EP0511290A1

EP0511290A1 - Multiple-use vehicle for cleaning ground surfaces

Info

Publication number: EP0511290A1
Application number: EP91903183A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Ernest Dubois
Original assignee: Atn Applications Techniques Nouvelles Sarl
Current assignee: Atn Applications Techniques Nouvelles Sarl
Priority date: 1990-01-19
Filing date: 1991-01-14
Publication date: 1992-11-04
Also published as: AU7076491A; ZA91380B; FR2657369B1; WO1991010780A1; FR2657369A1

Abstract

Véhicule comprenant un châssis (10) monté sur roues (11, 15) supportant un ensemble moteur (70, 74, 76) pour la traction du véhicule et un circuit de puissance mécanique, hydraulique (72, 75, 78) ou électrique. Le châssis présente un logement (50) ouvert vers le bas dans lequel une cartouche (100) peut être insérée et bloquée en position ouverte également vers le bas, cette cartouche contenant des outillages spécifiques au type de nettoyage (122, 124, 130) désiré. Le véhicule comprend de plus des moyens de connexion (78, 79) du circuit de puissance à la cartouche (100) pour animer les outillages.Vehicle comprising a chassis (10) mounted on wheels (11, 15) supporting a motor assembly (70, 74, 76) for traction of the vehicle and a mechanical, hydraulic (72, 75, 78) or electrical power circuit. The frame has a housing (50) open downwards in which a cartridge (100) can be inserted and locked in the open position also downwards, this cartridge containing specific tools for the type of cleaning (122, 124, 130) desired. . The vehicle further comprises means (78, 79) for connecting the power circuit to the cartridge (100) in order to activate the tools.

Description

VERSATILE VEHICLE FOR FLOOR CLEANING

The present invention relates to a self-propelled vehicle that can be equipped with various tools for cleaning floors, and more particularly for cleaning sandy beaches, pebbles or cleaning flat floors, such as pavements or tarred paths. Cleaning the floor consists of removing macro or mini-waste such as cigarettes, syringes, shards and can be accompanied by a bactericidal chemical cleaning by spraying or spraying with a disinfectant liquid. This vehicle can also be used to transport objects.

Numerous cleaning devices of varying sizes are already known, either for pavements and sidewalks, or for snow, or for sandy or pebble beaches. The tooling of these devices being very specific each time, this obliges municipalities or cleaning companies to acquire and maintain a large and varied fleet of devices, which considerably increases budgets as well as maintenance operations.

The purpose of the present invention is a versatile vehicle, that is to say, the cleaning tools can be easily changed to transform this vehicle into this or that other type of cleaning device: for sandy beach , pebbles or level floors, or even transform the vehicle into a simple object transporter.

These aims are achieved by a vehicle comprising a chassis mounted on wheels supporting a motor assembly for the traction of the vehicle and a mechanical, hydraulic or electric power circuit whose chassis has a housing open downwards in which a cartridge can be inserted and locked in position. The cartridge is also open downwards and contains tools specific to the type of cleaning desired. The vehicle further comprises means for connecting the power circuit to the cartridge to animate the tools.

Advantageously, the housing of the cartridge is an oblique duct starting from the rear face of the vehicle and opening out substantially in the middle of the floor of the vehicle.

Advantageously also, the vehicle may further comprise a reservoir of disinfectant liquid, a pump as well as means for spraying the disinfectant liquid and / or means for connecting to the cartridge for supplying means for spraying the disinfectant liquid contained in the cartridge.

Preferably, especially for cleaning coastal environments, the disinfectant liquid is an electrolyzate of sea water.

A cartridge for cleaning the sandy beach provided for the vehicle may include, against the rear of its upper internal face, a jack for advancing in the sand or to retract back into the cartridge a shovel, as well as, against the lower internal face, a sieving belt receiving from the shovel the collected sand which it screens and whose trash it transports in a rear container. Advantageously, the shovel can be completed at the front by a collecting drum and at the rear by a brush.

A cartridge for cleaning the pebble range may include a cylinder at the rear making it possible to advance in the rollers or retract back into the cartridge a casing comprising, at the front, a fin shaft shaking the rollers and, at the rear, a tank of waste sucked in by an air current passing through the stirred rollers then into the casing caused by a fan of the cartridge.

A cartridge for cleaning flat floors may include a cylinder at the rear for advancing towards the ground or retracting back into the cartridge a housing comprising, at the front, a brush sweeping the detritus which are sucked into a tank at the rear of the housing by a forced air flow thanks to a fan of the cartridge.

The invention is described below in more detail with the aid of non-limiting exemplary embodiments illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the rear of the vehicle without tools, FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the front of the vehicle without tools and without wheels,

FIG. 3 is a view in partial longitudinal section of the vehicle during loading of a tool cartridge,

FIG. 4 is a view in partial longitudinal section of the vehicle during unloading of a tool cartridge,

FIG. 5 is a view in partial longitudinal section of the vehicle provided with a cartridge provided for cleaning sandy beaches,

- Figure 6 is a partial longitudinal sectional view of the vehicle fitted with a cartridge provided for cleaning roller pads, - Figure 7 is a partial longitudinal sectional view of the vehicle fitted with a cartridge provided for cleaning flat floors, and

- Figure 8 is a partial longitudinal sectional view of the vehicle provided with a cartridge intended for the transport of objects.

With reference to FIG. 1, the vehicle 10 comprises a chassis, preferably metallic, mounted on two large front and traction and steering wheels and a smaller and insane rear wheel 15, that is to say which can rotate freely. between plus and minus 90 °. The use of only three wheels makes it possible to better define, and therefore distribute, the loads carried by each of they. Of course, if necessary, the crazy rear wheel can be split conventionally. In the front part of the chassis, that is to say on the left in FIG. 1, are assembled an engine assembly for the traction of the vehicle, a mechanical, hydraulic or electric power generation circuit and possibly a reservoir 18 of liquid. disinfectant and its associated spraying circuit. The rear part of the chassis comprises two side walls extending the side walls of the engine assembly and held at the rear in the middle by a transverse bar 14 which can act as a seat or seat support, below by an inclined plane 52 and at the top by a roll bar 16. This roll bar 16 constitutes a safety element for the driver seated on the seat 14 in the event of accidental overturning of the vehicle. In addition, this hoop 16 can be used to support one or more headlights 17 for night work as well as a winch 19 used when loading the tools as will be explained later.

Each internal face of the side walls is provided with an oblique slide 54 and 56 defining with the inclined plane 52 a housing 50 in the form of a duct of substantially rectangular section starting from the rear face of the vehicle and opening out substantially in the middle. vehicle floor. In this housing 50 is subsequently installed a cartridge containing the tools specific to the type of cleaning desired. At the edge of the lower mouth, that is to say facing down, of the housing 50 are provided front and rear retaining bars 59 58, it being understood that these retaining bars could also be located at the lower edge of the side walls. When inserted, the tool cartridge thus constitutes an additional element for the rigidity of the entire vehicle.

As can best be seen in FIG. 2, the engine assembly comprises a heat engine 70, such as a gasoline engine mounted on a self-propelled lawn mower, with a battery 74 for the associated starter. This motor 70 acts on the traction wheels 11 through a gearbox and transmission 76 making it possible to drive one of the wheels more or less relative to the other which, with the rear idler wheel 15, causes a rotation of the vehicle which can thus be guided.

Preferably, the power circuit is hydraulic and comprises a reservoir 75 of hydraulic liquid such as oil, a hydraulic pump 72 driven by the motor 70 and connected to a housing 78 where the fittings for power pipes 79 are joined. subsequently to be connected to the tool cartridges installed in the housing 50. It is also possible to envisage driving each wheel 11 by an independent hydraulic motor 76 and supplied by the hydraulic pump 72. Then, by controlling the hydraulic flow of the two hydraulic motors 76 respectively, the drive of each of the wheels 11 is modulated, therefore the turns can be very short made by the vehicle.

Thanks to its maneuverability, this vehicle is particularly suitable for cleaning small spaces such as, on beaches, corridors between cabins, access areas or play areas. Thus, the preferred dimensions of the vehicle are approximately 2.5 m long by 1 m wide with traction and steering wheels 11 40 cm wide.

If necessary, it is possible to bring on top of the front part a reservoir 18 of disinfectant liquid which is taken up by a pump 77 to be sent either directly to sprayers permanently mounted on the chassis and not shown, or to the connection box 78 in an additional pipe 79 to be subsequently connected to a cartridge which itself has sprayers. Preferably, a seawater electrolyzate is used as disinfectant liquid, effectively destroying exogenous pathogenic germs and subsequently degrading into harmless salts under the action of the ultraviolet rays of the sun.

According to the invention, the tools specific to a type of cleaning are contained in a cartridge 100 illustrated in FIG. 3 open at the bottom and whose external shape corresponds to the duct 50. During its loading or unloading, or during its storage in the workshop , the opening towards the bottom of the cartridge 100 can be closed by a cover 101 then giving the assembly a generally parallelepiped shape. For loading and / or unloading operations, climbing ramps are provided such as that designated by the reference 90 in FIG. 3 or 91 in FIG. 4. The climbing ramp 90 is concave and its climbing plane is preferably lined with a sheet of hard material with low coefficient of friction such as aluminum foil or teflon. The climb plane 91 is convex and can, in this case, consist of a series of transverse rollers on which the cartridge can roll.

As illustrated in FIG. 3, one begins, during a cartridge loading operation, by setting up the climb ramp 90 or 91 against the rear of the vehicle. Then the cable 92 of the winch 19 located at the top of the arch 16 is unwound. The winch 19 is then engaged at low speed and the cable 92 pulls the cartridge 100 from position 1 to position 2 until a stop not shown. and located in the lower part of the inlet of the conduit 50. If this has not already been done, and depending on the weight of the cartridge, a second cable, not shown, is then hooked to the rear allowing it to be retained -this in his subsequent movements. The winding of the cable 92 which lifts the cartridge is then continued, the stop is removed and the cartridge is engaged in the conduit 50 as illustrated by position 3. Finally, the possible cover 101 is removed to reveal the tools which can then be advanced down towards the ground.

For the unloading operation, we first check that all the tools are retracted inside the cartridge, then replace, if necessary, the cover 101 closing the opening of the cartridge 100. We then install d on the one hand the unloading ramp 91 against the rear face of the vehicle as well as a bracket 94 carrying a pulley 96 at the rear of the roll bar 16. The cable 92 can then be pulled from the winch 19 which is wraps around the pulley 96 before hooking to the rear of the cartridge 100. When the winch 19 is engaged, the pulling of the cable 92 has the effect of removing the cartridge 100 from the housing 50. Once the front edge of the cartridge, in this case the cover 101, arrived at the start of the ramp 91, there is a cleat at the entrance to the conduit 50 preventing the cartridge from returning to the latter then, when the cable 92 is released , the cartridge 100 is lowered automatically to slide downhill along the ramp 91.

FIG. 5 illustrates, in longitudinal section, the tool associated with cleaning fine sand contained in a cartridge 100. This tool firstly comprises a shovel 110 put forward or retracted by means of a jack 118 located in the upper part of the internal face of the cartridge 100. The sand collected by this shovel 110 is brought from a screening belt 130 situated parallel to the lower internal face of the cartridge 100. The fine sand passes through the screen 130 while the waste are transported through the cartridge 100 to a rear container 115. The sand falling to the ground at the outlet of the screen belt 130 is sprayed with a disinfectant liquid using sprayers 132. Advantageously, the disinfectant liquid is an electrolyzate of biodegradable seawater. To promote the rise of the sand along the shovel 110, this can be completed by a small beater drum 124 projecting the sand behind and followed by a brush 122 breaking any clumps of wet sand that may form. FIG. 6 illustrates in longitudinal section a cartridge containing a tool specially designed for cleaning rollers. This cartridge 200 comprises a casing 224 pushed forward or withdrawn by a jack 218. As illustrated, this casing 224 forms, with its rounded front wall 234, its side walls and the rear flexible wall 226, a chamber inside which rotates a shaft 230 provided with fins stirring the rollers which it projects against the flexible wall 226. Furthermore, a fan of sufficient and adjustable power puts the front chamber under vacuum, that is to say that a current d air carries all light waste through a duct in an internal tank 224 of the housing. The fan inlet is fitted with a filter.

FIG. 7 illustrates in section a cartridge 300 containing a tool specifically designed for cleaning flat hard floors. This cartridge comprises, similarly to the cartridge 200, a casing 324 advanced and withdrawn by a jack 318. The front opening 326 surrounds a brush 322 through which a stream of air sucked in by the fan 320 protected by a filter 325. Thus, the dust and other detritus lifted by the brush 322 are taken into an internal reservoir in the casing 324.

FIG. 8 illustrates a cartridge 400 empty but provided with a lower bottom constituting a trunk in which various objects can be transported.

As we have seen from this presentation, the structure of the vehicle 10 allows on the one hand to bring together in a part before all common parts whatever the type of cleaning: motor assembly for traction and steering, hydraulic, even mechanical or electrical power generation circuit for tools as well as a possible tank and pump for disinfectant liquid; and on the other hand a sufficient housing 50 in which can be inserted different cartridges each containing the tool specific to a given type of cleaning. The connection points between the box 78 and a cartridge connection box systematically located in correspondence make it possible to transmit to the tools of the cartridge the energy necessary for its operation.

One can also provide connection means making it possible to attach two vehicles to treat corridors whose width is twice that of an individual vehicle. It is then necessary to provide the set of management means, possibly computerized, making it possible to judiciously distribute the driving power on each wheel there during a turn. This vehicle can also be supplemented with automatic piloting means identical to those installed in the autoguided trolleys present in industrial stores. Other improvements can be made in the context of the present invention.

Claims

1. Multipurpose vehicle for cleaning floors comprising a chassis (10) mounted on wheels (11,15) supporting an engine assembly (70,74,76) for the traction of the vehicle and a mechanical, hydraulic power circuit (72,75 , 78) or electrical characterized in that the chassis has a housing (50) open downwards into which a cartridge (100) can be inserted and locked in the open position also downwards, this cartridge containing tools specific to the type of cleaning (122,124,130) desired, and in that the vehicle comprises means (78,79) of connection of the power circuit to the cartridge (100) to animate the tools.

2. Multipurpose vehicle for cleaning floors according to 'claim 1, characterized in that the housing (50) is an oblique conduit starting from the rear face of the vehicle and opening substantially in the middle of the vehicle floor.

3. Multipurpose vehicle for cleaning floors according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that it further comprises a reservoir (18) of disinfectant liquid, a pump (77) as well as means for spraying the disinfectant liquid and / or connecting means (78, 79) to the cartridge (100) for supplying spray means (132) of the disinfectant liquid contained in the cartridge.

4. Multipurpose vehicle for cleaning floors according to claim 3, characterized in that the disinfectant liquid is an electrolyzate of sea water.

5. Cartridge (100) for cleaning the sandy beach provided for a vehicle according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that it comprises, against the rear of its upper internal face, a jack (118) making it possible to advance in the sand or retract back into the cartridge a shovel (110), and in that it comprises, against the lower internal face, a sieving belt (130) receiving from the shovel (110) the sand collected that it screens and which it transports the rubbish in a rear container (115).

6. Cartridge (100) for cleaning a sandy beach according to claim 5, characterized in that the shovel (110) is completed at the front by a collecting drum (124) and at the rear by a brush (122 ).

7. Cartridge (200) for cleaning the range of rollers provided for a vehicle according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that it comprises a jack (218) at the rear for advancing in the rollers or retracting back in the cartridge a casing (224) comprising, at the front, a fin shaft (230) stirring the rollers and, at the rear, a reservoir (224) of waste sucked in by a forced air stream through the stirred rollers and then from the casing by a fan (220) of the cartridge.

8. Cartridge (300) for cleaning flat floors provided for a vehicle according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that it comprises a jack (318) at the rear for advancing towards the ground or retracting from back into the cartridge a casing (324) comprising, at the front, a brush (322) sweeping the detritus which is sucked into a tank (324) at the rear of the casing by a forced air current thanks to a fan (320) of the cartridge.