US3039594A - Apparatus for throwing discrete substances - Google Patents

Description

June 19, 1962 s. w. LUCAS 3,039,594

APPARATUS FOR mnowmc DISCRETE SUBSTANCES Filed Dec. 29, 1959 2 Sheets-She s. 1

INVENTOR:

E 3 55 I S.W.Lucz1s ATT il-N59:

GILcMri k Jun 9, 1962 s. w. LUCAS 3,039,594

APPARATUS FOR THROWING DISCRETE SUBSTANCES Filed Dec. 29, 1959 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOIL:

S. W. Lucas O lodbt ATTORNEUS United States Patent G 3,039,594 APPARATUS FOR THROWING DISCRETE SUBSTANCES Samuel -Walter Lucas, 6 Marlborough St., Sherwood, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Filed Dec. 29, 1959, Ser. No. 862,689 Claims priority, application Australia Dec. 30, 1958 3 Claims. (Cl. 198128) This invention relates to apparatus for throwing discrete substances.

The invention refers more particularly to apparatus of the type now employed extensively for throwing discrete materials, such as sugar, grain and the like, from one position to' anotheras in the bulk loading of a ships hold or in establishing a stock-pile.

Examples of this type of apparatus, hereinafter referred to as of the type described may 'be found in my United States patent specifications Nos. 671,985; Patent No. 2,920,746 and 770,209, now Patent No. 2,979,185, the most essential feature being an endless thrower-belt passing around spaced, parallel, horizontally-disposed end rollers, the upper or working surface of the thrower-belt being constrained to move in an arcuate path by pressure exerted by narrow, intermediate deflector wheels arranged between the end rollers and bearing on the marginal portions at either side of the belt.

The discrete substance or material to be thrown is directed down onto the upper surface of the thrower-belt so that, when the latter is driven at high speed, the substance or material will be forcibly projected in a concentratedstream. The apparatus may be in the form of a mobile machine or it may be a housing suspended, through a turntable device from the lower end of a telescopic conduit for location in a ships hold. In the latter case, the dual purposes of loading and trimming may be accomplished by providing a hinged gate or flap in the housing to direct the sugar or other material to either arm of a bifurcated chute, one arm feeding the material to the thrower-belt, while the other extends to the rear of the housing and is adapted to direct the material directly downwards for trimming purposes. These alternative loading and trimming functions are illustrated in the machine described in my Uni-ted States patent specification No. 770,209.

*In small-capacity machines of this type, it is possible to use a comparatively narrow belt, but larger machines, such as that shown in my United States patent specification No. 671,985, may use a wide belt of desired width to give a very large capacity or throwing rate, this being possible by the provision of division discs on the shaft of the deflector wheels, these division discs acting firstly to prevent undesirable bulging of the belt and secondly to divide the stream of feed material into laterally-spaced compartments to assist in maintaining a constant, concentrated delivery stream.

While my machines of these types have proved very efficient in general operation in connection with the throwing of sugar, wheat and many other materials, it will be appreciated that there is no limit to the desirable degree of efficiency for any purpose and that even greater efiiciency than at present achieved is necessary or at least desirable for the most effective handling of certain materials, such as barley and rice. Accordingly, my present invention has been devised with this as its principal object, the feature of the invention being the provision of improved means for directing the feed material to the endless thrower-belt.

Broadly, the invent-ion resides in apparatus of the type described, characterized in that the shaft of the deflector wheels has mounted thereon one or more discs having ice radial corrugations or projections which, upon rotation of the discs, act upon and exert a downward impelling force in the direction of the thrower-belt on particles of material in the stream of material being fed gravitationally towards the thrower-belt. Preferably, the radial corrugations or projections are arranged around the periphery of the discs in equally spaced manner.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a partly broken-away side elevational view of one form of loading and trimming apparatus for use in a ships hold, incorporating the invention;

FIG. 2 is a partly broken-away front elevational view of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a side elevational View of portion of the thrower-belt of the apparatus;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view, showing the upper or working surface of portion of the thrower-belt, and

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of one of the discs according to the present invention.

The apparatus shown in the drawings includes a housing 10 built up of a pair of shwt metal side plates 11 and other plates and angle irons welded together. Into an opening at the top of the housing 10 there is fitted one arm 12 of a bifurcated chute 13, the other arm 14 of the chute 13 leading to the rear of the housing 10 for trimming purposes. Within the chute 13, there is provided a hinged gate :or flap (indicated in broken outline at 15 in FIG. 1) adapted to be moved by an hydraulically-operated mechanism 16 to either the trimming position indicated in FIG. 1 in which the material is directed down the arm 14 of the chute 13 or to a loading position in which the flap 15 is vertical to allow the material to pass down the arm 12 of the chute 13.

Secured within the upper end of the chute 13 is a lower conduit 17 shaped to develop downwardly from square to rectangular cross-section and adapted to be connected in well-known manner, through turn-table means, to the lower end of a telescopic substantially vertical conduit for sugar or the like.

Within the housing 10, an electric motor 18 is pivotally mounted in adjustable manner upon a motor mounting frame 19 and has a drive pulley 20 connected through belts 21 to a pulley 22 on a rear transverse shaft 23 rotatably mounted in a fixed position between the side plates 11 in rear of the arm 12 of the chute 13. A drive roller (not shown) is fixedly mounted on the shaft 23 and is connected by an endless thrower-belt 24 to an identical front roller 25 fixedly mounted on a front shaft 26. The ends of the shaft 26 are carried in longitudinally-adjustable bearings in upper arms 27 of bell-cranks 28 which are pivoted at 29 to the side plates 11 of the housing 10. The lower arms 30 of the bell-cranks 28 are interconnected by a rod 31 adapted to be moved by an hydraulic ram and cylinder 32. Thus the front roller 25 may be pivotally raised or lowered by the cylinder 32 or may be longitudinally adjusted along the bell-crank arm 27 to give adequate adjustment of the angle of throw of the discrete material by the thrower-belt 24.

The upper part of the thrower-belt 24 is depressed be tween the drive rollerand front roller 25 by a pair of deflector wheels 33 secured to a transverse shaft 34 rotatably mounted between the side plates 11, these deflector wheels 33 bearing upon the marginal or side portions of the thrower-belt 24.

The thrower-belt 24 is of novel design, being shown more particularly in FIGS. 3 and 4, and it will be seen that it is of uniform thickness except for the provision of regularly spaced grooves 35 extending between such portions of its edges as are contacted by the deflector wheels 33, these extreme edges 36 being plainand of uniform thickness. Each groove 35 has a vertical face 37 with the lower extremity thereof connected back to the top face of the belt by an inclined face 38, the upward inclination of the face 38 being in the intended direction of motion of the belt 24, as indicated by the arrows 39 in FIGS. 3 and 4. The thrower-belt 24 may be of conventional fabric-cored or other known construction, faced with or enveloped in rubber or the like, the grooves 35 being moulded integrally therewith.

Thus, when considered in longitudinal section, the thrower-belt 24 has regularly-spaced ribs or teeth 40 between and defined by the grooves 35, each rib being of saw-tooth profile and having a short vertical face 37, an upwardly-inclined face 38 and a normally upper and horizontal top face 41, the width of the latter being, for example, about two-thirds the width of the groove 35, while the depth of the vertical face 37 may be about one-half the width of the top face 41.

The deflector wheel shaft 34 also has secured thereon three disc-assemblies 42, one of which is shown in detail in FIG. 5, the three being arranged in equally-spaced manner along the shaft 34 and extending back into the arm 12 of the chute 13, slots 43 being provided in the latter for this purpose.

Each disc-assembly 42 includes a central, hollow cylindrical hub 44 having welded thereabout a plain, centrally-apertured inner disc 45 which may suitably have a thickness of about three-eighths inch. An outer disc 46, of lesser thickness than the disc 45-such as oneeighth inch-has a central aperture to closely accommodate the inner disc =45 and is welded thereabout. The outer disc is of slightly lesser overall diamete than the deflector wheels 33 and it has a series of equally-spaced, radial corrugations, as shown in FIG. extending from its outer periphery to the periphery of the inner disc 45 where the corrugations may be of reduced or zero deformity.

The general operation of the overall apparatus is similar to that of the previous machines and will be readily apparent from the description and drawings, the discrete material being thrown in a stream from the front of the apparatus by the thrower-belt 24 which will have increased efliciency by virtue of the novel saw-tooth configuration.

The principal feature of this invention is the provision of one or more of the disc-assemblies 42 which differ from the division discs previously devised by me in that they do not have perfectly flat side faces but are radially ribbed or corrugated in some or all of the portion outside the hub. Thus, during rotation, the disc exerts on the particles of material a frictional force in the direction of the belt, this thrust acting to grip and throw the particles against the belt, with the result that they are more eflicient- 1y gripped by the belt and projected from the apparatus.

The disc-assemblies 42 may be adjustable along the shaft 34 if so desired, and they may also serve the usual purposes of division discs and of preventing the belt from bulging when used with wide belts. However, they would not prove necessary for this latter purpose when used with narrow belts, and they are particularly useful with such narrow belts because they give a very much greater throwing effect in a comparatively inexpensive machine. It may also be mentioned that in a machine having an even wider I rower-belt than that shown in the drawings, the middle disc-assembly 42 would preferably be provided i with a plain outer disc 46 to avoid any tendency of the corrugated discs to cut the belt when the latter is bulging.

It will be appreciated that the aforedescribed corrugations of the disc 46 may be replaced by any other suitable type of projection which will fulfill the same purpose. Also, the discs need not have truly radial vanes, ribs or corrugations but may have them arranged at almost any angle to enable a sweeping action to be obtained to exert a frictional force or thrust on the particles. Furthermore, the vanes Or ribs may be formed integrally with the discs or afiixed thereto in any desired manner, and any suitable number of such discs may be provided. Such modifications will be readily apparent and will be deemed to reside within the scope and ambit of the invention, as defined by the appended claims. The thrower-belt illustrated herein is described in greater detail and claimed in my copending patent application Ser. No. 862,690, filed concurrently herewith.

] claim:

1. Apparatus of the type described for throwing discrete substances, comprising a housing having an opening for the ejection of material particles, an endless throwerbelt, means rotating and supporting said thrower-belt within said housing adjacent said opening, a chute arm located within said housing for feeding said material particles to said thrower-belt, a transverse shaft rotatably mounted in said housing, deflector wheels secured to said shaft and bearing upon marginal portions of said throwerbelt, and at least one disc mounted on said shaft and having at least around its outer portion equally-spaced, radial, integral corrugations which, upon rotation of the disc, act upon and exert a downward impelling force in the direction of the thrower-belt on particles of material in the stream of material being fed gravitationally towards the thrower-belt.

2. Apparatus of the type described for throwing discrete substances, according to claim 1, wherein the disc comprises an inner plain portion and an outer corrugated portion of lesser thickness than the plain portion.

3. Apparatus fo throwing granular substances, comprising, in combination with a housinghaving an opening for the ejection of a granular substance, an endless thrower-belt, means rotating and supporting said throwerbelt within said housing adjacent said opening, a chute arm located within said housing for feeding said granular substance to said thrower-belt, a transverse shaft rot-atably mounted in said housing, and a pair of deflector wheels secured to said shaft and bearing upon marginal portions of said thrower-belt; a plurality of disc assemblies secured to said shaft and located between said deflector wheels, said disc assemblies extending through slots formed in said chute arm, each of said disc assemblies comprising a plain inner disc and an outer disc enclosing said inner disc and having spaced radial corrugations extending from the periphery :of the outer disc to the periphery of the inner disc, whereby said corrugations exert an impelling force on particles of said granular substance while it is being fed by said chute arm toward said thrower-belt.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS

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