GB1160350A - Method and Apparatus for Cooling Tyres During Post Inflation. - Google Patents

Abstract

1,160,350. Moulding pneumatic tyres. UNIROYAL, Inc. 9 Nov., 1967 [22 Nov., 1966(2)], No. 50972/67. Heading B5A. In a method and apparatus for cooling a pneumatic tyre during a post-inflation treatment after removal from a moulding press, jets of cooling air are directed on to the tyre, the temperature and flow rate thereof being such as to achieve a rate of heat transfer from the tyre to the air of between 15 and 70 B.T.U./hour/ square foot of tyre surface area/degree fahrenheit of temperature difference between the tyre surface and the air. The air may be taken directly from the curing room atmosphere or it may be cooled. In one embodiment, after removal from the press, the tyre T is received on a chuck 22 at the end of an arm 23 pivoted at 23a, it is then inflated and swung by a pressure cylinder 29 into the stationary half 31 of a cooling structure; the other half 32 is then lowered to surround the tyre whereupon jets of air flow from parallel rows of orifices 45 located around the cylindrical inner wall 36 of the structure. The latter is supplied by a blower 43 which feeds the halves via ducts 42 and 50; the ducts supply a chamber 37 of each half via a perforated wall 38 and an outermost wedge-shaped chamber 41. In a modification, Fig. 5, not shown, the cylindrical perforated inner wall of the structure has frusto-conical surfaces (53, 54) extending radially-inwardly therefrom and provided with rows of outlets (57, 58). In the embodiment of Fig. 6, a quadruple postinflation equipment 21a is provided, and includes two pairs of post-inflation chucks 63, 64 pivoted about an axis 66 so that one or other pair, with inflated tyres attached, is raised into, or lowered from, a pair of cooling chambers C2 located side-by-side and supplied with cooling air by a blower 92 and a common supply duct, The cooling structure is carried by arms 71 pivoted at 73 to a framework 100, so that it can be raised and lowered by pressure cylinders 77. When tyres on the uppermost chucks are being cooled, those on the lower ones, which have been cooled, are removed and carried away by conveyers 62, 99. Tyres from the press are carried by conveyer 62 to the lower chucks and inflated whereupon when the cooling on the upper chucks is concluded the cooling structure is raised, the lower chucks swung upwardly and the structure lowered to begin a further cooling operation. The air jet outlets may be comprised by rectangular openings of flat nozzles arranged transversely to and directed obliquely toward the tyre tread. The cooling structure may be comprised of axially separable halves combined with a tyre chuck arrangement in which each chuck half is attached to a chamber half.