1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to improved marine lock systems and to new methods for operation of such lock systems. More particularly, it concerns unique marine lock systems that, unlike conventional lock systems, do not require vast quantities of high side water for their operation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional marine lock systems operate on the basis of allowing water from a high side to flow by gravity into or out of the lock chamber until surface elevations are equal. Thus, in the case of a ship entering from the high side, gates are opened to allow the ship to enter the chamber. The gates are then closed and water it allowed to flow out of the chamber to the low side until the chamber surface elevation is equal to the low side level. The low side gates are then opened to allow the ship to exit into the lower elevation body of water. The result of this is that the volume of water required to fill the chamber is detrimentally lost to the low side, typically, from a fresh water source into a saline water body, with an obvious environmental loss.
Ships entering from the low side are lifted by means of water being allowed to flow in the same direction, from high to low, effectively using for each operation a vast amount of water to expand or reduce a column of water in the lock chamber with each locking cycle between the high side and low side. By way of example of the magnitude of water required by such conventional methods of lock operation, in the case of the Panama Canal, this averages 52 million gallons of fresh water per ship. The fresh water available for such operations is a limited resource and canal locks compete for it against many other essential needs.
In contrast, balanced lock systems (BLS) do not depend on flow of water from a high side source for elevation changes. Instead, a BLS lock chamber confines a water column of relatively fixed volume which, per se, is moved in operation of the lock system between the high and low levels.
Although BLS have no significant use in world-wide existing canals and other waterways, they have long been known as shown by U.S. Pat. Nos. 457,528; 557,564; 557,566 & 2,103,871 and G.B. patent No. 4,476/1887. This indicates that, while the ability of BLS to conserve water has certainly been long apparent to concerned persons, their real world use has been almost or totally repressed, by inefficient and complicated mechanisms that have been know heretofore to raise and lower very large, fixed volume water columns repeatedly between marine lock high and low levels. The present invention addresses this long existing problem and provides the world with a new efficient and uncomplicated balanced lock systems and methods.