Rotary disc filter with peripheral cake supports

Claim 1

In a rotary filter intended primarily for separating fibers from a fiber suspension and comprising a plurality of annular filter discs with means for rotating the discs on a horizontal axis while immersed at their lower portions in a pool of said suspension, each filter disc having an annular series of hollow filter bodies with walls of screen cloth, each filter body having an outlet for filtrate entering said body through said screen cloth, each filter disc being operable, during rotation thereof, to carry each of its filter bodies through said pool while fiber cakes form on the outside of the body and filtrate enters the body, and a spray nozzle for high pressure fluid located at each side of each filter disc in a removal zone above said pool, each nozzle being positioned to direct a spray of fluid against a joint where the radially outer peripheral portion of a fiber cake adheres to an adjacent side of a filter body as it passes through the removal zone from said pool, the fluid spray acting to displace said fiber cake portion away from said adjacent side and then remove said fiber cake extending radially inward from the radially outer peripheral portion of the filter disc, the improvement which comprises a supporting element located at each side of each filter disc in the vicinity of its said peripheral portion, each supporting element being operable to support a displaced upper part of a fiber cake in said removal zone and prevent said upper part from folding away from the adjacent filter disc during removal of the cake from the disc, said supporting element being spaced sufficiently from the adjacent side of the filter disc to allow fiber cake to drop from the disc.