EP0063724B1 - Device for attaching a grab for agricultural buildings to a movable support by means of a flexible element - Google Patents

Abstract

1. Apparatus for attaching a grab (3) for agricultural buildings by means of a raising and lowering flexible traction means (4) to a movable support (trolley 25) especially a longitudinally movable trolley (25) on a guide such as a cross girder (24) of a hall travelling crane (23) characterised by a swiveling means (10, 11) provided at the grab (3) and its support (trolley 25) for automatic engaging and supporting the grab (3) on the support when reaching the lifting end position and by a swiveling means (12, 35, 36) for automatic upward swinging of the grab (3) from its hanging position into a lift position up to at least almost in a horizontal plane with the crane girder (24) and trasverse to the drive position of its support, respectively its trolley (25).

Description

The invention relates to a device for connecting a gripper for agricultural buildings to a movable holder which can be raised and lowered by means of a flexible suspension means, in particular a trolley which can be moved longitudinally on a guide such as the support of an overhead traveling crane.

In agriculture, overhead traveling cranes are mainly used for the storage and retrieval of roughage and silage. They essentially consist of two or more crane runways permanently installed in the building and one or more movable crane girders, an electric trolley and a gripper. In most overhead traveling cranes of this type, the gripper is attached to the trolley by one or more suspension elements such as a wire rope or chain and can be moved vertically by a winch. However, the gripper requires a certain height with its suspension, so you cannot store it under the crane girder, but only under the gripper. The remaining upper room can only be filled with additional machines, with a blower or by hand. With regard to the surrounding landscape and construction costs, you don't want to build new feed halls unnecessarily high. This is why there is often a demand for an agricultural crane that allows roughage to be stored right down to the lower roof skin without additional facilities and manual labor.

For this reason, crane systems are occasionally built, the crane girder of which is curved and follows the roof pitch at least to one end. This shows e.g. B. DE-C 655 211 for a gripper that cannot be raised or lowered on its holder. But even with such solutions, the space required for the gripper passage under the crane girder cannot be used.

The invention is based on the device described at the outset and pursues the task of designing this device in the simplest possible way in such a way that the storage height can be increased beyond that height which can be achieved with a gripper hanging from the flexible suspension element.

To solve this problem, swivel means for automatically engaging and supporting the gripper on the holder when entering the end-of-stroke position and swivel means for automatically swiveling the gripper out of its hanging position into a deflected position to at least approximately in a horizontal plane are used on the gripper and its holder the crane girder and transverse to the direction of travel of its holder or trolley.

A conventional trolley is usually considered as the holder, as is usually guided on the girder of a traveling crane or bridge crane or also on a trolley track to be installed fixed to the building. Regardless of how the holder is designed or guided, a substantial height can be gained from the hanging position by swiveling the gripper up. One can load at the side of the holder at least beyond its underside or one-sided over the top of the holder or a roadway for the holder, especially since the width of the gripper is generally much greater than the height of an associated crane girder. Starting from one end, a feed shed can be stuffed almost to the roof. All of this happens without any special operating effort simply by pulling the gripper in until the hoist is finally switched off in a known manner by means of a pushbutton switch or the like.

Since the gripper is swiveled up transversely to the direction of travel of its holder or trolley, it can reach relatively far up to the side of the road. As a result, the goods are stored or removed at a more uniform height and with better control. This is also important for the use of a fixed trolley track. The goods are then not just thrown off under this lane, but rather passed relatively far to the side. Here too, the trolley can of course be attached to two supports provided with a lateral spacing.

Swiveling up a load handler is known in many ways. DE-C 859 211, for example, shows a crane with pulley block, in particular for armored motor vehicles, a catch lever being pivotally mounted about the axis of a deflection roller attached to the end of a luffing jib. During the lifting process, the bottom block moves into a claw opening of the catch lever in such a way that it is pivoted upwards in the vertical plane of the boom. As a result, the bottom block with its crane hook can also be placed on the car body while driving.

In a comparable manner, according to DE-C 60 629, a bucket hanging on hoisting ropes is emptied by moving it into an intermediate tableware and pivoting it with it into a tilting position about a horizontal axis which is attached to the upper end of a chute. However, these known devices have not provided any knowledge of how larger storage heights can be achieved with agricultural grippers.

Finally, the unpublished EP-A 61 047 (publication date September 29, 1982) relates to a device for the storage of agricultural material such as roughage and silage material up to the roof skin of an agricultural building, with a jib crane with a flexible suspension means guided at the jib end and connected to a hoist like a hoist rope, which carries a gripper so that it can be raised and lowered freely over a greater lifting height, with the swiveling center provided on the gripper and the end of the boom and assigned to each other, drive the gripper in its stroke end position at the end of the boom to swing up the gripper in the vertical longitudinal plane of the boom to engage, and with engagement means for automatic guiding into an at least approximate extension of the boom, as well as for bending-resistant connection of the gripper to the boom until it is deposited Loaded goods from an elevated stick gripper position.

The formation of a support forming the guide for the trolley as a torsionally stiff hollow profile or box construction has proven to be expedient. You can then swing out more or less far to the side of the narrow support from the middle hanging position.

The swiveling means should, if possible, be set up to selectively swivel up to the right or left. This is of considerable importance especially for trolleys that can be moved on a stationary track, since it allows unloading to both sides of the trolley track and can thereby significantly widen the loading strip.

The pivoting means between the gripper and holder can have a support projection which is laterally offset with respect to the connection of the suspension means and which determines a first pivot axis when the gripper is moved into its lifting position. The support projection is expediently designed as a support arm which can be moved from one side to an opposite side on the gripper or holder.

According to a further invention proposal, cooperating guide means are provided on the holder and gripper for guiding the gripper during the pivoting process between the hanging position and the deflected position. For example, the guide means can have two sliding plates to be brought into contact with one another, of which at least the holder sliding plate is convexly curved in the pivoting plane, so that the sliding plates perform a rolling movement exclusively or in addition to the sliding process during the pivoting process.

If the holder sliding plate is formed symmetrically to a central plane that determines the hanging position of the gripper, it can be used in the same way for swiveling the gripper up on both sides. For this purpose, the holder sliding plate can be designed in the manner of a hyperbola with a lower curvature part and two at least approximately elongated end parts.

If wire ropes or the like are used as a means of suspension, efforts will of course be made to avoid any unnecessary abrasion and to run a running strand largely over rollers. Here too, however, the design of the holder sliding plate as a deflecting element for the suspension element in the pivoting phase of the gripper can be advantageous if the cable is only placed around the sliding plate, for example close to the fixed connection. However, a limited sliding movement can also be permitted for chains.

If, for example, a fixed connection and a lifting connection for the suspension means coming from the gripper are provided on opposite sides of a central hanging plane of the gripper on the holder, then generally any sliding movement can be excluded by constantly swiveling up on the side of the lifting connection. If you want to swing open on both sides, the arrangements of fixed connection and hub connection can be provided interchangeably.

Another possibility is to mount a deflecting means on the side of the fixed connection for deflecting the suspension element run from the stroke connection to the gripper. You can then leave both connections on the same side of the holder or move the fixed connection on the opposite side.

• Figur 1 die schematische Ansicht eines in einer Futterbergehalle eingesetzten Greifer-Laufkrans mit einer erfindungsgemäßen Anschlußvorrichtung bei hängendem Greifer,
• Figur 2 eine Ansicht des gleichen Greiferlaufkrans mit aufgeschwenktem Greifer,
• Figur 3 eine Ansicht der nach Fig. 1 eingesetzten Laufkatze in Richtung des Kranträgers gesehen,
• Figur 3a diese Laufkatze von links in Fig. 3 gesehen,
• Figur 4 den ersten Anlagekontakt des Greifers an der Katze beim Anhubvorgang aus der Stellung Fig. 3, die
• Figur 5 und 6 Zwischenstellungen beim Aufschwenkvorgang,
• Figur 7 die beim Hochschwenken nach rechts in der Zeichnung erreichte Endstellung des Greifers und
• Figur 8 die entsprechende Endstellung beim Hochschwenken des Greifers nach links in der Zeichnung.

The drawing shows a preferred embodiment of the invention, for example. Show it

• FIG. 1 shows the schematic view of a crawler overhead traveling crane used in a feed shed with a connecting device according to the invention when the grab is hanging,
• FIG. 2 shows a view of the same grab crane with the grab pivoted open,
• FIG. 3 is a view of the trolley used according to FIG. 1 in the direction of the crane girder,
• FIG. 3a seen this trolley from the left in FIG. 3,
• 4 shows the first contact of the gripper on the cat during the lifting process from the position in FIG
• 5 and 6 intermediate positions during the swing-open process,
• 7 shows the end position of the gripper reached when swiveling up to the right in the drawing and
• Figure 8 shows the corresponding end position when swinging the gripper to the left in the drawing.

According to FIGS. 1 and 2, a overhead crane 23 with a trolley 25 which can be moved on its crane girder 24 is mounted close to the roof structure 21 on the side support brackets 22 of a feed shed. A gripper 3 is suspended from the trolley by means of a suspension means 4 wound on the winch 26 and can be lowered. When moving into the end position, as will be explained with reference to FIGS. 3 to 8, it can be swiveled up transversely to the plane of the drawing from a hanging position according to FIG. 1 into an almost horizontal pivoting position indicated in FIG. 2.

As can be seen better from FIGS. 3 and 3a, the crane girder 2 is designed as a torsionally rigid tubular or box girder with laterally projecting flanges on which the trolley 25 is guided by means of rollers 27. On the trolley frame 28, the winch 26 for the suspension means 4, which is normally designed as a wire rope, is on its axis a little outside of a hanging central plane 29 of the gripper, which here coincides with the vertical central plane of the crane girder 24 se 9 stored. On the other side of the central plane 29 there is a further axis 91, which normally forms the fixed connection for the end run 31 of the suspension element 4, but can optionally also be used for mounting the drum 26, such as a deflection roller 32 drawn with dash-dot lines.

Between the end run 31 and the running run 33, the suspension element 4 is guided over two deflection rollers 34, which are provided at a transverse distance and are mounted in a roller box 7 mounted on the gripper head piece 6. Instead of a wire rope, a plastic rope, a link chain, roller chain or the like can of course also be used.

The roller box 7 is covered by a gripper slide plate 11, which is assigned a trolley slide plate 10. Both plates are convexly curved towards each other in the drawing plane according to FIG. 3 symmetrically to the central median plane 29. While the curvature of the gripper slide plate 1 is uniform, the cat slide plate 10 has the approximate shape of a hyperbola with a strongly curved middle part 102 and two more elongated end parts 101 and 103.

On the upper side of the gripper head piece 6 there is a towering support arm 12 which can optionally be converted from the position shown in full lines on the left in FIG. 3 to the position 121 on the right in this FIG. 3a has two lateral struts 13 and an upper head rail 14 with lateral inclined aligning ends 15 and circumscribes a portal opening 16. The head rail 14 is assigned two stop rails 35, 36 projecting from both sides of the cat arm in a cantilever manner.

During the further upward movement of the gripper, it is first aligned by running the aligning ends 15 on the stop bar 35 before the head bar 14 comes into contact with this stop bar in the position in FIG Lift is pivoted until the sliding plates 10 and 11 come into contact with one another in the position shown in FIG. 5. At this moment, the support arm 12 lifts off the stop bar 35. When pivoting further over the intermediate position Fig. 6 in the end position Fig. 7, the two sliding plates 10, 11 continue to be rolled to one another until the sliding plate 11 is firmly attached to the end part 103 of the trolley sliding plate 10 and by pressing a button switch, not shown, or by a Overcurrent relay of the hoist drive switched off and the winch 26 is held by a brake.

In this last pivoting phase, the support arm 12 can also be held against the underside of the trolley sliding plate 10. As a result, the position of the gripper can be additionally stabilized, but requires a rigid construction of the support arm and its connection to the gripper head piece. The end strand 31 can lie around the trolley sliding plate 10 during the pivoting open process. For this purpose, a rope groove or the like can be formed approximately in the middle of this sliding plate.

In the end position in FIG. 7, a swing-open angle c = 75 ° is achieved compared to the hanging position. This angle can of course be increased considerably, even if an increase beyond 90 ° only promises a limited useful effect, because the upper prongs of the gripper lie according to FIG. 7 above the top of the crane girder. Of course, such a stack height only makes sense if you always fill up and empty a warehouse from one side only.

FIG. 8 shows an end position which is a mirror image of the representation in FIG. 7 and which can in principle be brought about by merely attaching the support arm 12 to the gripper head piece 6 in the opposite position 121. The gripper performs practically the same swiveling movement to the opposite side. An essential difference is only that the running strand 33 of the suspension means now rests on the outside of the trolley sliding plate 10 and is pulled along there. It must therefore be ensured that there are low-friction and low-wear sliding conditions. This could be achieved, for example, by attaching a layer of particularly easy-to-slide plastic in the rope groove mentioned above, as a rule PE is already sufficient.

A first way of avoiding the sliding process is to convert the winch 26 from the axis 9 to the axis 91 and to shoot the end run 31 of the suspension element on the axis 9. The situation is approximately the same if the connection of the end run 31 is changed, but the running run 33 of the suspension element passes over the deflection roller 32. Finally, with this guidance of the suspension element, the connection of the end run 31 to the axis 91 can be left with a slight change in the kinematic rolling process.

In principle, it is also possible to work with two drums that have separate drives or are driven by a differential gear. The swiveling process can then be accomplished by normally braking one or the other drum. This brake control can be carried out automatically by a pushbutton switch influenced by the support arm 12. Instead of attaching the support arm to the gripper, it can be provided on the cat. Just then, however, the support arm can be switched from one side to the other by remote control, or one of two provided support arms can be brought into operative position.

The switchover can not only increase the loading height on both sides of the crane girder, but it can also be loaded and unloaded on both sides when the crane girder is in the same position. Such a crane girder could, for example, in the ridge of a more or less pointed building be firmly attached and yet allow filling and removal processes relatively far on both sides. The higher this carrier or another trolley guide is attached, the more the loading width increases downwards.

The drives of the trolley and the gripping mechanism can be designed in any known manner electrically, hydraulically or electrohydraulically, they are omitted for the sake of clarity.

The sliding plates 10 and 11 normally also provide sufficient guidance in the curvature only in a common plane due to the eccentric load resulting from the laterally projecting gripper and the large contact force acting on the almost flat end parts 103 and 101, respectively. An additional form-fitting lateral guide can, however, be advantageous, for example in such a way that one slide plate engages in a groove-shaped recess in the other or approximately the slide plate 10 in the portal opening 16 of the support arm 12. However, a pivotable intermediate member can also be mounted on the cat or a differently designed holder, in which the gripper engages in a form-fitting manner in its stroke end position and is then pivoted up with this intermediate member. Whether with or without such an intermediate link, in the end position it can also be locked mechanically in accordance with FIGS. 7 and 8.

The track for the trolley can be designed in any way, that is, it can also follow a curve shape. Instead of a trolley, almost any other suitable holder can be provided, for example also an elevated work platform or the like that can be moved in different ways.

Claims (12)

1. Apparatus for attaching a grab (3) for agricultural buildings by means of a raising and lowering flexible traction means (4) to a movable support (trolley 25) especially a longitudinally movable trolley (25) on a guide such as a cross girder (24) of a hall travelling crane (23) characterised by a swiveling means (10, 11) provided at the grab (3) and its support (trolley 25) for automatic engaging and supporting the grab (3) on the support when reaching the lifting end position and by a swiveling means (12, 35, 36) for automatic upward swinging of the grab (3) from its hanging position into a lift position up to at least almost in a horizontal plane with the crane girder (24) and traverse to the drive position of its support, respectively its trolley (25).

2. Apparatus according to claim 1 characterised in that a girder (24) forming the guide for the trolley (25) is constructed as a torsion resistant hollow profile or box structure.

3. Apparatus according to claims 1 and 2 characterised in that the swiveling means (12, 35, 36) is equipped to swivel upwards to the right or the left as desired.

4. Apparatus according to one of the claims 1 to 3 characterised in that the swivel means between grab (3) and trolley (25) possesses a support projection (support arm 12) which is laterally offset in respect of the connection of the traction means (4), which support projection determines a first swinging axis (A Fig. 4) when the grab (3) is reaching its lifting end position.

5. Apparatus according to claims 3 and 4 characterised in that the support projection is constructed as a support arm (12) which is transferable from one side of the grab (3) or trolley (25) to an opposite side.

6. Apparatus according to one of the claims 1 to 5 characterised in that on the trolley (25) and the grab (3) there are provided cooperating guide means (10, 11) for guiding the grab (3) in its swinging movement between hanging position (Fig. 3) and lift position (Fig. 7).

7. Apparatus according to claim 6 characterised in that the guide means posses two glide plates (10, 11) which are brought together into contact in which at least the support glide plate (10) is curved convex in the plane of swinging.

8. Apparatus according to claims 4 and 7 characterised in that the support glide plate (10) is constructed to be symmetrical about a middle plane (29) which determines the hanging position of the grab. (3).

9. Apparatus according to claim 8 characterised in that the support glide plate (10) is constructed in the form of a hyperbola with a lower curved component (102) and two at least nearly extended end components (101, 103).

10. Apparatus according to one of the claims 7 to 9 characterised by the construction of the support glide plate (10) as a deflection element of the carrying means (4) in the swinging phase of the grab (3).

11. Apparatus according to one of the claims 4 to 10 with a fixed connection (9) and a lifting connection (33) for the tracting means (4) coming from the grab which connections are provided at opposing sides of a hanging plane (29) of the grab (3) on the trolley (25) characterised in that the positions of the fixed connection (91) and the lifting connection (9) are provided to be changeable especially interchangeable.

12. Apparatus according to claim 11 characterised in that on the side of the fixed connection (9, 31, 91) there is fixed a means of deflection (32) for deflecting the traction means stringer (33) which is guided from the lifting connection (9) to the grab (3).

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