GB177564A - Improvements in and connected with continuous annealing furnaces - Google Patents

Abstract

177,564. Gibbons Bros., Ltd., and Marle, M. van. Nov. 20, 1920. Annealing-furnaces.-In a continuous annealing-furnace of the kind in which the goods are carried by an endless conveyer through a heating- chamber water-sealed at each end, the conveyerchain is arranged to hang in loops dipping into the water tanks and is positively driven at each end. The furnace shown has a heating-chamber 2 provided with hoods 3, 4, extending into the water tank 1 and the goods are carried through the chamber by the endless chain 6a which passes over end sprocket-wheels 5, 6, and intermediate sprocket-wheels 7, 8, this arrangement permitting the chain to hang in loops which dip into the tank 1. The sprockets 5, 6, 7, 8, are all positively driven from the first motion shaft 19, the motion being transmitted through an eccentric 22, ratchet lever 24, ratchet-wheel 26, and spur- and-pinion wheels 28, 29, to the shaft 30 which, through spur-and-pinion gearing 31, 32, operates the shaft 18 of the sprockets 6. From the shaft 18 the sprockets 8 are driven through sprocketwheels 15, 17, and an endless chain 16. A similar arrangement is provided to drive the sprockets 5, 7, the motion being transmitted from the shaft 19 by connecting-rods 35, 35a, 36, and levers 34, 34<a>. A coned pulley 29 is provided on the shaft 19 to permit the conveyer to be run at different speeds, and for the same purpose the ratchetwheels 26, which are engaged by the pawls 25, are made in three sections 26, 26a, 26b, having teeth of different pitches. At the outlet end a free-wheel device is introduced into the driving- gear so that the driving-gear may be run independently of the drive. Each of the sprocketwheels 5, 6, 7, 8, is formed of a central disc 40, having bolted to both sides toothed plates 41 which are formed with a flat plate portion forming a sector of a circle of the same diameter as the disc 40. To facilitate engagement and disengagement of the chains with the sprockets, there are provided rollers 44 beneath the sprockets 5, 6, and a narrow plate 45 which just clears the teeth of the sprocket 8. The hoods 3, 4, are each constructed of an end frame 50 having an opening corresponding with the mouth of the chamber 2, to which the frame 50 and flanged side plates are secured. The top and inclined front of the hood are covered bv plates 52, and the side plates are provided with detachable inspection windows immediately above the sprockets 7,8.