Ground stabilizing equipment

Claim 1

A ground stabilizing equipment comprising a ground drilling assembly for injecting and mixing a pulverulent ground stabilizing agent into ground material, a storage container for storing said ground stabilizing agent, conduit means for said agent extending from said container to said ground drilling assembly, feeding means associated with said container for feeding and portioning said agent into said conduit means, said feeding means comprising a housing defining an essentially cylinder-shaped chamber, said housing having two end walls, a shaft rotatably journalled in said end walls coaxially within said chamber, said shaft carrying a plurality of radially and axially extending vane members extending between said end walls, said vane members each having a radial peripheral edge remote from said shaft and two axial end edges, said radial edge being slidably associated with the internal cylindrical wall of said chamber and said end edges being slidably associated with said end walls, said vane members being substantially equally spaced around said shaft and thereby dividing said chamber into a plurality of substantially equal compartments rotatable with said shaft, said chamber housing further defining a stabilizing agent inlet communicating with the interior of said storage container and a stabilizing agent outlet communicating with said conduit means and at least two pressure fluid inlets, each of said compartments during a first part of one revolution of said shaft communicating exclusively with said stabilizing agent inlet, and each of said compartments during a second part of the same revolution communicating exclusively with said outlet and said pressure fluid inlets, said stabilizing agent inlet spanning a sector of the cylindrical surface of said chamber substantially exceeding the peripheral distance between two adjacent vane members and being of the same order of magnitude as the axial length of said chamber, said outlet being located diametrically opposite said stabilizing agent inlet and being smaller than said peripheral distance between two adjacent vane members, said two pressure fluid inlets being completely separate from said outlet and including at least one pressure fluid inlet located on each side of said outlet as seen when viewed in the axial direction of the chamber to provide a stirring and exhaust of the contents of the compartment in communication with said outlet by fluid passing from said pressure fluid inlets and through said compartment to said outlet.