EP0128174A1

EP0128174A1 - A conveyor drum for advancing straw material in a self-loading vehicle

Info

Publication number: EP0128174A1
Application number: EP84900041A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Peder Pedersen; Georg Lauritzen; Börge LARSEN
Original assignee: Maskinfabriken Taarup AS
Current assignee: Maskinfabriken Taarup AS
Priority date: 1982-12-17
Filing date: 1983-12-16
Publication date: 1984-12-19
Also published as: IT8324237A1; IT1167690B; DK148071B; IT8324237A0; DK559882A; ES284578U; WO1984002252A1; ES284578Y; DK148071C; FR2537830A1

Abstract

Un tambour d'acheminement (30) permettant de faire avancer de la paille dans un véhicule de chargement possède des organes transporteurs formés par ou formant des anneaux qui sont montés de manière lâche sur le tambour. Chaque anneau est divisé de préférence en une pluralité de sections transporteuses (31) qui peuvent être fixées individuellement et de manière libérable sur le tambour à l'aide d'éléments faisant saillie (36 et 38) et d'un crochet de verrouillage résilient (40, 41) s'engageant dans des évidements (37, 39 et 43) aménagés dans le tambour. Cette structure rend les organes transporteurs plus résistants aux dommages dus aux pierres ou autre matériaux durs arrivant dans le tambour d'acheminement avec la paille, en comparaison avec les structures ayant des organes transporteurs soudés; de plus, la structure décrite facilite et rend meilleur marché le changement d'organes transporteurs endommagés.A conveyor drum (30) for feeding straw into a loading vehicle has conveyor members formed by or forming rings which are loosely mounted on the drum. Each ring is preferably divided into a plurality of conveyor sections (31) which can be individually and releasably fixed to the drum by means of protruding elements (36 and 38) and a resilient locking hook ( 40, 41) engaging in recesses (37, 39 and 43) arranged in the drum. This structure makes the conveyor members more resistant to damage due to stones or other hard materials arriving in the conveying drum with the straw, in comparison with structures having welded conveyor members; moreover, the described structure facilitates and makes cheaper the change of damaged transporting members.

Description

A conveyor drum for advancing straw material in a self-loading vehicle

The invention relates to ? conveyor drum for advancing straw material in a self-loa iπg vehicle, comprising substantially radial conveyors which are divided into sets spaced in the axial direction of the drum, each of said sets consisting of a plurality of preferably substantially equiangular conveyors. Such conveyor drums are subjected to very hard impacts when stones or other hard foreign bodies together with the material get into the machine. The closely spaced conveyors, which are often welded to the central pipe of the drum, are sub- jected to varying loads urging them from side to side.

It has been found necessary in practice that the conveyors must be rather heavy and welded at both sides if they are to have a reasonable useful life. Repairs of such a heavy, welded structure after one of the inevitable breakdowns are time-consuming and laborious.

The object of the invention is to provide a conveyor drum of the present type which offers greater resistance to the impacts which foreign bodies in the material may subject them to and is easier to repair when damage nevertheless occurs.

This object is achieved in that each set of conveyors is formed on or forms a ring which is secured to the drum by means of projections entering into recesses in the drum. When the conveyor rings in such a structure are made of a reasonably good material, they do tend to bend during hard impacts, but the space available will not allow permanent deformation. If, in spite of this, a conveyor is damaged, the ring in question just

-gJRE OMPI has to be cut and a new one welded together around the drum.

Repairs will be even sampler and cheaper when each conveyor ring is divided into a plurality of conveyer sections because it then usually suffices to replace a single section.

The individual section may be secured to the drum not only by the pin/hole connection but also by its connection to the adjacent sections in the same ring, preferably by welding.

However, the individual section may also be attached to the drum independently of the others and without welding, in that each section has at least one projection to engage a recess in the drum and is secured at the ends to its adjacent sections in the same ring, preferably by welding.

Expediently, each section has a hook-shaped projection to be passed into an oblong slit in the drum and a re¬ silient locking hook which can be caused to snap into and lockingly engage another oblong slit in the drum. More particularly the hook-shaped projection is disposed at the rear end of the^' section, and slits in the drum are arranged to receive both the hook-shaped projection on one section and the locking hook on one adjacent section.

Another structure allowing the conveyor sections to be secured to the drum without welding is characterized in that the locking hook is formed by a strip-shaped part which extends along and forms part of the edge of the section facing the drum and has a projection at its free end and is spaced from the rest of the section

C- PI by a substantially L-shaped slit allowing the locking hook to yield inwardly, i.e. in a direction away from the drum during application cf the section. A special embodiment of this structure is characterized in that the drum has substantially Z-shaped recesses, each of which consists of two oblong slits, one of which being disposed in the same radial plane as the assembled con¬ veyor ring, the other one being offset from the first one both in the axial direction of the drum and circum- ferentially so that the two slits have overlapping ends which are interconnected.

In the latter structure, the tongue-shaped part is bent so much to the side during application of the section that the projection of this part can enter the displaced part of the substantially Z-shaped slit in the drum. Subsequent displacement of the conveyor along the peri¬ phery of the drum causes the hook-shaped projection to engage below the end edge of the first-mentioned oblong slit and also causes the probjectioπs of the tongue to move to the end of the displaced slit, which overlaps and is connected with the other slit of the Z-shaped recess. From this position it snaps by its own spring force into the end part of the other slit and prevents such displacement of the conveyor as might disengage the hook-shaped projection from the retaining engagement with the drum shell.

The stability of the conveyors on the drum may be improved in that each section has one or more additional substan¬ tially rectangular projections with rounded corners to protrude into the corresponding slits in the drum.

In practice, the most expedient position of the conveyors is obtained when the slits in the drum for each conveyor ring together with the slits for the other conveyor rings form screw-shaped rows.

The invention will be explained more fully below ιr«ith reference to the drawing, in which

fig. 1 is a side view of half of a conveyor ring for an embodiment of the conveyor drum of the invention,

fig. 2 is a side view of a conveyor section for another embodiment of the conveyor drum of the invention,

fig. 3 is a perspective section and shows how the conveyor sections are detachably secured to the drum in a third embodiment of the conveyor drum of the invention, and

fig. 4 shows the preferred relative position of the drum slits to receive projections on the conveyor sec¬ tions.

In fig. 1 the arc 10 represents the cylindrical face of a conveyor drum (not shown in greater detail) of the type which is used e.g. in a loading vehicle to pass straw material picked up from the field past cutting knives and to throw the chopped material up into the vehicle.

A plurality of plate-shaped conveyor rings are loosely fitted side by side on the drum, half of a single ring 11 being shown in fig. 1. Each ring consists of a plurali- ty of conveyors 12, which each have a body 13 whose inner edge 14 is curved and engages the drum face 10, and a tooth-shaped conveyor part 15 whose front edge 16 extends substantially radially with respect to the drum, in practice, however, so that it is slightly in- clined fαrwardly. The inner part 17 of the front edge of the conveyor is inclined inwardly and rearwardly

^■"gtJREΛi OMPI relative to the outer front edge part 16 in a certain angle, and the rear edge 18 of the conveyor is inclined rcαf-jardly in such an angle that in the assembled state of the conveyors it is parallel with the front edge part 17 of the adjacent conveyors. The two edge parts 17 and 18 are welded together in a seam 19. At its inner end the front edge part 17 merges into a short inner edge part 20 which extends along and slightly spaced from the drum face 10 to a projection 21 protruding into a slit in the drum, thereby to keep the conveyor ring in position with respect to the drum.

If one or more conveyors are damaged by a stone or other hard object which is fed up to the conveyor drum together with the material while driving in the field, the conveyor or conveyors in question may be cut free from the ring and be replaced by one or more new ones which are welded to the adjacent parts.

Instead of consisting of welded individual conveyors, the conveyor ring 11 may optionally be made in one piece or two pieces which are welded together around the drum.

Fig. 2 shows a quadrant of a conveyor drum 30 with an applied plate-shaped conveyor section; this section is generally designated 31 and consists of a body 32 and two tooth-shaped conveyors 33 and 34, the first one of which being disposed at the front end of and forming the front edge 35 of the section, the other one being disposed slightly behind the centre of the section.

The body 32 has at its rear end a hook-shaped projection 36 protruding into an oblong slit 37 in the drum 30 and below the edge part of the drum defining the slit forwardly. The body has at its centre a projection 38 in the form of a rectangle with rounded corners which engages an oblong slit 39 in the drum. At its front end the conveyor section has moreover a resilient locking hook 40 provided on the inner end of a radial strip Λ], which forms part of the front edge of the section and is spaced from the body 32 by a radial slit 42 so as to form a spring allowing the locking hook 40 to be moved so much forwardly against the spring action of the strip that it can pass the rear edge of the slit 43 corresponding to the slit 37 in the drum. Such forward movement of the locking hook 40 is generated automatically under the application of the conveyor section in that an oblique rear edge 44 on the locking hook acts as a cam edge sliding along the rear edge of the slit 43. Having passed this, the locking hook snaps into the shown locking position in which it engages below the edge part of the drum which defines the slit 43 rearward- ly. A conveyor section thus applied is easy to remove and replace by a new one in case of damage.

The drum 30 may be strengthened and braced by longitudi¬ nal ribs welded to the inner side of the drum.

Fig. 3 shows a segment of a drum 50 and two conveyor sections 51a and 51b, the first one 51a in the position it assumes just before application, and the other one 51b in the applied position. Here the conveyor sections have a hook-shaped projection 52 and a resilient locking hook 54 spaced therefrom and from the rest of the section by an L-shaped recess 53. The drum 50 is formed with a substantially Z-shaped recess consisting of two oblong slits 55 and 56, which are offset from each other both axially and circumferentially, but overlap and are con¬ nected with each other over a distance allowing the projections of the locking hook to move transversely in the recess from one slit to the other. With the -con- veyor section 51a disposed in the shown position, the locking hook is bent so much to the left that it can protrude down into the slit 56, and the projection 32 enters the slit 55 at the same time. When the section is subsequently displaces in the direction of an arrow 57 circumferentially of the Jrum, the nose of the projec¬ tion 52 engages below the drum shell, and the nose of the locking hook 54 moves to the transverse passage between the two slits, and then it enters the slit 55 by its own spring force and locks the section. The section is removed by the reverse procedure.

A conveyor section like the one shown in fig. 3 can also be secured in a single oblong slit such as 55, provided that the longitudinal part of the L-shaped slit 55 is made so broad that the locking hook 54 can yield sufficiently backwards in the plane of the section for the projection 52 to bottom out in the drum slit.

The conveyor sections 51a and 51b can, like the one shown in fig. 2, be formed with one or more additional projections to engage corresponding recesses in the drum.

It is observed that fig. 3 just serves to illustrate the manner in which the conveyor sections can be secured to the drum. In practice, these sections are spaced much closer than is shown in fig. 3. Moreover, it is generally expedient that they are offset from each other circumferentially of the drum so that the various slits receiving the projections of the conveyors are disposed along helical lines on the drum face, as appears from fig. 4 which shows a part of a developed drum face on a natural scale.

The conveyors or the conveyor sections may both be formed and secured to the drum in other ways than those shown in the drawing and described in the foregoing.

Claims

P A T E N T C L A I M S

1. A conveyor drum for advancing straw material in a self-loading vehicle, comprising substantially radial conveyors (15, 33, 34) wnich are divided into sets spaced in the axial direction of drum, each of said sets consisting of a plurality of preferably substantially equiangular conveyors, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that each set of conveyors (15, 33, 34) is formed on or forms a ring which is secured to the drum by means of projections entering into recesses in the drum.

2. A conveyor drum according to claim ^ c h a r a c¬ e r i z e d in that each conveyor ring is divided into a plurality of conveyor sections.

3. A conveyor drum according to claim 2, c h a r a c- t e r i z e d in that each section has at least one projection to engage a recess in the drum and is secured at the ends to its adjacent sections in the same ring, preferably by welding.

4. A conveyor drum according to claim 2, c h a r a c- t e r i z e d in that each section has a hook-shaped projection (36, 52) to be passed into an oblong slit (37) in the drum and a resilient locking hook (40, 54) which can be caused to snap into and lockingly engage another oblong-slit in the drum.

5. A conveyor drum according to claim 4, c h a r a c- t e r i z e d in that the resilient locking hook (40) is formed by a substantially radial strip-shaped front edge portion (35) thereof defined by a slit (42) in the section, and that a hook part formed on the free end of the edge part has an oblique edge facing the drum and serving to urge the locking hook outwardly by cam effect in cooperation with one end of a slit in the drum during application of the section to the drum.

6. A conveyor drum according to claim 5, c h a r a c- t e r i z e d in that the hook-shaped projection (36) is disposed at the rear end of the section, and that slits in the drum are arranged to receive both the hook- shaped projection (36) on one section and the locking hook (40) on one adjacent section.

7. A conveyor drum according to claim 4, c h a r a c- t e r i z e d in that the locking hook is formed by a strip-shaped part (54) which extends along and forms part of the edge of the section facing the drum and has a projection at its free end and is spaced from the rest of the section by a substantially L-shaped slit (53) allowing the locking hook to yield inwardly, i.e. in a direction away from the drum during application of the section.

8. A conveyor drum according to claim 7, whose conveyor sections have the hook-shaped projection and locking hook disposed closely adjacent to and in elongation of each other along the edge facing the drum, c h a¬ r a c t e r i z e d in that the drum has substantially Z-shaped recesses, each of which consists of two oblong slits (55, 56), one of which being disposed in the same radial plane as the assembled conveyor ring, the other one being offset from the first one both in the axial direction of the drum and circumferentially so that the two slits have overlapping ends which are inter¬ connected.

9. A conveyor drum according to. any of the claims 4-8, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that each section has one

OMPI or more additional substantially rectangular projections (38) with roudned corners to protrude into the correspond¬ ing slits (39) in the drum.

JO. A conveyor drum according to any of the preceding claims, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the slits in the drum for each conveyor ring together with the slits for the other conveyor rings form screw-shaped rows.