WO2002055415A1 - Transporteur inclinable - Google Patents

Transporteur inclinable Download PDF

Info

Publication number
WO2002055415A1
WO2002055415A1 PCT/US2002/001144 US0201144W WO02055415A1 WO 2002055415 A1 WO2002055415 A1 WO 2002055415A1 US 0201144 W US0201144 W US 0201144W WO 02055415 A1 WO02055415 A1 WO 02055415A1
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
belt
conveyor
carryway
tilt
article
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/US2002/001144
Other languages
English (en)
Inventor
Mark B. Costanzo
Original Assignee
The Laitram Corporation
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by The Laitram Corporation filed Critical The Laitram Corporation
Publication of WO2002055415A1 publication Critical patent/WO2002055415A1/fr

Links

Classifications

    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B65—CONVEYING; PACKING; STORING; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL
    • B65G—TRANSPORT OR STORAGE DEVICES, e.g. CONVEYORS FOR LOADING OR TIPPING, SHOP CONVEYOR SYSTEMS OR PNEUMATIC TUBE CONVEYORS
    • B65G47/00—Article or material-handling devices associated with conveyors; Methods employing such devices
    • B65G47/74—Feeding, transfer, or discharging devices of particular kinds or types
    • B65G47/94—Devices for flexing or tilting travelling structures; Throw-off carriages
    • B65G47/945—Devices for flexing or tilting travelling structures; Throw-off carriages tilting endless surfaces, e.g. belts
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B65—CONVEYING; PACKING; STORING; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL
    • B65G—TRANSPORT OR STORAGE DEVICES, e.g. CONVEYORS FOR LOADING OR TIPPING, SHOP CONVEYOR SYSTEMS OR PNEUMATIC TUBE CONVEYORS
    • B65G2201/00—Indexing codes relating to handling devices, e.g. conveyors, characterised by the type of product or load being conveyed or handled
    • B65G2201/02—Articles
    • B65G2201/0235—Containers

Definitions

  • This invention relates to a conveyor arrangement with a tiltable offloading section along the conveyor path and, more particularly, to such an arrangement preferably using a modular conveyor belt.
  • One way of sorting articles is to offload them over the side of a conveyor according to preselected sorting criteria at one or more offloading stations.
  • One way to offload articles over the side of the conveyor is to push them.
  • a push rod at one side of the conveyor is actuated to push against the conveyed article and force it off the opposite side to another conveyor or collection area.
  • Another example is a shoe sorter, in which a slat-type conveyor has shoes that can controllably slide laterally in the gaps between consecutive slats. The shoes push articles off the side of the conveyor.
  • a side-offloading sorting system is the tilt tray, in which a conveyor includes a series of trays, each of which contains one or more articles.
  • the trays are pivotable about a pivot axis parallel to the conveying direction.
  • the tray is tipped about its pivot axis, depositing its load over the side of the conveyor.
  • the trays are specially designed, and the tipping mechanism is carefully controlled.
  • These special-purpose conveyors tend to be rather expensive.
  • the individual trays limit the size of the articles that can be
  • the conveyor which is designed to offload articles, includes a conveyor belt, such as a
  • modular conveyor belt constructed of a series of rows of belt modules interlinked hinge-like to form an article-conveying surface.
  • the belt is supported by a carryway defining a conveying
  • the article-conveying surface extends longitudinally along the carryway and laterally
  • a drive system drives the belt continuously or in a stop-and-go fashion along the carryway in a direction of belt travel.
  • the carryway includes a tilt section at which the first side of the belt is elevated relative to the
  • the belt includes a plurality of rollers mounted in the
  • each roller extends above the article-conveying surface to
  • rollers are cylindrical rollers having an axis of rotation in the direction of belt travel.
  • the article-conveying surface is flat and molded of a slick plastic material to provide a low-friction sliding surface for offloading at the tilt section.
  • the belt carryway at the first side of the belt is higher than at the second side in the tilt section.
  • the tilt section is made of a number of lateral slats that are pivotable about a pivot axis parallel to the direction of belt travel.
  • a push rod can be used to push on the underside of the slat to elevate its first side above its second side to control the tilt of the conveyor belt in the tilt section.
  • FIG. 1 is a top diagrammatic view of a conveyor embodying features of the invention
  • FIG. 2 is an isometric view of a portion of one version of a slatted carryway for use with the conveyor of FIG. 1 ;
  • FIG. 3 is an elevation view of a tilting mechanism for one slat of the carryway of FIG.
  • FIG. 4 is an isometric view of a portion of another version of carryway usable with the conveyor of FIG. 1;
  • FIG. 5 is a top view of two roller-top conveyor belt modules usable in the conveyor of FIG. l; and FIG. 6 is an isometric view of another version of belt module that can be used in the conveyor of FIG. 1.
  • FIG. 1 shows a tilt conveyor embodying features of the invention.
  • the conveyor 10 includes a conveyor frame 12 having a carryway 14 supporting a modular conveyor belt 16.
  • the belt is constructed of a series of rows A, B of belt modules 18, 19 connected side by side and end to end in a bricklaid pattern. In the example shown in FIG. 1, each row includes two side-by-side modules. Consistent with the invention, the belt could be constructed with a single module per row or in a non-bricklaid pattern.
  • the rows are hingedly interlinked end to end to end to allow the belt to articulate about drive and idler sprockets or pulleys.
  • the motor drives the belt in a direction of belt travel 24.
  • the other end of the belt is wrapped around an idler pulley or sprockets supported by bearing blocks 23.
  • the drive system could be a simple start-stop control with or without manual speed adjustment or a more sophisticated variable speed control with intelligence, such as that provided by a programmable logic controller 25 having other control outputs 27 and sensed inputs 27'.
  • the belt is preferably a modular plastic conveyor belt, such as are available from Intralox, Inc. of Harahan, Louisiana, USA, a subsidiary of the assignee of this invention.
  • the belt in FIG. 1 forms a top article-conveying surface 26 extending longitudinally in the direction of belt travel and laterally from a first side 28 to a second side 29 of the belt defining its width.
  • the carryway portion of the belt is continuous with no barriers that would limit the length of articles placed thereon. It would, however, be within the scope of the invention to provide lateral flights to compartmentalize the belt into sections.
  • the carryway includes a tilt section 30 at which conveyed articles 32 can be offloaded over the second side of the belt. (A typical sorting conveyor may include a number of tilt sections. Only one is shown here for simplicity. Likewise, articles are shown being offloaded over the second side of the belt; it is within the scope of the invention to offload over the first side as well.)
  • the first side of the belt is elevated relative to the second side so that articles can slide off.
  • the tilt section replaces the standard carryway 14 with a group of slats 32 that can pivot about a pivot axis 34 according to curved arrow 36 by means of a pivot joint
  • a push rod 40 is pivotally attached to a pivot connection 42 on the underside at an end of the slat.
  • a conveyor- frame-mounted cylinder 44 extends the push rod in the direction of arrow 46 from a first position, in which the slat is coplanar with the carryway 14, to a second tilted position, shown in hatched lines, to cant the carryway and tip the supported belt 16 so that articles 28 can slide off the side in the direction of arrow 48.
  • Each of the slats can be attached to its own push rod and cylinder, or a single push rod could be attached to a generally convex push plate coacting with the undersides of the series of slats to push them in unison.
  • the push rod arrangement With the push rod arrangement, the characteristics of the belt section can be changed from no tilt to a range of tilts.
  • the tilt can be coordinated with the drive system by the controller 25 in FIG. 1.
  • tilt section 30 of the carryway is shown in FIG. 4.
  • the carryway 14' is preformed in a tilted shape so that as the belt rides over the tilt section, articles carried on it can slide off the lower side.
  • the tilt section could alternatively be formed of a flexible material made to assume the tilted shape shown in FIG. 4 by a push plate 50, shown in phantom, attached to a pivot and push rod.
  • the tilt section of FIG. 4 can be either passive or active.
  • the preferred belt is a modular plastic conveyor belt. These belts are typically made by injection molding out of thermoplastic material. The most common materials include polypropylene, polyethylene, and acetal. Many belts usable in the conveyor of this invention are readily available.
  • the belt section shown in FIG. 5 has many of the characteristics of the INTRALOX Series 400 Roller Top belt.
  • the belt section shown comprises two modules 52, 53 each having interleaved forward 54 and trailing 55 link ends, or hinge eyes.
  • the hinge eyes include a lateral bore 56 forming a passageway across the width of the belt.
  • a belt made of many rows of such modules is driven in the direction of arrow 60 by, for example, motor-driven sprockets engaging underside belt structure.
  • the belt modules also have recesses 62 opening onto the conveying surface.
  • Rollers in this case, cylindrical rollers 64 — are disposed in each recess.
  • An axle 66 spanning each recess in the direction of belt travel is retained in the module.
  • a bore in each cylindrical roller admits the axle so that the roller is free to rotate about the axle.
  • a salient portion 68 of each roller protrudes above the article-conveying surface.
  • FIG. 6 A belt module similar to that in FIG. 5 is shown in FIG. 6.
  • the module 72 differs from those in FIG. 5 principally in that its top article-conveying surface 74 is continuous, except for the roller recesses 62.
  • This module when interconnected with other similar modules into a belt, would also be effective at side-offloading articles in a tilt section. In fact, if the module is made of a slick material such as acetal, in some applications the rollers are not even necessary. A module with a completely flat surface, without recesses and rollers, would suffice to transfer articles off the side in a tilt section.
  • the rollers could be spherical as well as cylindrical and could be rotatably retained without an axle.
  • the belt could be a flat rubber or fabric belt with embedded rollers or coated with a low-friction material, such as materials containing TEFLON or silicon, to help articles slide off the tilted belt.

Landscapes

  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
  • Branching, Merging, And Special Transfer Between Conveyors (AREA)

Abstract

L'invention concerne un transporteur (10) inclinable permettant de décharger latéralement d'une bande transporteuse (16) des articles transportés. La bande est de préférence une bande transporteuse modulaire (16) constituée d'une série de rangées de bande reliées de façon articulée pour former une surface de transport d'articles (26). La bande repose sur une voie de support (14) le long de laquelle elle est entraînée dans un sens de transport de bande par un système d'entraînement. Cette voie de support (14) comprend une ou plusieurs sections inclinables (30) au niveau desquelles un côté de la bande est surélevé par rapport à l'autre pour permettre le déchargement d'articles par le côté inférieur. La bande peut comporter des rouleaux ou elle peut être constituée ou revêtue d'un matériau intrinsèquement lisse facilitant le déchargement.
PCT/US2002/001144 2001-01-09 2002-01-09 Transporteur inclinable WO2002055415A1 (fr)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US26062001P 2001-01-09 2001-01-09
US60/260,620 2001-01-09

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO2002055415A1 true WO2002055415A1 (fr) 2002-07-18

Family

ID=22989900

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/US2002/001144 WO2002055415A1 (fr) 2001-01-09 2002-01-09 Transporteur inclinable

Country Status (1)

Country Link
WO (1) WO2002055415A1 (fr)

Cited By (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
CN110745296A (zh) * 2019-11-08 2020-02-04 潘四妹 一种防打滑且变宽度的纸箱包装用传送辊
US11104523B2 (en) * 2018-04-27 2021-08-31 Daifuku Co., Ltd. Conveying and sorting apparatus

Citations (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4031998A (en) * 1975-03-20 1977-06-28 Rapistan, Incorporated Automatic sorting conveyor systems
US4461378A (en) * 1981-07-20 1984-07-24 Robert L. Alldredge Side discharge conveyor assembly
US5667054A (en) * 1995-01-30 1997-09-16 Vanderlande Industries Nederland B.V. Conveyor
US5894918A (en) * 1997-01-06 1999-04-20 United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. Conveyor having serpentine capabilities
US6247576B1 (en) * 1999-12-20 2001-06-19 United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. Tilt tray conveyor including dual action single bellows

Patent Citations (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4031998A (en) * 1975-03-20 1977-06-28 Rapistan, Incorporated Automatic sorting conveyor systems
US4461378A (en) * 1981-07-20 1984-07-24 Robert L. Alldredge Side discharge conveyor assembly
US5667054A (en) * 1995-01-30 1997-09-16 Vanderlande Industries Nederland B.V. Conveyor
US5894918A (en) * 1997-01-06 1999-04-20 United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. Conveyor having serpentine capabilities
US6247576B1 (en) * 1999-12-20 2001-06-19 United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. Tilt tray conveyor including dual action single bellows

Cited By (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US11104523B2 (en) * 2018-04-27 2021-08-31 Daifuku Co., Ltd. Conveying and sorting apparatus
CN110745296A (zh) * 2019-11-08 2020-02-04 潘四妹 一种防打滑且变宽度的纸箱包装用传送辊
CN110745296B (zh) * 2019-11-08 2021-04-02 青岛欣欣向荣智能设备有限公司 一种防打滑且变宽度的纸箱包装用传送辊

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