GB1562194A

GB1562194A - Article transfer apparatus

Info

Publication number: GB1562194A
Application number: GB41621/75A
Authority: GB
Original assignee: Kosan Crisplant AS
Current assignee: Kosan Crisplant AS
Priority date: 1975-10-10
Filing date: 1975-10-10
Publication date: 1980-03-05
Also published as: DK140888B; DK449076A; DK140888C; FR2327168B3; FR2327168A1; DE2646046A1; SE7611238L

Description

(54) IMPROVEMENTS IN OR RELATING TO ARTICLE TRANSFER APPARATUS (71) We, KOSAN GRISPLANT A/S, of Bryggervej 21, 8240 Risskov, Denmark, a company organised under the laws of Denmark, do hereby declare the invention for which we pray that a patent may be granted to us, and the method by which it is to be performed, to be particularly described in and by the following statement:- The present invention relates to apparatuses for transferring articles from an upper to a lower level.

Such an apparatus may comprise an upper conveyor from which articles such as postal parcels by means of a slide are transferred to a lower conveyor. It may be necessary for reasons of space requirements to provide a very steep slide by which the article may obtain a velocity high enough to cause damage to the article being landed upon the lower conveyor or upon other articles on this. Therefore, there is normally arranged a flap member above the landing area for receiving the articles in an impact absorbing manner and thereafter unloading the articles onto the landing area, e.g. said lower conveyor, by swinging down from a substantially horizontal article receiving position to a slanting unloading position.

If the lower conveyor is already carrying other articles it may be a problem to place the first mentioned articles in spaces between the other articles thus avoiding that an article is landed upon another article, whereby the upper article could fall off the conveyor. This problem can be solved by means of said flap member, when this is arranged at a distance above the lower conveyor permitting articles of a maximum height just to pass under the flap in the horizontal position thereof, whereby articles passing the area under the flap will prevent the flap from assuming its slanting unloading position, and when the underlying article has passed the area, the flap is released for swinging down and unloading any article received by the flap onto the lower conveyor.

Flap members of the type referred to should be heavy enought so as not to be damaged or worn by the articles, but at the same time they should also be light enough to be able to work in an easy and rapid manner with low inertia, and also they should be able to decelerate the articles in a gentle and effective manner. Normally it is simply impossible to meet all these requirements fully by one specific flap member, so it has been necessary to find a usable compromise by selecting a suitable plate material, e.g. plywood or metal and a suitable thickness of the plate material.

However, it is the purpose of this invention to provide an arrangement in which all the said requirements may be met to at least an increased degree.

According to the invention there is provided an apparatus for transferring articles comprising an upper receiving station, a lower landing station, and receiving means located at an intermediate level for receiving the articles from the upper receiving station and for thereafter unloading the articles to the landing station, said receiver means comprising a balanced flap member, which is swingable between a substantially horizontal receiving position in which the flap member is at rest and projects into the moving path of the articles, and a slanting unloading position, in which the articles slide downwardly along the flap member having a receiving face provided by a membrane extending between opposed edge supporting members.

In this connection the term membrane signifies a flexible sheet material without any substantial "give" against tensions provided in the plane of the sheet. By selecting a suitable sheet material the flap member may be constructed as a strong lightweight element, since the sheet material may be strong and of light weight and in stretched condition be resilient against impacts, and even the carrier structure of the sheet may be of light weight, because the said edge supporting members will only rarely be hit by the falling articles which are normally received by the mid area of the flap. Thus the flap can be of light weight and impact absorbing without being deformed and without causing damage to the articles.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention the sheet is arranged as an endless belt extending between opposed rollers, this being a simple and advantageous construction.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawing which is a perspective view of an apparatus according to the invention.

The drawing shows an upper sorting conveyor generally designated 1 having slats 2 which are movable along the conveyor and sideways tiltable so as to be able to divert articles sideways down from the conveyor for transfer to a lower conveyor having a carrier belt 4. For guiding the article downwardly there is provided a V-shaped slide 6 terminating in a lower edge 5, underneath which, between vertical wall portions 10 and 11, is arranged a flap member 12, which is pivotal about a shaft 25 mounted between bearings 30 on the respective vertical wall portions 10 and 11.

The flap member 12 comprises an endless belt 20, which is mounted over two parallel cylinders 22 and 24 spaced from each other by means of lateral spacing rods 26 each including a length adjusting screw element 28 by means of which the endless belt can be tightened to a desired degree to form a receiving surface 21 for articles coming from the slide 6. The cylinders 22 and 24 should not necessarily be able to rotate. The rear cylinder 24 is mounted on the said shaft 25, and in rearward extension of the spacer rods 26 on the other side of the shaft 25 is provided a pair of carrier arms 32 for a counterweight 34 which is fixed to the arms 32 in a position so as to balance the belt flap portion in a substantially horizontal receiving position from which it can be swung down into a slanting unloading position as indicated by dot-and-dash lines.

When an article is landed from above upon the horizontal receiving surface 21 the article will be stopped or decelerated in a gentle manner, and by the weight or inertia of the article the flap member 12 will swing down towards the slanting position in which the article will be unloaded onto the conveyor belt 4, whereafter the flap returns to its upper position of rest. If other articles on the conveyor belt 4 pass the loading area beneath the flap member, when a first article is landed upon this, the other articles will slidingly support the flap member 12 in a position in which the flap member 12 is not tilted enough for unloading the first article, and the flap will not swing down for unloading the first article until there is a free space on the conveyor 4.

The endless belt 20 may consist of any suitable material, e.g. a relatively thin, fiber reinforced rubber belt, which is flexible, and substantially unstretchable, whereby it may form a hard, yet wear resistant receiving surface. Even a rather "dead" (i.e. impact absorbing non-resilient) sheet material such as canvas may be used, especially if the spacer rods 26 include spring means to urge the cylinders 22 and 24 away from each other.

The cylinders 22 and 24 may be substituted by any type of frame elements, since it is not a condition that the endless belt shall be able to move about these frame elements. However, by arranging the cylinders so as to be rotatable it is obtained that the belt 20 may be moved about the cylinders by virtue of the frictional engagement between the belt and the articles passing along the belt, whereby the wear of the belt is generally reduced and gradually distributed over the entire surface thereof, thus giving the flap member a long lifetime. The wear may be further reduced by permitting the cylinders to roll entirely free, but this may compromise the desired decleration of the articles.

The tilting of the flap member should not necessarily be counterweighted by a weight body, as this may be substituted e.g. by appropriate spring means or working cylinders or by providing a flap of double length and letting the rear halfpart of this constitute the counterweight means.

The flap member 12 may be used for receiving articles from any type of slide or even freely falling articles. The slide 6 is designed especially for receiving parcels from a moving sorter conveyor 1 and for causing the parcels to be transferred to an underlying crosswire oriented conveyor 4 in such a manner that the orientation of the parcels relative to their moving direction is not changed during the transfer movement, whereby "long" parcels moving on the conveyor 1 will still be "long" and not correspondingly wide when moved further on the conveyor 4, irrespective of the use of the flap 12.

The slide 6 has three slanting slide plates 7, 8 and 9 and two vertical side plates 10 and 11, the plates 7 and 8 forming an upper receiving section having a slanting bottom joint line 40 and the plates 7 and 9 forming a lower output section having a still more slanting bottom joint line 42. One side of the slide is thus constituted by the plates 8 and 9 forming between them a shoulder line 46 meeting the point 44 of intersection between the lines 40 and 42. The output section ends at the lower edge 5 of the plate 7 above the conveyor belt 4.

When a parcel delivered from the sorter conveyor 1 slides along the upper part of the slide its bottom is supported by the slanting plate 7 and one of its sides is supported by the plate 8. When the parcel slides over the shoulder line 46 the front end of the parcel will slide in a downwardly inclined curve on the first plate 7, while the rear end will be lifted from the plate 8, the side of the parcel still being supported by the shoulder line 46.

Thereafter the parcel will slide along the slide portion 6, 7 with unchanged orientation relative to the sliding direction.

When thereafter the parcel is delivered to the flap member 12, it will still have its original front end as the leading end and therewith be transferred to the conveyor 4 with unchanged orientation relative to its moving direction. For heavy parcels with large inertia the side wall 11 will be important for receiving the leading parcel end and guiding it forwardly in the moving direction of the conveyor 4.

The outer slide side 8, 9 may be curved rather than broken about a line 46.

WHAT WE CLAIM IS: 1. An apparatus for transferring articles comprising an upper receiving station, a lower landing station, and receiver means located at an intermediate level for receiving- the articles from the upper receiving station and for thereafter loading the articles to the landing station, said receiver means comprising a balanced flap member, which is swingable between a substantially horizontal receiving position in which the flap member is at rest and projects into the moving path of the articles, and a slanting unloading position, in which the articles slide downwardly along the flap member for being unloaded at the landing station, said flap member having a receiving face provided by a membrane extending between opposed edge supporting members.

2. An apparatus according to Claim 1, in which said membrane is formed by an endless belt extending over two opposed edge supporting members, which by means of mounting means are spaced from each other inside the endless belt.

3. An apparatus according to Claim 2, wherein the mounting means are adjustable.

4. An apparatus according to Claim 2, or Claim 3, in which the endless belt is held so as to be plane at both the top and bottom portion thereof.

5. An arrangement according to Claim 2, 3 or 4, in which the opposed top and bottom portions of the endless belt are arranged spaced from each other.

6. An apparatus according to Claim 5, wherein the opposed top and bottom portions are arranged spaced from each other by means of said edge supporting members.

7. An apparatus according to any one of Claims 2 to 6, in which the edge supporting members consist of rotatable cylinders mounted substantially parallel to the pivot axis of the flap member.

8. An apparatus to any one of Claims 2 to 7, wherein the belt is of fiber reinforced rubber or of canvas.

9. An apparatus according to any preceding Claim, wherein the lower landing station is a conveyor arranged crosswise relative to the upper receiving station.

10. An apparatus for transferring articles substantially as herein described with reference to and as shown in the accompanying drawings.

**WARNING** end of DESC field may overlap start of CLMS **.

Claims

**WARNING** start of CLMS field may overlap end of DESC **. meeting the point 44 of intersection between the lines 40 and 42. The output section ends at the lower edge 5 of the plate 7 above the conveyor belt 4. When a parcel delivered from the sorter conveyor 1 slides along the upper part of the slide its bottom is supported by the slanting plate 7 and one of its sides is supported by the plate 8. When the parcel slides over the shoulder line 46 the front end of the parcel will slide in a downwardly inclined curve on the first plate 7, while the rear end will be lifted from the plate 8, the side of the parcel still being supported by the shoulder line 46. Thereafter the parcel will slide along the slide portion 6, 7 with unchanged orientation relative to the sliding direction. When thereafter the parcel is delivered to the flap member 12, it will still have its original front end as the leading end and therewith be transferred to the conveyor 4 with unchanged orientation relative to its moving direction. For heavy parcels with large inertia the side wall 11 will be important for receiving the leading parcel end and guiding it forwardly in the moving direction of the conveyor 4. The outer slide side 8, 9 may be curved rather than broken about a line 46. WHAT WE CLAIM IS:

1. An apparatus for transferring articles comprising an upper receiving station, a lower landing station, and receiver means located at an intermediate level for receiving- the articles from the upper receiving station and for thereafter loading the articles to the landing station, said receiver means comprising a balanced flap member, which is swingable between a substantially horizontal receiving position in which the flap member is at rest and projects into the moving path of the articles, and a slanting unloading position, in which the articles slide downwardly along the flap member for being unloaded at the landing station, said flap member having a receiving face provided by a membrane extending between opposed edge supporting members.