing blanket. The shoe has a rigid concave core to which is fixed a layer of compliant material which defines a concave surface. Lubricant is introduced between the compliant material and the bearing blanket to form a hydrodynamic fluid film. Preferably the rigidity of the compliant material is of the same or lesser order of magnitude than the rigidity of the fluid film at the center of the shoe in the machine direction, such that the fluid film at the nip causes a depression in the compliant material which is filled with lubricant. The thickness of the lubricant is thus greater at the center of the shoe than at regions outward from the shoe center and the escape of lubricant from the shoe is retarded. The compliant material comprises an elastomer with a low coefficient of friction and high abrasion resistance.

Abstract: When an ultrasonic transducer for detecting discontinuities and/or delaminations in a thin layer of coated material applied to a metal plate or the outside wall or surface of a cast iron dryer cylinder is directed at the coated surface to be inspected at a particular angle, about 10 percent of the single will appear as Harris waves which propagate into the coated test plate at 90 degrees to the surface. This signal which propagates vertically is polarized, with the result that the signal has a greatly improved signal-to-noise ratio. For incident medium of Lucite and employing shear wave refracting in the medium of Lucite, the specific angle is approximately 66 degrees from the vertical for best signal-to-noise ratio. Shear or longitudinal waves can be employed to affect the detection of subsurface defects with the particular angle changing depending on the relation of the velocity of the sound waves in the refracting medium to the velocity of sound waves in the incident medium.

Abstract: A tray has sidewalls which extend upwardly from a base sheet. Rodent entrapping adhesive is disposed between the sidewalls on the base sheet. An aggressive mechanical surface, for example in the form of a plurality of closely spaced protruding ridges, are formed to extend upwardly from the base sheet. The adhesive is retained mechanically on the aggressive mechanical surface. A region of the base sheet in the middle of the tray between two regions of aggressive mechanical surface may be left free of ridges to define a reservoir of glue to aid in the rodent entrapping performance of the tray and adhesive assembly.

Abstract: The present invention is directed to a bicycle trainer that permits a bicycle to be used for stationary riding. The bicycle trainer has a modular fluid resistance unit wherein resistance is provided by the rotation of an impeller against a fluid contained in a sealed housing. The resistance unit provides selectively variable resistance, is quiet to use, and simulates bicycle riding on a road.

Abstract: An integral outboard bearing support for a gear reducer on a papermaking machine oscillating doctor. The bearing support rotatably supports a distal end of the gear reducer's drive shaft to reduce deflection and fatigue. The outboard support also aligns internal bearing supports with the outboard support to optimize performance by preventing current reducer shaft and support bearing failures.

Abstract: Sterile solutions containing pharmaceuticals suitable for use in low and micro-gravity environments are prepared with unit dose pharmaceutical dispensers having a pre-measured quantity of medicament. A compressed air reservoir may be activated to rupture the dispenser and positively expel the unit dose into solution. This can be accomplished by inverting a bag containing the pharmaceutical or by operation of a piston which pushes all the pharmaceutical from the dispenser. A robot either places the pharmaceutical dispensers inside a mixing chamber or connects the dispensers to the mixing chamber, which comprises a flexible bag expandable to receive sterile water and pharmaceuticals. The mixing chamber may collapse under cabin pressure to drive prepared solutions from the chamber through a sterilization filter into an intravenous bag or dispensing unit.

Abstract: A chip slicer has pivotably mounted chip-forming knives located so that the knife edges are in a plane which passes through the axis of rotation of the knives, as well as through the axis of pivoting. Another improvement is to employ a knife which has a blade which is bent at an obtuse angle to form a first and a second leg. The first leg has a cutting edge and an upper surface which defines a chip path. The second leg is bent with respect to the first leg in the direction of rotation of the knife ring. The knives are mounted to the ring by clamping wedges which are bolted to the knife ring so that they overlie the second leg and so clamp the knife blade by the second leg to thereby substantially remove obstructions from the chip path. A further improvement has chip depth gauges which are positioned in front of the knife edges. The depth gauges have trailing edges in the direction of rotation which extend substantially parallel to the upper surface of the blades.

Abstract: A wood-plastic composite material is produced in a twin screw extruder with parallel intermeshing segmented screws. The screw segments are positioned on two spline shafts and perform the various required functions of mixing, deaerating and removal of moisture followed by extrusion. A polymer is fed to the main throat of the extruder where the plastic is conveyed along a barrel formed by the case of the extruder. Cellulosic fiber is positively fed into the extruder approximately one-quarter of the way down the extruder barrel by a twin screw side stuffer. A vent is provided for entrained air in the cellulosic material to escape. The molten mixture of polymer and cellulosic material is then conveyed to a devolatilization area having a first atmosphere devolatilization area and a second vacuum devolatilization area separated by a melt seal.