EP0258087B1 - Method of producing barrels with rolling mouldings - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a barrel body provided with rolling rods.

The present invention also relates to barrel bodies thus produced. More particularly, at least two rolling rods are formed on the body of a barrel, so as to allow mautention of this barrel by rolling on the ground in abutment on these rolling rods.

It is already known to provide a barrel with at least two rolling rods whose external diameter is greater than that of the barrel body. These rods have two main functions, on the one hand, allowing the rolling of the barrel on the ground and on the other hand, strengthening the structure of the barrel by improving its mechanical resistance. Indeed, such a barrel must be able to oppose a possible deformation or implosion following a shock or a retraction, due to the lowering of temperature of a hot smoked product for example.

However, since the external diameter of the rods is greater than the external diameter of the barrel body, such rods increase the radial size of the barrels on which they are formed. However, this is a serious drawback, more particularly with regard to drums, hereinafter called "conventional drums", with a capacity of 216 liters worldwide used with a radial size standardized at 595 ± 3 mm. Indeed, the ISO containers normally intended for transporting these drums have standardized dimensions such that it is not possible to place four conventional drums side by side in the useful width limited to 2334 mm, but only three. Under these conditions, the internal volume of these containers is misused since there remains a free volume slightly less than the volume necessary to place a fourth barrel there. The profitability of transporting drums under such conditions is thus strongly questioned.

It is already known in particular from patent US-A 1 649 292 a barrel whose body is provided with negative moldings, that is to say entirely made towards the inside of the barrel, and having an expanded bearing rod adjacent to the moldings and extending outwards from the barrel. Such moldings are intended to reinforce the structure of the barrel, especially in the event of impacts.

Also known from document WO-A 8 501 714, which corresponds to the preamble of claim 1, barrels having various configurations of moldings; these moldings can be formed inside or outside the initial diameter of the barrel body. The possibility is also provided of forming moldings with ridges, located outside and hollows formed inside the initial diameter. The formation by conventional expansion of rolling rods is also described to compensate for the reduction in the depth of these rods.

These patents, however, do not provide any solution as to the reduction in the radial size of such a barrel, given that they leave largely protruding bearing rods.

The present invention aims in particular to overcome all of the drawbacks and inadequacies of this state of the art by creating a barrel body provided with rolling rods offering the possibility of achieving a certain reduction in the radial size and / or mechanical strength. uniformly increased from the barrel.

The purpose of the present invention is therefore to create a barrel body provided with rolling rods allowing on the one hand the rolling on the ground of the barrel and on the other hand having a uniform mechanical resistance, while reducing the external diameter of such rods from the current usual value of 595 mm to the critical value of a quarter of 2334 mm, or approximately 583 millimeters, so as to make it possible to arrange four drums side by side in the direction of the width of an ISO standardized container while the usable volume of the barrel remains practically unchanged.

The object of the invention is also, in a second step, to develop a method for manufacturing a barrel body provided with rolling rods of usual radial size, but the mechanical strength of which is increased, and is uniformly distributed.

The object of the present invention is also to create barrel bodies provided with rolling rods having the characteristics set out above.

To this end, the present invention relates to a barrel body provided with at least two rolling rods, said rods being defined by an area expanded radially outward from the barrel, said body further comprising at least one series of moldings made up of a succession of ridges and hollows, said moldings being generally offset radially towards the inside of the barrel, characterized in that each of said rolling rods is located between two immediately adjacent hollows and is constituted by at least one of the ridges of the series of moldings projecting radially outward from the adjacent ridges.

It should be noted that said zone radially extended towards the outside of the barrel may consist only of one of the ridges, or else extend to the adjacent hollows or even extend to the adjacent ridges.

• - on élabore, sur ledit corps, une série de moulures comportant une succession de crêtes et de creux,
• - on déporte radialement une partie au moins de ces moulures vers l'intérieur du fût, et
• - on expanse radialement vers l'extérieur du fût une zone dans la série de moulures, ladite zone comportant au moins une crête entre deux creux adjacents, de sorte que ladite crête constitue un jonc de roulement dont le diamètre externe est supérieur au diamètre externe de la partie lisse du corps de fût, lesdits creux adjacents étant globalement déportés radialement vers l'intérieur du fût avant expansion vers l'extérieur de ladite crête.

The present invention also relates to a process for the manufacture of barrel bodies, characterized in that on a barrel body with a smooth wall, the following operations are carried out:

• - a series of moldings is produced on said body comprising a succession of ridges and hollows,
• at least part of these moldings are offset radially towards the inside of the barrel, and
• - An area in the series of moldings is expanded radially outwards from the barrel, said area comprising at least one ridge between two adjacent hollows, so that said ridge constitutes a rolling rod whose external diameter is greater than the external diameter of the smooth part of the barrel body, said adjacent recesses being generally offset radially towards the inside of the barrel before expansion towards the outside of said crest.

It should be noted that the rods according to the present invention can be constituted by an area ex banded radially outwards from the barrel and comprising only one crest of the series of moldings, or extending to the adjacent hollows or even extending to the adjacent crests.

Thanks to the present invention the radial size of the drums is reduced and it is therefore now possible to place such drums in rows of four in a container. It should be noted that this reduction in radial size was achieved without altering the mechanical properties and the rolling of said drums.

Thanks to the present invention it is also possible to produce rolling rods of usual dimensions having a uniformly increased mechanical resistance.

It should be noted that the same manufacturing process makes it possible to produce rolling rods with reduced radial bulk and / or with increased mechanical strength depending on the stage at which the manufacturing process is stopped. This is of course a very important advantage since the same manufacturing machine can produce several different rolling rods, which results in a significant saving in the production of these rolling rods.

• la figure 1 est une vue en élévation représentant deux fûts placés côte à côte et munis de joncs de roulement de type connu;
• la figure 2 est un agrandissement du détail référencé Il à la figure 1;
• la figure 3 est une coupe longitudinale du corps d'un fût montrant la première étape de formation d'un corps du fût muni d'un jonc selon la présente invention ;
• la figure 4A est une vue agrandie du détail de la zone repérée en IV sur la figure 5, montrant une étape du procédé de fabrication d'un fût à jonc de roulement selon l'invention ;
• la figure 4B est une vue similaire à la figure 4A montrant une variante de réalisation de l'invention ;
• la figure 5 est une vue analogue à la figure 1 montrant deux fûts placés côte à côte et munis de joncs de roulement à encombrement radial réduit selon la présente invention ;
• la figure 6 est une vue analogue à la figure 4 montrant une troisième étape du procédé de fabrication d'un corps de fût à joncs de roulement selon l'invention ;
• les figures 7a et 7b sont des vues schématiques en plan de conteneurs chargés de fûts usuels ;
• la figure 7c est une vue analogue d'un conteneur chargé de fûts selon l'invention.

Other objects, characteristics and advantages of the invention will emerge from the description which follows, given by way of example with reference to the appended drawings in which:

• Figure 1 is an elevational view showing two drums placed side by side and provided with rolling rods of known type;
• Figure 2 is an enlargement of the detail referenced II in Figure 1;
• Figure 3 is a longitudinal section of the body of a barrel showing the first step of forming a body of the barrel provided with a rod according to the present invention;
• FIG. 4A is an enlarged view of the detail of the zone marked in IV in FIG. 5, showing a stage in the method of manufacturing a barrel with a rush ring according to the invention;
• Figure 4B is a view similar to Figure 4A showing an alternative embodiment of the invention;
• Figure 5 is a view similar to Figure 1 showing two drums placed side by side and provided with rolling rods with reduced radial bulk according to the present invention;
• Figure 6 is a view similar to Figure 4 showing a third step in the method of manufacturing a barrel body with rolling rods according to the invention;
• Figures 7a and 7b are schematic plan views of containers loaded with conventional drums;
• Figure 7c is a similar view of a container loaded with barrels according to the invention.

A barrel 10 of known type (FIGS. 1 and 2) consists of a body 11, or side wall, provided with moldings 12 and bearing rods 13. Conventionally, such a barrel has two bearing rods 13 surrounding a central part 20 of generally cylindrical shape and having no moldings.

In FIG. 1, two drums of known type are placed side by side and, as can be seen, the rolling rods 13 of these two drums create, when they touch, a vacuum 14 between the drums. This vacuum 14 constitutes an unusable volume, which prevents placing side by side four drums of this type in the same container with standardized dimensions.

We will now describe a method of manufacturing a barrel body provided with bearing rods according to the invention with reference to Figures 3 and 4A

Initially, the wall 11 'of the barrel is provided with negative moldings 15', formed by deformation of the wall 11 '. These moldings are entirely made towards the inside of the barrel, the ridges 16 ′ are therefore in the extension of the non-deformed parts of the cylindrical wall 11 ′; the recesses 17 'are, for their part, offset radially towards the inside of the barrel.

In a second step, as illustrated in FIG. 4A, one of the ridges 16 ′ between two recesses of negative moldings is mechanically expanded in the direction of the arrow F radially outward so as to create a rolling ring 18 ′ according to the invention. It should be noted that only the selected crest 16 ′ has been deformed by expansion and that this deformation is limited to the immediate surroundings of said crest.

It should be noted that the height H of a rolling ring of known type (FIG. 2) is practically, or totally, identical to the height h (FIG. 4) of a rolling ring according to the invention. However, the top of this rolling ring 18 'projects much less towards the outside of the barrel than the top of the conventional rolling ring 13 (FIG. 2). Indeed, in the case of a conventional barrel, the height H of the rod 13 is taken relative to the non-deformed cylindrical wall 20 of this barrel, while in the case of the rod according to the invention, the height h of the latter is taken relative to the hollow 17 'of each of the moldings surrounding the said rod. However, the hollow 17 ′ of these moldings was offset radially towards the inside of the barrel during the first step of the manufacturing process. It thus follows that, although the rolling rod 18 'has a rod height similar to that of conventional rods, the external diameter of the rod according to the invention, and therefore its radial size, has been reduced. In addition, the height h is identical on each side of the rolling rod 18 '. Thus although the radial size of the rod according to the invention is reduced, its mechanical resistance is equivalent to the mechanical resistance of rods of known type and is uniform. In addition, it has been observed that the fact of expanding a crest makes it much more resistant from the mechanical point of view, thus therefore the rolling rod according to the invention is both of reduced radial size and of increased mechanical resistance.

Another embodiment of conformation of the radial wall of the barrel is illustrated in FIG. 4B.

In this case, the vertices 16A of the corrugations are situated slightly projecting from the non-deformed parts 20 ′ of the wall of the body. The radial offset of the recesses 17A is equal to the radial offset of the vertices 16A relative to the non-deformed part 20 'of the cylindrical wall. The radial distance between the vertices 16A and the hollows 17A is substantially equal to that between the vertices 16 'and the hollows 17' of the embodiment of the fi gure 4A. Thus, the mechanical properties of the moldings 16A, 17A are practically equivalent to those of the moldings of FIG. 4A. The advantage of the arrangement according to FIG. 4B consists in that the values of crest diameter and of hollow diameter being greater than the corresponding values of the embodiment of FIG. 4A, the volumetric capacity of the barrel is slightly larger than in the case of the embodiment of Figure 4A.

It will be noted that in the case of the embodiment of FIG. 4B, in the region of the rolling rod 18 ', the apex 16' and the adjacent recesses 17 ', are identical in configuration and in diameter to those of the shape of embodiment of FIG. 4A, In particular, the vertex 16 ′ chosen for this purpose and as indicated in dotted lines is aligned with the smooth part 20 ′ of the cylindrical wall of the barrel. Thus, the height h of the rolling rod 18 ′ is in the two embodiments the same and constitutes the extreme radial dimension of the wall of the barrel body in both cases. The only difference between the embodiments of FIGS. 4A and 4B is the position of the moldings relative to the smooth, non-deformed surface of the cylindrical wall of the barrel: the radial offset towards the inside corresponds to the entire height of the moldings in the case of FIG. 4A and substantially half of this height in the case of FIG. 4B, except for the selected vertices 16 ′ which remain at the initial diameter of the barrel like all the vertices of the molding in FIG. 4A.

Of course, the rolling rod 18 'according to the invention protrudes sufficiently from the wall 20' of the barrel to allow it to be rolled on the ground.

As is clearly visible in Figure 5, the vacuum 14 'between two drums according to the invention placed side by side has been significantly reduced. Such a reduction in the radial size of the bearing rods 18 ′ formed on the drums makes it possible to place four drums according to the invention side by side in a container of standardized dimensions.

In fact, as is clearly visible in FIGS. 7a and 7b, drums 10 of conventional dimensions cannot be placed side by side in rows of four across the width of a container C of standardized dimensions, because their external diameter is too large. By cons, as shown in Figure 7c barrels 10 'according to the present invention can be, without however the capacity of these barrels has not undergone significant reduction.

It should be noted that the reduction in the radial size of barrels provided with rods according to the invention also allows better vertical stacking of these barrels since the rolling rods of two barrels placed side by side do not tend, as in the case of a conventional barrel, to overlap each other, since the free space 14 ′ between the barrels is reduced and does not allow significant movement of one of the barrels relative to the other .

The manufacturing process described above can be continued (FIG. 6) so that the expansion of the crest 16 ′ is carried out until the expanded zone 18 "has an external diameter identical to that of conventional rolling rods In this case the recesses 17 "located on either side of the crest 18" are also slightly displaced radially outward relative to the location 17 'which they originally occupied. The purpose of this manufacturing process is no longer to reduce the radial size of the conventional rolling rods, but to uniformly strengthen their mechanical strength. Indeed, the expansion of the crest 18 "has in particular the consequence of giving it increased mechanical strength, to stresses radial acting on the body of the barrel.

Indeed, the rolling rod thus produced has a rod height h ′ clearly greater than the height H of rolling rods of conventional type, although the external diameter of such a rolling rod is identical to that of a conventional rod .

It should be noted that the radially outward expanded zone can extend not only to the adjacent hollows, but also to the adjacent ridges. Thus, the height of the rolling rods thus produced and the mechanical strength of these rods can be increased.

It should be noted that the manufacturing method according to the invention offers the possibilities of deforming only the crest of a molding, or of deforming the crest to the adjacent hollows or even of pushing the deformation to the adjacent crests, the bearing ring produced, which can therefore present markedly different characteristics. The advantage of such a method is therefore to allow three different types of bearing rods to be produced on the same machine.

Of course, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and covers all variants within the reach of ordinary skill in the art. For example, it is possible to provide a conventional barrel with more than two rods according to the invention, as well as to vary the size of the molded zone until possibly extending it to the entire height of the barrel. It is also possible to provide, on either side of a molding area carried over according to the invention, conventional molding areas whose ridges remain protruding with respect to the nominal diameter of the barrel.

Claims (10)

1. A drum body provided with at least two rolling hoops, said hoops being defined by a zone which is expanded radially outwardly of the drum, said body further comprising at least one series of profilings (15') formed by a succession of peaks (16') and troughs (17'), said profilings being overall displaced radially inwardly of the drum, characterised in that each of said rolling hoops (18') is disposed between two immediately adjacent troughs and is formed by at least one of the peaks of the series of profilings projecting radially outwardly with respect to the adjacent peaks.

2. A drum body according to claim 1 characterised in that the zone which is expanded radially outwardly of the drum is formed by the immediate surroundings of said peak constituting the rolling hoop, on the same side of the adjacent troughs (17').

3. A drum body according to claim 1 characterised in that the zone which is expanded radially outwardly of the drum extends on respective sides of said peak constituting the rolling hoop (16') as far as the adjacent troughs (17').

4. A drum body according to claim 1 characterised in that the part which is expanded radially outwardly of the drum extends on respective sides of said peak (16') constituting the rolling hoop as far as the immediately adjacent peaks (16').

5. A process for the production of drum bodies according to claim 1 characterised in that the following operations are carried out on a drum body with a smooth wall:

- a series of profilings (15') comprising a succession of peaks (16') and troughs (17') is produced on said body,

- a part at least of said profilings is radially displaced inwardly of the drum, and

- a zone in the series of profilings (15') is expanded radially outwardly of the drum, said zone comprising at least one peak (16') between to adjacent troughs (17') so that said peak constitutes a rolling hoop (18'), the outside diameter of which is greater than the outside diameter of the smooth part of the drum body, said adjacent troughs being overall displaced radially inwardly of the drum prior to expansion outwardly of said peak.

6. A process according to claim 5 characterised in that the radial displacement corresponds to the whole of the height of the profilings.

7. A process according to claim 5 characterised in that the radial displacement corresponds to a value close to half the height of the profilings except for at least two selected peaks (16') which remain at the outside diameter of the drum body (20').

8. A process according to claim 5, claim 6 or claim 7 characterised in that the zone which is expanded radially outwardly of the drum is formed by the immediate surroundings of said peak forming the rolling hoop, on the same side of the adjacent troughs (17').

9. A process according to claim 5, claim 6 or claim 7 characterised in that the zone which is expanded radially outwardly of the drum extends on respective sides of said peak (16') forming the rolling hoop as far as the adjacent troughs (17').

10. A process according to claim 5, claim 6 or claim 7 characterised in that the part which is expanded radially outwardly of the drum extends on respective sides of said peak (16') forming the rolling hoop to the immediately adjacent peaks (16').

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