| 摘要 |
<p>A new article of manufacture formed by a new method and apparatus for generating and substantially uniformly electrostatically dispersing a very finely divided spheroidally shaped lubricating particles onto the moving surface of metal or other electrically conducting substrate. A lubricant material in its liquid state is drawn by airflow through a small venturi orifice where it is sheared into droplet of various sizes. Larger droplets are filtered out of the continuing post-venturi airflow by gravity, baffles, airflow forces and/or inertia effects, leaving only a mist cloud of extremely small spheroid particles which are then migrated within a charged plasma so as to transfer electrical charge thereto in sufficient quantities to achieve a desired uniform high charge/mass ratio and thus insure a uniform eventual electrostatic dispersion of substantially all the spheroids over the substrate surface. The mist cloud is controllably generated for each of a plurality of longitudinal sections of the substrate and permitted to drift or migrate relatively slowly between transversely positioned electrodes and the conducting substrate spaced therefrom in respectively corresponding longitudinally partitioned sections of a non-conducting enclosure. A corona discharge is maintained by a voltage differential between the electrodes and the substrate to form an electrically charged plasma within the non-conducting enclosure, which in turn, multiply bombards and charges the individual particles of the slowly migrating mist cloud. Thusly charged to uniform charged states, the particles are then uniformly dispersed substantially only by electrostatic forces onto the surface of the longitudinally moving substrate. The percentage coverage of the tiny lubricating spheres on the conducting substrate surface is dependent only upon the quantity of such particles migrating into the partitioned enclosure and the relative velocity (and hence dwell time within the enclosure) of the conducting substrate. The coverage is substantially uniform because of substantially uniform charge/mass ratios provided; because of the controlled uniform supply of the particles across a transverse dimension of the substrate and because the longitudinally partitioned non-conducting enclosure prevents non-random movement of the tiny spheres as they enter the partitioned enclosure and prevents any tendency to deposit the charged particles on the enclosure surfaces rather than on the substrate, per se.</p> |
