WO2015024187A1

WO2015024187A1 - A head sheave device for a lifting device and a lifting device

Info

Publication number: WO2015024187A1
Application number: PCT/CN2013/081856
Authority: WO
Inventors: Huijia WU
Original assignee: Abb Technology Ltd
Priority date: 2013-08-20
Filing date: 2013-08-20
Publication date: 2015-02-26

Abstract

A head sheave device (200) for a lifting device and a lifting device comprising the head sheave device (200) are provided. The head sheave device (200) for a lifting device comprises a shaft(210) and a plurality of sheaves (222, 224, 226, 228), wherein the shaft (210) is fixed and the plurality of sheaves (222, 224, 226, 228) are mounted around the shaft (210) and are rotatable around the shaft (210). With the head sheave device(200), the size of the shaft (210) can be reduced substantially, and thus it may achieve a great cost saving. Besides, it may also provide possibilities to use a fixed shaft support, a cost-efficient fasten manner and an automatic lubrication mechanism, which may achieve a further cost saving and a better usability.

Description

A HEAD SHEAVE DEVICE FOR A LIFTING DEVICE AND A

LIFTING DEVICE FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[0001] Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to a lifting device such as a hoist and etc., and more particularly relate to a head sheave device for a lifting device and a lifting device comprising the head sheave device. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002] Currently, lifting devices such as hoists are wildly used in many fields, for example in mining, building and the like. A lifting device usually includes a head sheave device usually mounted at the top of a frame of the lifting device and comprising a fixed sheave and several movable sheaves, by means of which heavy loads may be lifted to a desired level.

[0003] For a purpose of illustration, Figs. 1A and IB illustrate diagrams of the head sheave device of a hoist in the prior art, wherein the hoist may be used in, for example, mining. The head sheave device is one of important parts of the ground mounted main hoist machinery. When the hoist works, wire ropes, connected to skippers or containers at one end, will run through a drum and the head sheave device and.

[0004] As illustrated, the head sheave device 100 includes a shaft 110, a fixed sheave 122, three movable sheaves 124, 126, 128, two bearing houses 130 and two bearing seats 140. The shaft 110 is supported in two bearing housings 130 and can rotate freely. The two bearing housings 130 for supporting the head sheave device are further respectively mounted on the two bearing seats 140 by means of bolts 114, and via the bearing seats 140, the head sheave device 100 may be in turn secured to the frame of the hoist. The fixed sheave 122 is fixed onto the shaft 110 and may rotate together with the shaft 110. Around the shaft 110 are mounted bronze bushes 150 on which the movable sheaves 122-126 are in turn fitted, that is to say, the movable sheaves are floated on the shaft 110. Thus, the movable sheaves 122-126 may be rotated against the shaft 110. [0005] By means of frictions between the sheaves and the wire ropes, weights may be lifted as desired. However, the head sheave device is suffering from several drawbacks such as large shaft dimension, frequently lubricating, huge fasten means and arduous shaft lubrication. Particularly, the shaft must be designed much larger than a normal one since the shaft will bear repeated fluctuating loads during operations. Moreover, in the existing head sheave device, the movable sheaves are stalled on the bronze bushes and thus it requires lubricating these bushes frequently, for example, every two days. In addition, to fit the large bearing seats for supporting the head sheave device, it requires a plurality of huge bolts. Besides, in the existing structure of the head sheave device, the lubrication pipes for the bronze bushes should be arranged on the sheaves, which means that lubricating actions can not be performed automatically; otherwise, the lubrication pipes might be broken now and then.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0006] In view of the foregoing, there is a need to improve the head sheave device of the lighting device in the art.

[0007] To this end, the present disclosure provides a new design for a head sheave device of a lighting device so as to solve or at least partially mitigate at least a part of problems in the prior art.

[0008] According to a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided head sheave device for a lifting device. The head sheave device may comprise a shaft and a plurality of sheaves, wherein the shaft is fixed and the plurality of sheaves are mounted around the shaft and are rotatable around the shaft.

[0009] In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the head sheave device may further comprise a shaft support, and wherein the shaft is supported by the shaft support and fixed to the shaft support.

[0010] In another embodiment of the present disclosure, the shaft support may be fixed by welding.

[0011] In a further embodiment of the present disclosure, the plurality of sheaves may be mounted on the shaft through bearings.

[0012] In a yet embodiment of the present disclosure, the head sheave device may further comprise lubrication channels for the plurality of sheaves in the shaft. [0013] In a still embodiment of the present disclosure, the lubrication channels may have at least an inlet for lubricant at an end of the shaft.

[0014] In a still further embodiment of the present disclosure the lubrication channels may have inlets for lubricant at both ends of the shaft.

[0015] In a yet further embodiment of the present disclosure, each of the plurality of sheaves may be provided with a separate lubrication channel in the shaft.

[0016] In another embodiment of the present disclosure, the lubrication channels may be interfaced with an automatic lubrication adapter.

[0017] In a further embodiment of the present disclosure, the shaft support may comprise two separate shaft frames for supporting two ends of the shaft respectively.

[0018] In a still embodiment of the present disclosure, the plurality of sheaves may be rotatable with each other.

[0019] In a yet embodiment of the present disclosure, the lifting device may comprise a hoist.

[0020] In a still further embodiment of the present disclosure, the lifting device may be used in mining.

[0021] According to a second aspect of the present disclosure, there is also provided a lifting device comprising a head sheave device according to any embodiment in the first aspects.

[0022] In embodiments of the present disclosure, the fixed shaft and moveable sheaves are used, and unlike the existing head sheave device, it is not necessary for the shaft to bear repeated fluctuating loads any more. Therefore, the shaft may be designed to have a substantially reduced size without suffering from the bulky shaft design. In turn, use of the fixed shaft offers a possibility to employ a shaft support with a simple structure, which may be fixed through for example welding instead of larges bearings seats and huge bolts. Moreover, it may further provide a possibility for automatic lubrication. Besides, the moveable sheaves may be mounted on the shaft by means of small bearings instead of the bronze bush, which may further facilitate the automatic lubrication. Accordingly, with embodiment of the present disclosure, it may achieve a great cost saving and a better usability, and the head sheave device may be operated much faster and safer. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0023] The above and other features of the present disclosure will become more apparent through detailed explanation on the embodiments as illustrated in the description with reference to the accompanying drawings, throughout which like reference numbers represent same or similar components and wherein:

[0024] Fig. 1A schematically illustrates a perspective view of a head sheave device for a lifting device in the prior art.

[0025] Fig. IB schematically illustrates a sectional view of the head sheave device illustrated in Fig. 1A, which is taken along the line I-I;

[0026] Fig. 2A schematically illustrates a perspective view of a head sheave device for a lifting device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

[0027] Fig. 2B schematically illustrates a sectional view of the head sheave device illustrated in Fig. 2A, which is taken along the line II-II; and

[0028] Fig. 2C schematically illustrates a partial view of the head sheave device illustrated in Fig. 2B, which shows the engagement between the sheaves and the shaft.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

[0029] Hereinafter, a head sheave device for a lifting device and a lifting device comprising the head sheave device will be described in details through embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be appreciated that these embodiments are presented only to enable those skilled in the art to better understand and implement the present disclosure, not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure in any manner.

[0030] Generally, all terms used in the claims are to be interpreted according to their ordinary meaning in the technical field, unless explicitly defined otherwise herein. All references to "a/an/the/said [element, device, component, means, step, etc]" are to be interpreted openly as referring to at least one instance of said element, device, component, means, unit, step, etc., without excluding a plurality of such devices, components, means, units, steps, etc., unless explicitly stated otherwise. Besides, the indefinite article "a/an" as used herein does not exclude a plurality of such steps, units, modules, devices, and objects, and etc.

[0031] For a better understanding of the present disclosure, the following description will be made to embodiments of the present disclosure by taking a head sheave device of a hoist as an example and the hoist may be used in for example mining. However, as can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the present disclosure could also be applied to any other suitable lifting device that comprising a head sheave device and it is not only limited to the hoist for using in mining.

[0032] Next, reference will be made to Figs. 2A to 2C to describe an exemplary structure of the head sheave device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

[0033] As is illustrated in Fig. 2A, the head sheave device 200 may include a shaft 210 and a plurality of sheaves (4 sheaves as illustrated) 222 - 228. However, different from the existing head sheave device 100, the head sheave device 200 adopts a fixed shaft design, that is to say, the shaft 220 is designed as a fixed one and it can not move or rotate during operations. Moreover, all sheaves 222 - 228 are designed as movable sheaves and the head sheave device 200 does not comprise any fixed sheaves any more, or in other words, it adopts a travelling wheel design for each of the sheaves. These moveable sheaves 222 - 228 are mounted on the shaft 210 and can rotate around the shaft 210 freely. Furthermore, these moveable 222 - 228 per se are rotatable with each other as well.

[0034] Due to the fact that the shaft 210 is fixed and will not rotate during operation, it is possible to cancel the original shaft end bearings, bearing houses and bearing seats and adopt a shaft support 230 which has a quite simple structure. The shaft support 230 is configured to support and fix the shaft 210 and the shaft support 230 per se may be fixed to the top of the frame of the lifting device such as a hoist. The fixing of the shaft support 230 may be implemented by various manners such as bolting; however, it is preferable to fix the shaft support 230 by welding, which belongs to a rather cost-efficient manner. In such way, it requires no large bearing seats and huge bolts for fixing the shaft any longer. Although the shaft support might be a one-piece component and may be in any shape or form, in the illustrated head sheave device, it includes two separate shaft frames 230 for supporting two ends of the shaft respectively. [0035] Additionally, these moveable sheaves 222 to 228 may also be mounted on the shaft 210 in any appropriate way, such as by means of bronze bushes as did in the prior art. However, it is known that the bronze bushes require frequently lubricating. Thus, in the present disclosure, there is further proposed to adopt bearings 266 to mount the sheaves 222-228 instead of the bronze bushes. As illustrated in Figs. 2B and 2C, roller bearings 266 are bushed around the peripheral of the shaft 210, and the sheaves 222-228 are in turn bushed around respective roller bearings 266 and two end caps 268 are used for each of the sheaves so as to fix them on the respective roller bearings 266.

[0036] The use of bearings 266 in fitting the sheaves 222-228 may bring about extra benefit since lubrication requirements are lowered and it may facilitate the lubrication for the sheaves.

[0037] Besides, due to the fixed shaft, it may provide a possibility to employ an automatic lubrication mechanism. For example, in the shaft 210, there may be arranged lubrication channels 270 for the sheaves 222 - 228. As illustrated in Fig. 2B, for each of the plurality of sheaves, there is provided with a separate lubrication channel in the shaft, i.e., there are four separate channels for the four sheaves. Each of the lubrication channels 270 comprises an outlet 272 directed towards a corresponding sheave and an inlet 274 for lubrication at an end of the shaft 210. The lubrication channels 270 may have their respective inlets interfaced with an automatic lubrication adapter which may be further connected to an automatic lubrication device. In such a way, it may achieve the automatic lubrication without any manual operations.

[0038] Therefore, it is clear that in the present disclosure, it adopts a fixed shaft design and a travelling wheel design for all the sheaves, which reduce the diameter of the shaft and solve the problems that are resulted from previous step shaft fabrication procedure and especially, the cost of the shaft may be reduced by above 80%. In addition, because of canceling the external tubing for lubrication and end bearing seats, it may further save the cost of the head sheave device. Actually, according to preliminary estimation, the cost may be totally saved up to about 100,000 RMB per device, which is a great cost saving for the head sheave device. Besides, in the prior art, the lubrication for the head sheaves is implemented by external tubing, which is hard to achieve automatic lubrication, however, with the embodiments of the present disclosure, it may provide lubrication channels in the shaft and provides inlets for lubricant at an end or both ends of the shaft, which offers a possibility to achieve automatic lubrication.

[0039] Hereinbefore, the description has been made with reference to the exemplary structure of the head sheave device as illustrated in Figs. 2A to 2C. However, the present disclosure is not limited thereto. In fact, there might be many variations and modifications to the embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0040] It should be noted that the number of the sheaves in the head sheave device is not limited to four, it may be any other appropriate number such as 3, 5, 6, and so on. Additionally, there are illustrated a plurality of separate lubrication channels respectively for a plurality of sheaves. However, the channels may have other structures, and, for example, at least part of the sheaves may share a common main channel for introducing lubricant and have their respective branch channels for directing the lubricant to the respective sheaves. Besides, in the accompanying drawings, the inlets are illustrated at both sides of the shaft and actually, it may be located at only one of sides of the shaft as well.

[0041] Various modifications, adaptations to the foregoing exemplary embodiments of this disclosure may become apparent to those skilled in the relevant arts in view of the foregoing description, when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Any and all modifications will still fall within the scope of the non-limiting and exemplary embodiments of this disclosure. Furthermore, other embodiments of the disclosures set forth herein will come to mind to one skilled in the art to which these embodiments of the disclosure pertain having the benefit of the teachings presented in the foregoing descriptions and the associated drawings.

[0042] Therefore, it is to be understood that the embodiments of the disclosure are not to be limited to the specific embodiments disclosed and that modifications and other embodiments are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims. Although specific terms are used herein, they are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation.

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

1. A head sheave device for a lifting device, comprising a shaft and a plurality of sheaves, wherein the shaft is fixed and the plurality of sheaves are mounted around the shaft and are rotatable around the shaft.

2. The head sheave device according to Claim 1, further comprising a shaft support, and wherein the shaft is supported by the shaft support and fixed to the shaft support.

3. The head sheave device according to Claim 2, wherein the shaft support is fixed by welding.

4. The head sheave device according to any one of Claims 1 to 3, wherein the plurality of sheaves are mounted on the shaft through bearings.

5. The head sheave device according to any one of Claims 1 to 4 further comprising lubrication channels for the plurality of sheaves in the shaft.

6. The head sheave device according to Claim 5, wherein the lubrication channels have at least an inlet for lubricant at an end of the shaft.

7. The head sheave device according to Claim 5 or 6, wherein the lubrication channels have inlets for lubricant at both ends of the shaft.

8. The head sheave device according to any one of Claims 5 to 7, wherein each of the plurality of sheaves is provided with a separate lubrication channel in the shaft.

9. The head sheave device according to any one of Claims 5 to 8, wherein the lubrication channels are interfaced with an automatic lubrication adapter.

10. The head sheave device according to any one of Claims 2 to 9, wherein the shaft support comprises two separate shaft frames for supporting two ends of the shaft respectively.

11. The head sheave device according to any one of Claims 1 to 10, wherein the plurality of sheaves are rotatable with each other.

12. The head sheave device according to any one of Claims 1 to 11, wherein the lifting device comprises a hoist.

13. The head sheave device according to any one of Claims 1 to 12, wherein the lifting device is used in mining.

14. A lifting device comprising a head sheave device according to any one Claims 1 to 13.