US2951265A - Fiber cleaner - Google Patents

Description

' P 6, 1950 J. I. KOTTER ET AL FIBER CLEANER Filed Aug. 22. 1958 INVENTORS JAMES I. KOTTER MAYER MAYER, JR

Unite States FIBER CLEANER James I. Kotter, Metairie, and Mayer Mayer, Jr., New Orleans, La., assignors to United States of America as represented by the Secretary of Agriculture A non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license in the invention herein described, throughout the world for all purposes of the United States Government, with the power to grant sublicenses for such purposes, is hereby granted to the Government of the United States of America.

This invention relates to a fiber cleaner especially adapted for removal of trash, such as sticks, etc., from ginned cotton fibers, and has among its objects the provision in such a cleaner of a simple and eflicient combing cylinder which operates to open with little fiber damage bunches of fibers to permit more readily ejection of the trash.

'For a description of the cleaner in detail, reference is made to the accompanying one figure drawings showing a schematic longitudinal section through the essential portion of the cleaner.

First and second processing cylinders and 11 correspond in structure and function to two of the processing cylinders, such as 18 and 19, Fig. 1 of Patent No. 2,365,793.

Rotatable doffer cylinder 13 enclosed in housing 14 and rotatable doifer cylinder 15 enclosed in housing 16 each corresponds to cylinder 15 and housing 25 of Patent No. 2,848,754. Any desired number of additional doffer cylinders and associated parts may be provided.

Means for separating trash from the fibers is provided in form of conduit 20 and conduit 21 each correspond to the similar part 15 of copending application Serial No. 756,049, filed August 9, 1958, now Patent No. 2,934,793.

The improvement in the present application relates to rotatable combing cylinder 25. This cylinder is provided with a shaft 26 rotatably mounted in suitably supported end bearings (not shown) and rotated in the direction indicated by the arrow by any desired power means. A core 27 is fixed to the shaft and is clothed with flexible projections 30 of fiber or wire. Cylinder is housed in combing cylinder housing 31.

As illustrated in the drawing, cylinders 10 and 11, having forwardly inclined peripheral saw teeth 35 and 36, are mounted parallel and adjacent and are rotated such that the teeth adjacent on the cylinders move in opposite directions past each other. Combining cylinder 25 is mounted parallel to processing cylinders 10 and 11 so that the outer ends of the flexible projections 38 run closely adjacent to the teeth on both of the processing cylinders moving in opposite directions past them.

In operation, fibers bearing trash are carried by the teeth on processing cylinder llil past combing cylinder 25. At this point the fibers are combed by the flexible projections 30 and are opened, thus to render trash removal more eflicient in the subsequent passage of the fibers past the dofier cylinder 13 and through the fibertrash separating conduit 20. Some fibers are picked up by the projections 30. Cylinder 25 is rotating at such a speed as to cause a self-dofl'ing by centrifugal action of these fibers onto the teeth 36 of cylinder 11. Teeth 36 then carry the fibers forward to the point where the teeth 36 pass the teeth 35 of cylinder 10 where they are further combed and are mainly doffed from teeth 36 and redeposited onto teeth 35. Any fibers not doffed are carried forward to the next higher similar unit of the cleaner.

Although the dimensions may be varied, a satisfactory operation is obtained with cylinders 10 and 11 of diameter 12 inches, running at 400 rpm. and cylinder 25 of overall diameter 3 in., running at from 2800 to 3800 rpm. It is necessary merely that cylinder 25 be run at a speed high enough to cause the self-dotting of fibers from it onto teeth 36.

We claim:

A fiber cleaner comprising a first rotatable processing cylinder having forwardly inclined peripheral teeth, a second rotatable processing cylinder having forwardly inclined peripheral teeth mounted parallel and adjacent to the first processing cylinder, the cylinders rotating such that the teeth adjacent on the cylinders move in opposite directions past each other, and a rotatable combing cylinder clothed with flexible projections mounted parallel to the processing cylinders and rotated such that the outer ends of the flexible projections run closely adjacent the teeth on both of the processing cylinders, moving in opposite directions past the processing cylinder teeth, the speed of the cylinders being such that fibers bearing trash are carried by the first processing cylinder past the combing cylinder and are combed and opened, some fibers which are picked up by the flexible projections on the combing cylinder being doifed by centrifugal action onto the teeth of the second processing cylinder, and means for separating trash from the combed and opened fibers.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 988,856 Booth Apr. 4, 1911 1,160,367 Bates Nov. 16, 1915 1,751,306 Cumpston Mar. 18, 1930

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