GB1585351A - Scrap compacting press - Google Patents

Description

(54) SCRAP COMPACTING PRESS (71) We, OFFICINE VEZZANI S.p.A., a Joint Stock Company, organized and existing under the laws of Italy, of Corso Magenta, 32-Milano-Italy, 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: This invention relates to a scrap compacting press for obtaining compacted blocks from sized scraps which have been randomly loaded thereinto. The invention is particularly intended for metal scraps, however, it also concerns aggregating and compacting into blocks of other loose material, such as forming of pellets of a granulated or powderlike mineral.

Known, and almost universally adopted, are presses for reducing to substantially cubic or prismatic blocks a charge of loose metal scraps. Briefly, a press built to this design may be equated with a bin having walls, or wall portions, which are movable when subjected to a pushing force. A quantity of a loose material is charged into the bin; by pushing forward either a sidewall or front wall thereof the charge is first pressed and flattened in one direction; by lowering the ceiling or cover of the thus reduced press chamber, after stopping the first moved wall to define a guide for the cover, the material is reduced to a prismatic shape; thereafter, a ram or pusher compresses said prism axially until the latter is reduced to a block, preferably of cube configuration; finally, a wall or door opposite to the pusher is caused to open and that same pusher, extending its stroke, discharges the block out of the press.

The step of compression of the prism into a cubic block is illustrated in Figure 1, and will be explained in detail hereinafter.

While for many industrial purposes a cubic shape of the compacted block appears to be satisfactory, there exist many instances where it would be preferable and desirable to afford blocks of spherical or nearly spherical shapes, and this for a number of good reasons.

When loading the blocks into a furnace, the spherical ones would roll over more easily to the desired location. Furthermore, in their rolling motion, they would not be liable to damage the furnace walls with sharp corners.

It is also recognized that spherical compressed blocks, and in general any ball-shaped aggregates, are far less likely to disintegrate under shock than the cubic or parallelepipedal blocks. Also known is the fact that, owing to the problem of filling corner and apex portions, the cubes cannot achieve the high and advantageous filling densities which are obtainable with the spheres, for a given pressure.

All these motivations, plus a few others from special applicational situations, as the expert in the art will recognize, have been urging the development of means and methods of obtaining generally spherical compacted blocks of a loose material or scraps rather than prismatic ones, for the same cost. The difficulties encountered are essentially of an operational nature, and hence economic. A reduction of the time required for each step would result in advantages from the viewpoint of productivity and costs. The critical steps in the spherical shaping are the discharge ones, and the reason for it stands out.In order to discharge a cube it may be sufficient to slidably move away, gate fashion, the bottom wall and allow the pusher, as mentioned above, to further forward its stroke; for a sphere, this is not feasible since the bottom wall is required to include a sphere engaging hemispherical recess. Indeed, it would be possible to tilt the bottom wall, but the magnitudes of the forces involved would result in short-lived constructions of prohibitively high cost. Thus, in actual practice, this demand by the industry for the compaction of loose materials in general and scraps in particular into spherical blocks has been left unsatisfied.

Accordingly, it is a general object of the invention to fill such needs in the loose material compacting art and remove the stated limitations. More specifically, it is a primary object of this invention to provide a press for obtaining compacted blocks of spherical shapes which substantially retains the same degree of efficiency as the conventional presses for cubic shapes.

It is a particular object of the invention to provide a press of the type mentioned above in which the discharging of spherical shapes therefrom is facilitated.

It is another particular object of this invention to provide a press as mentioned above having a wall with a hemispherical impression therein, which may be opened as quickly and easily as a flat surface wall.

According to the invention there is provided a scrap compacting press, comprising a bin whereinto loose material is randomly loaded, fixed walls and movable walls, a compacting piston between and in front of said walls having a compression head provided with a hemispherical recess, wherein the piston is arranged opposite to two shiftable walls each defining, at the side facing said piston, a recess having a shape like a quarter of a sphere of same radius as that of said hemispherical recess of said piston, said two shiftable walls and said piston being movable into a position in which their recesses define a spherical mould.

The features and advantages of the invention will become more apparent from a detailed description of a preferred though not exclusive embodiment thereof, provided hereinafter by way of example and not of limitation together with the accompanying drawing.

The drawing illustrates schematically: in Figure 1-an axial section of a press for a compressed block of approximately cubic shape, as provided by the prior art; and in Figure 2-an axial section of a press for a spherical compressed block according to the invention.

In the drawing figures, identical or substantially similar parts are denoted with the same reference numerals. Making reference first to Figure 1, there is shown a detail of a bin press, and specifically the region whereat the material or scrap metal has been compressed which had been previously loaded into the press bin. In the figure, the bin is defined by corner walls 1 and 2. The material has been pushed against fixed wall 1 by a movable wall 3 opposite thereto, and thus squeezed to form a prism which is next reduced to a cubic shape 5 by a piston or ram 4 arranged between the walls 1 and 3.

In order to allow for the ejection or discharge of the cubic compressed block 5, a plate 6, opposite to the piston 4, is withdrawable sideways with a guillotine-like movement in a direction perpendicular to the piston 4 direction of advance, as driven by a fluiddynamic actuating cylinder 7.

The compressed block 5 is then discharged through a discharge passage 8, being pushed by the piston 4 extending its compression stroke.

Turning now to Figure 2, which shows the same detail but of a press according to the invention, the differences, even though schematic only, point out the characteristics of the improvement afforded by the invention in the opening and withdrawing device for the press. The position of the walls 1 and 3, the compacting piston and the discharge passage 8 are substantially unvaried, whereas in lieu of the plate 6 there are two shiftable walls 10 and 11 provided to form the closing and discharging device; such shiftable walls 10 and 11, arranged to face each other, are also movable transversally to the compacting piston 16, like the plate 6, but in opposite directions to each other under the action of fluid-operated cylinders 12, 13, respectively.

The shiftable walls 10, 11 are each movable for at least one half of the full transverse dimension of the compacting piston 16.

The two shiftable walls 10 and 11 constitute together a counter-mould having, at the side facing the piston 16, a hemispherical shape formed by two recesses 14 and 15, each defining one quarter of a sphere. The compacting piston 16, arranged opposite the two shiftable walls 10, 11 has a compression head provided with a hemispherical recess 17 of same radius as that of the recesses 14, 15, such as to define together with the hemispherical counter-mould defined by the recesses of the shiftable walls 10, 11 a spherical forming cavity wherein a spherical block 18 of scraps or similar material may be pressed.

The scrap compacting operation is carried out by first approaching the wall 3 to the wall 1 to obtain an elongate cylindrical shape having transverse dimensions equal to those of the piston 16. The latter is then lowered to convert the cylindrical body into a spherical block. Owing to the fact that a cylindrical shape of circular cross-section is better suitable for reduction into a spherical shape as the piston 16 moves forward, the walls 1 and 3 shall also have their front surfaces correspondingly modified to form an elongate cylindrical body rather than an elongate prism. During the pressing process the two shiftable walls 10 and 11 are in the clamped position shown in Figure 2, thus defining with the hemispherical recess 17 of the piston 16 a spherical mould. At the moment of discharging the compacted sphere 18, the two shiftable walls 10 and 11 forming the counter-mould are moved away from each other and opened by causing them to slide respectively in the directions shown by the arrows 19 and 20. The compacted spherical scrap block 18 is then discharged through the passage 8 which is shaped to allow entering of the piston 16 therein.

Claims (5)

WHAT WE CLAIM IS:

1. A scrap compacting press, comprising a bin whereinto loose material is randomly loaded, fixed walls and movable walls, a compacting piston between and in front of said walls having a compression head provided with a hemispherical recess, wherein the piston is arranged opposite to two shiftable walls each defining, at the side facing said piston, a recess having a shape like a quarter of a sphere of same radius as that of said hemispherical recess of said piston, said two shiftable walls and said piston being movable into a position in which their recesses define a spherical mould.

2. A press according to Claim 1, wherein said two shiftable walls are movable opposite to one another between a position in which they define a hemispherical recess in front of said hemispherical recess of said piston and a position in which they allow discharge of a spherically compacted scrap block through a passage opposite to said piston.

3. A press according to Claim 2, wherein said passage is shaped to allow entering of said piston.

4. A press according to any one of Claims 1 to 3, wherein said two shiftable walls are moved independently and synchronously by respective fluid-operated cylinders.

5. A scrap compacting press substantially as herein described with reference to Figure 2 of the accompanying drawing.