EP2508659A1

EP2508659A1 - System for collecting and recovering spooling scraps

Info

Publication number: EP2508659A1
Application number: EP12162025A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Roberto Badiali; Mauro Ceolin; Giorgio Colomberotto
Original assignee: Savio Macchine Tessili SpA
Current assignee: Savio Macchine Tessili SpA
Priority date: 2011-04-08
Filing date: 2012-03-29
Publication date: 2012-10-10
Anticipated expiration: 2032-03-29
Also published as: CN102861740B; ITMI20110585A1; CN102861740A; EP2508659B1

Abstract

Device for collecting the scraps produced by a spooler both for "dust removal" and for the pieces of yarn, wherein the spooling units are served by single aspirators that individually equip each spooling unit, and are each equipped with a separating filter for the dust and for the pieces of yarn, which collects both materials. All of the filters are connected through a common duct to a common suctioning filter for collecting the spooling scraps that, periodically treating an individual filter at a time, discharges and receives without selection the material retained by such individual filters.

Description

The present invention refers to a device for collecting and recovering the scraps produced during the spooling process by the units that constitute the automatic spooler.
In industral practice, it is common to use the technique of producing yarns in a spinning stage followed by a spooling stage wherein the yarn is unwound from its spool, purified of its defects and rewound in a reel. Spoolers indeed consist of a plurality of spooling units aligned along the front of the machine and provided with common control and service equipments. Among such common service equipments there are the devices for preparing the spools to be unwound in the spooling units.
As already described in the previous Italian patent application IT 2009A2013 in the name of the same Applicant, the scheme of a spooling unit is illustrated in its essential components in figure 1 that shows the path of the yarn 2 from the lower spool 1 to the upper collecting reel 12, as follows:

3. group of members for guiding the yarn,
4. the sensor for detecting the presence of the yarn,
5. thread tightener 5,
6. end joining device, known as thread joiner, served by
9,10. suction mouths for catching and delivering the ends,
11. slubcatcher,
12. collection reel, actuated in rotation by the
13. roller, and rests supported by
14. the reel-carrying arm,
15. spool positioning pin 1,
20. one or more suction mouths by the spool 1 in order to eliminate the impurities, substantially consisting of hair and fluff that develop while the spooling is in function, commonly called "dust removal".

Again according to the cited application IT 2009A2013 to the same Applicant, both the non continuous and high head suction service, for recovering the ends through the mouths 9 and 10, and the continuous low head service, for dust removal through the mouths 20 are carried out through an individual aspirator 22, one for each of the winding units aligned along the front of the machine. Such an aspirator consists of a rotary aspirator with a centrifugal impeller 25 actuated through a "brushless" electric motor 26 controlled in frequency by the control unit 16 of the winding unit.
The mouth 20 of the "dust removal" service with continuous low vacuum suction is connected through a duct 30 to the suction unit of the winding unit, intercepted through a gate valve 31, controlled by the control unit 16 of the winding unit and normally kept open during the normal winding process. The mouths 9 and 10 work discontinuously with high vacuum suction during the interruptions to normal winding. They are respectively connected through a duct 34 to the suction unit 22 of the winding unit, intercepted through a gate valve 35, controlled by the control unit 16 of the winding unit and normally kept closed during the normal winding process. The gate valve 35 is only opened on occasion of the joining interventions. Basically, the individual suction unit 22 that equips the single winding unit 23 serves either the duct 30 of the low vacuum "dust removal" service or the duct 34 of the high vacuum suction.
The different vacuum values required for the two alternative suction services are obtained by actuating the centrifugal aspirator 22 at different speeds, which has characteristic curves of the suction vacuum ΔP that varies inversely to the flow rate in volume, according to a band of curves parallel and increasing with the increase in rotation speed, as already described in the cited application IT 2009A2013 in the name of the same Applicant.
In the prior art, for example in patent application EP 2.045.378 to Murata , just the "dust removal" service for spinning units is described, for retaining "fly waste". Such a service is carried out by continuously suctioning such "fly waste" through a collector from one or more spinning units and then separating it from the transportation air through a cyclone separator. Such a prior art document does not consider the technical problem of alternately collecting dust and fluff through the same filtering device, jointly discharging them and then separating them to recover the fluff, nor the cyclones present in document EP 2.045.378 would be able to work the two materials.
According to the present invention the two ducts 30 and 34 of each spooling station are connected to a common filter 50, individual for each spooling station, which has the function of retaining the material picked up and transported through the suction and in particular it retains both the impurities of the "dust removal" collected through the spooling while functioning and the pieces of yarn, the so-called "fluff", removed by the suctioning of the aspirator 22, when it is connected to the mouths 9 and 10 and actuated at high depression when the spooling is interrupted.
In each spooling station, the individual filter 50 can be equipped with a single fine mesh filtering sect that retains all of the material: both the impurities and the fluff.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, shown in the detail of figure 2 in an axonometric view, the individual filter 50 consists of two filtering chambers in series, of a hopper 55 below for collecting the separated fluff. The first filtering chamber is equipped with a rougher mesh filtering sect 51 that retains the "fluff", which is removed by the high-depression suction by the aspirator 22, when it is connected to the mouths 9 and 10 and actuated at high depression. The second filtering chamber, downstream of the first, is equipped with a fine mesh filtering sect 52 for the impurities, consisting of hair and fibres, which on the other hand pass freely through the rougher filtering sect 51 that constitutes the first filtering chamber, both during filtering and during cleaning of the filter. The rougher mesh filtering sect has a hole dimension of the order of 20 mesh, whereas the fine mesh filtering sect has a hole dimension of the order of 800 mesh.
The filtering sects of the filter 50, both in the embodiment with a single filtering chamber and in the embodiment with a double filtering chamber in series, are preferably arranged to receive, from below, the flow of fluid containing the material to be separated, so that, when the suction flow at high depression stops, most of the rough material intercepted and retained by the filtering sect 51 falls spontaneously downwards into the hopper 55 below, freeing the first of the filtering sects.
In general, the amount of material to be retained mainly consists of fluff. The linear size of the fluff can indeed range from a few centimetres, in the normal preparation of the join of the yarn, up to ten or even more metres, for long defects of the count of the yarn detected through the slubcatcher. Again in general, the impurities of the "dust removal" have an average size of about a millimetre or slightly more.
In industrial practice, the material separated and recovered through the filters is generally recycled to carding, in order to recover the fibres that constitute the fluff. In such a processing, the impurities and the short fibres possibly present in the recovered material are separated and removed, keeping just the fibres of acceptable length being processed.
The realization of the filter with a double filtering chamber in series, shown in figure 2, allows a greater accumulation of material before the overall load loss of the filter requires the discharging operation of the material. In the first filtering chamber, during the filtering of the fluff deriving from the search for the ends for joining the yarn, the fluff is substantially stopped by the rough filtering sect and, when the suction at high depression stops, it mostly falls and accumulates on the bottom of the filter.
From the bottom of the filters 50, which the spooling stations are equipped with, the accumulated material is periodically discharged, respectively, through ducts 53, intercepted through a shutter 54, which gather in a common discharge collector 70. On the opposite upper side, the filters 50 are equipped with a waste valve 57, which is opened for the discharge operations of the material accumulated in the filters 50. The opening of such waste valves 57 preferably isolates the filter 50 from its aspirator 22.
Figure 3 illustrates the assembly of the collection system of spooling scraps. All of the individual discharges 53 of the spooling units 23 are connected to a common collector 70, which collects all of the material separated in the respective filters 50.
The devices 63 for preparing the spools can also be advantageously connected to the collector 70, for example as described in patent application IT 2009 A 2011 and herein shown schematically. Such devices generate a significant amount of residuals of yarn pieces, suctioned through an individual aspirator 64, deposited in mesh filters 65 and discharged through a duct 68, through a scheme equipped with discharging shutters 66 and with waste valves 67 totally analogous to that of the filters 50 of the spooling units according to figure 1.
All of the filters 50 and 65 are connected through the collector 70 to a collective system for collecting their scraps, consisting of a duct having a small size that is arranged along the machine and that receives the flow coming from all of the spooling units 23 and, preferably, also from the devices 63 for preparing the spools. The collector 70 is served by a high-depression aspirator 71, which provides for periodically discharging the material of the filters through pneumatic transportation to a general filter 80 that is described in greater details in figures 4 and 5. In order to avoid clogging, the transportation speed in the duct 70 is kept around 20 m/sec.
The discharging needs of the material retained by the filters are very variable, according to the yarns treated in the spooler. In general, the greater discharging frequency is required by the devices 63 for preparing the spools, which require cleaning of their filters 65 even every 10-20 minutes, in the order of magnitude of a few hundred spools prepared.
The filters 50 which the spooling stations 23 are equipped with, on the other hand, in general require cleaning with a period of the order of magnitude of an hour, in the case of filters having a single fine mesh filtering sect that retains all of the material: both dust and fluff. In case the filters 50 are realized with a double filtering chamber in series, as shown in figure 2, such a cleaning frequency is reduced, increasing the intervals between one cycle and the other by about 40-50%, unless very hairy yarns are processed.
Such cleaning is preferably carried out for one filter 50 at a time while its spooling unit 23 is operating. The operation requires a few seconds and is carried out, for the spooling units 23, firstly by opening their waste valves 57, preferably isolating their filter 50 from the aspirator 22, closing the valves 31,35 towards the spooling unit 23 and then opening the discharge valve 54 on the duct 53, with the aspirator 71 in action. The cleaning of the filter is thus prevented from affecting the spooling in its normal operation. The suctioning through the aspirator 71 draws air from the waste valves 57 and empties the filters 50 of the material accumulated bringing it into the general filter 80 through the collector 70.
The general filter 80 can be a conventional filter that separates and indistinctly discharges the fluff together with the fine impurities, recycling them to carding. In the carding process of dust, tufts, "neps" and short fibres are eliminated from the production cycle.
According to a preferred embodiment of the invention the general filter 80 is made to obtain a classification of the material in a double cyclone system, illustrated in greater details in figure 4 as an overall scheme; in figures 5A,B the cyclones are shown in section to describe their operation.
With reference to figures 4 and 5A, the filtering system 80 consists of a pair of cyclones in series placed in depression through the aspirator 71. The first cyclone 81 is fed by the duct 70 through a suctioned air flow containing both fluff and other impurities coming from the filters 50 and 65 that are gradually cleaned, opening their waste valves 57 and 67 and their shutters 54 and 66. The flow to be filtered is introduced into the cyclone 81 in the upper part and with tangential direction, generating a spiral motion descending downwards. As a result of the effect of the centrifugal force, the particulate of greater dimensions, the fluff, comes out of the flow and by inertia comes into contact with and slows down against the inner conical walls of the cyclone: as a result of the effect of gravity, the particulate slides and accumulates at the bottom of the conical hopper 82, from which it is periodically discharged through the shutter 83. Such a particulate essentially consists of fluff that can be recycled.
The cyclone 81 works discontinuously and operates as a separator of the fluff from the particulate, unlike what is described in the cited EP 2.045.378 .
As a result of the effect of the pressure difference between the tangential inlet opening 85 and the upper outlet opening 86, the air flow inverts the sense of its motion and rises in a tight spiral upwards to the discharge opening 86 in axis with the cyclone 81, also taking the smaller sized residual particulate with it in the duct 87.
As also illustrated in figure 5B, the flow of the duct 87 is introduced into the second cyclone 91, in particular in its lower conical part 92 and with tangential direction into the opening 94. Like for the cyclone 81, also here a spiral motion descending downwards is generated. As a result of the effect of the centrifugal force, the medium-sized particulate comes out of the flow, by inertia comes into contact with and slows down against the inner conical walls of the cyclone: as a result of the effect of gravity the medium-sized particulate slides and accumulates at the bottom of the conical hopper 92, from which it is periodically discharged through the shutter 95. Also here, the air flow containing the finer particulate inverts the sense of its motion and rises spiralling upwards to the upper part 93 of the second cyclone 91. Such an upper part 93 is cylinder-shaped and, in its central part, it is occupied by a filtering cartridge 96, which intercepts the ascending flow and sorts and retains the residual particulate.
Unlike what is described by document EP 2.045.378 , the finer particulate consisting of the "fly" - the dust and hair lost by the processed yarn - cannot be significantly separated through just the cyclone configuration of the second separator 91, especially when operating discontinuously like in the device according to the present invention.
The hole dimension of the filtering cartridge is of the order of 15 µm. Such a filtering cartridge is preferably cylindrical, in a common axis with the cyclone 91, equipped with a blind hole 97 and with a blind upper crown 98, so as to force the air flow to pass through its cylindrical filtering surface, with the flows indicated with the arrows, and then to come out of the upper opening 100 towards the aspirator 71 and its release into the atmosphere.
Above the cartridge 96 a diffuser 102 of compressed air for washing the cartridge is placed, connected to the service compressed air. During the cleaning operations of the individual filters 50 and 65 of the spooler the load loss, i.e. the differential pressure, between the upward and downward positions of the cartridge 96, is constantly checked, for example through the differential manometer 103. When such a measurement reaches a predetermined value, at the end of the cleaning cycle the aspirator 71 is stopped and its discharge is closed. Then the cartridge 96 is cleaned, simultaneously opening the solenoid valve 104 and the shutter 95 of the hopper 92 and injecting compressed air through the diffuser 102. In this way a "counter-washing" is carried out from inside to outside that frees the particulate retained on the outer surface of the cartridge 96.
The individual filters 50 are cleaned one at a time by opening their valves 54 and their respective waste valves 57 in sequence. For the filters 65 of the preparation devices 63 the procedure is totally analogous. Through the aspirator 71 a suctioning depression of 10-13 kPa, or 1000-1300 mm of water column is applied. Such depression values refer to the depression exerted in the filters 50 and 65 to be cleaned, whereas the depression values in the members downstream are affected by the load losses of the overall circuit.
The discharging device of the spooling scraps according to the present invention also allows such discharging to be carried out through a single duct, and furthermore one with a small diameter, and through low suctioning powers installed, since it is provided for discharging one filter at a time. The number of filters installed for the spooling units and the relative intercepting shutters is reduced to the minimum, as well as the relative command and control members.

Claims

A device for collecting the scraps produced by a spooler, consisting of a plurality of spooling units (23) aligned and served by a suctioning system consisting of a plurality of individual aspirators (22) which individually equip each spooling unit (23), wherein each single spooler (22) alternately provides a low depression continuous suction, while the spooling is in function, either for the removal service of impurities and of the hair of the yarn, i.e. a "dust removal service", or a high depression discontinuous suction, for eliminating pieces of yarn, i.e. fluff, deriving from the catching and junction operations of the yarn, while the spooling is interrupted, characterized in that each individual aspirator (22) is provided with a separating filter (50) of the suctioned material, such filter alternately receiving and retaining impurities and fluff, and in that all filters (50) of the spooling stations (23) forming the spooler are connected through a common duct (70) to a common general filter (80) for collecting scraps that it periodically discharges and it receives the material retained by such filters (50), one at a time and for both materials.
The device for collecting scraps produced by a spooler according to claim 1, characterized in that the individual filter (50) is realized with two filtering chambers in series, of which the first filtering chamber is provided with a rougher mesh filtering sect (51) which retains the fluff, suctioned by the high depression aspirator by the aspirator (22), and the second filtering chamber, placed downstream of the first one, is provided with a fine mesh filtering sect (52) which retains the impurities.
The device for collecting the scraps produced by a spooler according to claim 2, characterized in that the two filtering chambers in series are realized with the rougher mesh having a dimension of the holes of the order of 20 mesh and with the fine mesh having a dimension of the order of 800 mesh.
The device for collecting the scraps produced by a spooler according to claim 1, characterized in that spool preparation devices (63) which equip the spooler are also connected to it, in order to discharge the respective filters (65) which collect a significant amount of residuals of yarn pieces.
The device for collecting the scraps produced by a spooler according to claim 1, characterized in that the common general filter (80) for collecting spooling scraps is realized to obtain a classification of the material in a double cyclone system, formed by a pair of cyclones (81,91) in series, placed in depression with the aspirator (71) and fed by the duct (70) with a suctioned air flow, containing both fluff and impurities, of which the first cyclone (81) sorts out the fluff and the second cyclone (91) sorts out the residual particulate, such cyclones being provided in their lower part with conical hoppers and discharging shutters (83,95).
The device for collecting the scraps produced by a spooler according to claim 5, characterized in that the upper part (93) of the second cyclone (91) is occupied by a filtering cartridge (96) which intercepts the ascending flow and sorts and retains the residual particulate.
The device for collecting the scraps produced by a spooler according to claim 6, characterized in that the dimension of the pores of the filtering cartridge (96) is of the order of 15 µm.
The device for collecting the scraps produced by a spooler according to claim 6, characterized in that the filtering cartridge (96) is cylindrical, with a common axis with the cyclone (91) and disposed so that it forces the air flow to pass through its cylindrical surface and thus to exit from the upper opening (100) towards the aspirator (71) and its discharge to the atmosphere.
The device for collecting the scraps produced by a spooler according to claim 6, characterized in that over the filtering cartridge (96) a diffuser (102) for compressed air is placed, for washing the cartridge, connected to the service compressed air.
The device for collecting the scraps produced by a spooler according to claim 6, characterized in that between the upstream and downstream of the cartridge (96) a differential manometer (103) is installed, in order to measure the loss of charge in the cartridge itself.