EP1893829A1

EP1893829A1 - Transportable apparatus for continuous manufacturing of panels and the like

Info

Publication number: EP1893829A1
Application number: EP05761356A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Maurizio Morandi
Original assignee: Metecno SpA
Current assignee: Metecno SpA
Priority date: 2005-05-20
Filing date: 2005-05-20
Publication date: 2008-03-05
Also published as: PA8675901A1; AR060005A1; PE20070027A1; WO2006123373A1; TW200640607A

Abstract

The invention relates to a novel inline plant for the continuous manufacturing of insulating panels and the like, wherein the machines (3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18) are housed inside containers (30’, 31’, 36’, 39’, 42’, 47’, 50’, 56’, 58’, 61’, 63’, 66’, 69’, 72’, 75’) which are open on several sides so as to be intercommunicating. In particular, in the plant there are empty containers adjacent to those central in the line, intended to form additional space for the persons working in the production plant.

Description

TRANSPORTABLE APPARATUS FOR CONTINUOUS MANUFACTURING OF

PANELS AND THE LIKE

The invention relates generally to inline industrial production plants. As is known, the industrial mass production of many products is carried out nowadays using inline plants, i.e. with an aligned arrangement of the various apparatus (presses, machine tools and the like) which enables high production levels to be achieved, starting from a raw material or the initial semi-finished product and ending with a finished product

For example, in the field of industrial production of insulating panels various methods are ^' known and implemented with inline plants patented by the applicant for the present case, depending on the type of panel to be produced; thus, in the case of curved panels, reference may be made to the international patent application PCT/IT2003/000074, while for other types of panel it is possible to consider the international patent applications PCT/IT2002/000162 and PCT/IT2002/000479, which are all in the name of the present applicant.

From a logistic point of view, the above mentioned plants are usually installed in industrial sheds and are dismantled when they must be dismissed or transferred; for this purpose the various disassembled apparatus are sent to their destination where they are then reassembled in order to build up again the production line, as it was originally. All of this involves a considerable deployment of means and manpower, thereby making it difficult to transfer the production lines from one country to another, contrary to the increasingly widespread need in the modern industrial world of being able to transfer production plants quickly and at a low costs.

For example reference should be made to the well- established trend of transferring industrial manufacturing processes into underdeveloped countries, where the cost of labour is cheaper, or of moving productions to areas of the world where there is an increasing demand, in particular for those products affected by higher transportation costs, such as the insulating panels mentioned above.

By transferring the plants it is possible to reduce the production costs and amortize more efficiently the investments for new industrial plants. However, the present state of the art is limited essentially at providing the possibility of transportation of individual machines, inside respective containers of the type commonly used for moving goods by sea or by road (with lorries) .

This does not allow to reduce time and costs below certain limits because it is required in any. case to load the machines into the containers, remove them from the latter and then reassemble anew the production line: the technical problem underlying the present invention is therefore that of providing a plant for the industrial manufacturing of products in general and in particular panels, which may be dismantled, transported and reassembled simply and rapidly.

The idea for solving this problem consists in arranging the various apparatus forming the line, inside containers preferably of the type commonly used for the transportation of goods, but having walls which are removable or in any case which are open on several sides, thereby allowing to align the containers for forming the production line and thus to arrange alongside them other containers, to be used as a covered side space around the production plant.

More characterizing features of the plant according to the invention are set forth in the claims accompanying this description; they will emerge more clearly from the embodiment shown hereinbelow with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein:

Fig. 1 shows a side view of a production line for insulating panels, built in accordance with the invention;

Fig. 2 shows a plan view of the production line according to Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 shows a cross-sectional view along the line III-III of Fig. 2.

The figures show a line for the production of insulating panels of the known type, for example those produced by the present applicants; these panels have in general a composite structure with a central insulating core consisting of polyurethane foam and/or mineral wool, arranged between two outer surfaces consisting of profiled sheet metal; for further information on this argument reference should be made, among others, to the international patent applications cited before.

In the line considered above two metal strips 1, 2 are unwound from respective reels and fed in a superimposed arrangement along the plant; the strip 2 is situated at a lower height than the strip 1 and passes through two series of profiling rollers 3 and 4, so as to form the typical ribs for stiffering the metal sheet, as usually occurs in these cases.

Downstream of the profiling rollers the upper strip 1 converges towards the lower strip 2 and both enter into a pre-heating oven 6, after which there is a station 8 for the application of the polyurethane resin; the latter is also of the known type and is intended to expand to form the insulating core of the panels .

For this purpose the strips 1 and 2 enter into a continuous press 10 which keeps them at a predefined distance, counteracting the force generated by expansion of the resin according to what normally occurs in processes for the continuous production of insulating panels.

A continuous semi-finished product is therefore obtained at the outlet from the press and is cut by a cutter 12 to make the ready-to-measure panels which are then placed on a bench 14; in this example of the invention, the manufacturing line also comprises an overturning station 16 where the panels are turned over so that they can then be arranged on top of each other in the stacking station 18, with the ribbed sides facing each other.

The plant may also comprise other machines in addition to those considered, such as for example a final packaging station or a painting station as well as, obviously, other components such as rollerways, guides, sensors, etc., not mentioned explicitly above since they are known per se and used in panel production plants.

As can be appreciated, the main feature of the present invention is that of having the components of the line housed inside containers (preferably of the type used for transport by sea and/or land of goods, which may have varying dimensions) open on several sides depending on their position, so as to create intercommunicating spaces between containers aligned longitudinally and those alongside the production line. Fig. 2 shows the layout of the containers and the production line considered above, where the profiles of the containers are distinguished by numbers with an apostrophe; Fig. 3 instead shows in detail a cross- sectional view of the plant.

As can be seen, the containers which house the apparatus (i.e. the winding spindles with the reels containing the strips 1 and 2, the profiling rollers 3 and 4, the oven 6, etc.) for the production of panels are aligned so as to form a central succession, along which respective rows of containers empty or intended for ancillary production needs (storing of strip material, tools or the like) are arranged.

The containers have the form of a parallelepiped where the bottom and top faces are respectively made with a reinforced surface on the floor and a with roof, while they are open along one or more of the lateral sides; for this purpose they can be originally made without dividing walls or be provided with removable walls .

For example the containers of the central row which house the machinery of the line are open on all sides, so as to be interconnected both to the containers upstream and downstream along the line and to those which are arranged on the adjacent sides; Fig. 3 shows in detail this situation where the central container 47' which houses a series of profiling rollers 4, is open on both sides for being interconnected to the adjacent containers 46' and 48'

(obviously this container is also open at its longitudinal ends so as to allow the strips 1 and 2 to pass through) .

The adjacent containers 46' ,48' are empty so as to allow people at work to move along them during production; in the case of Fig. 3, the container 48' is closed towards the outside (i.e. on the opposite side to that of the production line) , while the container 46' is flanked by two other containers 44' and 45' intended to form additional production spaces (i.e. for a store, offices or the like) .

The containers 46', 47' and 48' are also open at their longitudinal ends so as to communicate with the upstream and downstream containers in the plant.

As referred farther above, all of the containers are open on one or more sides or have in any case removable walls for this purpose; they have, however, a bearing structure formed by the usual corner blocks 20 from which uprights 22 and longitudinal beams (not shown in the drawings) extending there between: when the production line is laid down, the structures supporting the containers are connected together by means which are known per se, such as tie-rods, bolts and the like, thereby rendering them solid with each other. A bearing structure of this type has the advantage that it allows stacking of the containers, useful both for their transport (in particular by ship) and if necessary for creating more space towards up for the machines, along the production line. In accordance with a preferred, embodiment of the invention, a removable cover 24 consisting of tarpaulins or insulating panels is arranged in connection with the containers which house the components of the line and those adjacent thereto (see Fig. 3) , positioned above the fixed upper face 25 of the containers so as to create a ventilation gap and protect them from direct exposure to solar radiation. Finally it must be added that the containers are provided with wires, power sockets, pipes and everything else needed for supplying electric power and fluids necessary for operation of the machinery and for production. From the above description it can be understood how the plant considered above solves the technical problem underlying the invention.

Indeed, for dismantling the production line it is sufficient to disconnect from each other the various containers and transport them as they are (by land or sea) to their destination; for reassembling the^' line it is sufficient to perform the same operations, in reverse order.

In this context it is important to emphasize that the invention differs significantly from the known transport and installation systems of operating modules for objects or persons, such as for example those described in the international patent application PCT/FR97/01190 or US patent No. 6,393,775. These operating modules are independent units consisting of containers which house inside them objects or apparatus of various kinds (electric power generator sets, fuel supply tanks, etc.) operating autonomously; indeed, although several containers may be grouped close to each other, they cannot be connected together so as to form a single space equivalent to a shed where an industrial production line may be housed, as in the case of the present invention .

In particular, according to the state of the art there is no teaching of providing containers which are open on all sides like those along the central row in the example described above, in order to allow the longitudinal feeding of the metal strips and the continuous execution of the various steps involved in the production of insulating panels; furthermore, the known art does not envisage the presence of empty containers adjacent to the central ones, so as to form spaces intercommunicating therewith and designed to allow persons or objects to pass along the production line.

Obviously the invention should not be regarded as limited only to the production of insulating panels, since it may also be applied to other inline production processes; for example, various plants intended to manufacture articles from strip materials (also of non- metallic nature) or- plants for the packaging or canning of finished, liquid and other products.

It is therefore obvious that depending on the different types of production, changes with respect to the plant of the example above may occur.

For instance, there may be cases where secondary branches converge transversely into the central production line, like in the case of lines where the assembly of parts supplied by secondary branches is performed.

These and other similar variations nevertheless fall within the scope of the claims which follow.

Claims

1. Plant for the continuous manufacturing of products in general, where a plurality of apparatus (3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18) are arranged inline to carry out the steps of the production process, characterized in that the apparatus are housed inside containers (30¹, 31', 36', 39', 42', 47', 50', 56', 58', 61', 63', 66', 69', 72', 75') communicating with each other.

2. Plant according to Claim 1, comprising a plurality of containers (35', 37', 38', 40', 41', 43',

46', 48', 49', 51', 52', 54', 55', 57', 58', 60', 62',

64', 65', 67', 71', 73', 74', 76') alongside^' those housing the apparatus (3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18) and communicating with them, so as to define adjacent spaces which are empty or suitable for accessorial production services.

3. Plant according to Claims 1 or 2, wherein the containers (30 '-76') have removable walls or are open on several sides, so as to allow them to be aligned and/or arranged alongside each other, thereby rendering them intercommunicating.

4. Plant according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the containers (30-76') are connected together removably.

5. Plant according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the containers are of the standard type used for the transport of goods by sea or land, with a bearing structure comprising corner blocks (20) , uprights (22) and longitudinal beams.

6. Plant according to any one of the preceding claims, intended for the continuous production of insulating panels, in which there are one or more apparatus chosen from the group which comprises: a pair of winding spindles for supporting reels of strip material (1, 2), series of profiling rollers (3, 4), a pre-heating oven (6), a device for applying resin (8), a continuous press (10), a cutter (12), an overturning device (16) and a stacking device (18).

7. Plant according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the containers (30¹, 31', 36', 39', 42', 47', 50', 56', 58', 61', 63', 66', 69', 72', 75') are equipped with wires and pipes for supplying electric power and fluids necessary for continuous production.