GB2157141A - Spreader vehicles - Google Patents

Abstract

Spreader vehicle, particularly side discharge vehicle for agricultural use has an impeller or distributor rotor (34) acting on material fed from the vehicle body (10) for broadcast spreading thereof and a laceration plate (50) whose edge is in close proximity to the envelope of revolution of the rotor between a pick-up zone in which the material reaches the rotor in use and a discharge zone in which it is projected from the rotor to assist in breaking down any substantial lumps of material carried thereby. Said formation may be resiliently mounted and/or adjustable relative to said envelope of revolution. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Spreader vehicles This invention relates to vehicles, particularly but not exclusively for agricultural use in the broadcast distribution of materials, for example the spreading onto the land of all kinds of farmyard manure, slurry or the like; and/or the dispensing of silage, fodder, bedding or like materials to livestock and vehicles fulfilling these and similar functions are referred to herein as "spreader vehicles".

Typically, but not essentially, the vehicle will include a body for containing and transporting a bulk of the material, for example in the form of a trailed vehicle for use with a tractor. A form of spreader vehicle to which the invention is particularly applicable is that adapted to handle materials of consistancies ranging from free-flowing liquids to nonflowable semi-solids, or a non-uniform mix of materials of differing consistencies, hereinafter referred to as "multi-purpose spreader vehicles", one example of which is described in my British Patent No. 2080662.

One problem arising with known multi-purpose and other spreader vehicles is that certain mate rials, for example consolidated straw-based farmyard manure, may be projected from the vehicle in large lumps or clods so that distribution is haphaz ard and an unacceptably uneven spread pattern is produced (large heavy lamps tend to be thrown further than more more evenly divided materials).

Use of shredders, mixers, beaters or agitators within a load-carrying body of the vehicle or ar ranged to act on flow of material to the body, e.g.

while loading have not proved entirely satisfactory as they add considerably to the complexity of the vehicle with consequent increase in cost and power requirements; they slow the operation, so reducing efficiency; and they may not be effective with all types of material.

The object of the invention is to provide spreader mechanism for a spreader vehicle which is of simple construction, reliable in use, can read ily be incorporated ina multi-purpose spreader ve hicle, and which is effective to provide consistent performance with uniform distribution.

According to the invention there is provided spreader mechanism for a spreader vehicle com prising an operatively rotatably driven distributor rotor having radially extending impeller means act ing on material fed thereto to broadcast it by proj ecting it generally radially or tangenially of said means, and a laceration formation operatively lo cated in close proximity to the envelope of revolution of said means between a pick-up zone in which the material is fed to the rotor in use and a discharge zone in which the material is projected from the rotor in use, said formation co-acting with the impeller means to break down any substantial lumps of material carried round by the impeller means.

Preferably the laceration formation is resiliently mounted, and provision may be included for selective adjustment of the effective positioning of said formation relative to the rotor.

Embodiments of the invention are now more particularly described with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein: Figure 1 is a lateral section of a front end portion of a first form of spreader vehicle looking rearwards, Figure 2 is a like section of a second form of vehicle, and Figure 3 is a side elevation of the front end portion of the latter vehicle.

Figure 1 shows the invention embodied in a multi-purpose spreader vehicle in the form of a trailer drawn by and powered froma tractor as described in my said Patent 2080662 and comprising an open topped non-tipping body 10 mounted on a chassis 11 having pair of land wheels 12 at its rear end. Body 10 has vertical planar front and rear end walls (not shown) and generally planar side walls 15 which diverge upwardly from a floor 16 of the body to a rectangular top section 17.

A feed rotor 19 comprises a longitudinal shaft 20 journalled in the end walls in the lower part of the body and one or more sweeper elements 21 carried on shaft 20, for example a single start auger blade or a series of auger-like blades or angled paddles disposed to urge material within the body forward, its cylinder of revolution being adjacent to the lower parts of side walls 15 and to the floor 16.While a flat floor is shown in the drawings, the floor may be curved laterally of the body to merge with the lower parts of side walls 15 so as to follow more closely said cylinder of revolution. The extreme forward end portion of rotor 19 may be provided with opposite-handed auger blades or other sweeper elements for urging material rearwardly away from the front wall so as to avoid undue build up at the front end of the body.

Rotor 19 is driven by way of speed reducing power transmission means, for example chain and sprocket drive (not shown) from the tractor PTO so that it rotates anti-clockwise as viewed in the drawing, typically at a speed of about 10 rpm.

The right hand side wall 15 as viewed in the drawing is provided with a horizontally sliding door 28 running in top and bottom tracks 29, the bottom track being a floor level. Door 28 is actuated by hydraulic ram 30 to open in a rearward direction and co-acts with a rectangular discharge opening in the side wall, the top edge of said opening being preferably at the level of or above the top of rotor 19.

By selective operation of ram 30 the effective width of the opening can be closely regulated, a minimum effective opening being used for liquid discharge and up to the maximum opening being used for non-flowable or semi-solid materials as described in my said Patent. While use of a horizontal sliding door is preferred a vertically sliding door or doors and/or door having cut-away portions to provide the minimum effective discharge opening may be employed in some applications as described in my said Patent.

A rotatably driven distributor rotor 34 is mounted immediately outside door 28 in a housing 35 projecting laterally from the forward part of body 10. Rotor 34 has a horizontal shaft 36 parallel to feed rotor 19 and operating in the same direction of rotation as the latter and operates at a speed of about 400 rpm, i.e. some 40 times faster than the feed rotor 19. Distributor rotor 34 includes radially extending impeller means which may take various forms, for example randomly disposed beater blades andfor scoop or cup-shaped paddles so that it will act effectively on liquids as well as more solid materials and its cylinder of revolution is in close proximity to a floor 40 of housing 35 generally level with the body floor 16 and terrminating in a upwardly curved outer edge portion 41.

Floor 40 is pivotally mounted on a hinge 42 adjacent the bottom of body 10 and is resiliently urged to its uppermost operative position by springs 43, thus it can be displaced downwards if a foreign body is trapped between said floor and rotor 34 so avoiding or reducing the possibility of damage.

A fast running subsidiary rotory beater 45 also driven in the same direction as rotors 19 and 34 may be provided in the upper part of housing 35 to assist in throwing any material ejected upwardly within the housing back onto distributor rotor 34.

A laceration formation in the form of an elongated laceration plate 50 is mounted on floor 40 spaced from door 28 so that its upper edge is in close proximity to the cylinder of revolution of distributor rotor 34 between a pick-up zone in which the bulk of at least non-flowable material fed through door 28 reaches and is acted on by said rotor and a discharge zone in which the material is thrown clear of the body laterally of the direction of travel of the material in this example.

Preferably but not essentially plate 50 is pivotally mounted on floor 40 and is angled at an operative position at which its upper edge is just to the trailing side of a radiai plane of rotor 34 in which the laceration plate pivot lies; and the plate is resiliently urged to that position by spring means (not shown) so that if it is struck by a foreign body carried around with the rotor, e.g. a stone or piece of timber, it will be pivoted towards floor 40, again reducing the likelihood of damage.

Whilst this pivotal and resilient mounting of the laceration formation is not essential it provides much better protection against damage than merely relying on the resilient mounting of floor 40 itself. As the latter is much larger it will respond much less quickly to a blow from a foreign body due to inertia.

The general action of the spreader vehicle is as described in my said Patent, feed rotor 19 feeds semi-solid or non-flowable materials to the door opening to pass therethrough and be acted on by distributor rotor 34. Any large lumps or masses of material will be broken down against the laceration plate 50 as they are carried around by rotor 34 so that the material is more evenly divided and a much more satisfactory and regular broadcast spread pattern results. The action with flowable or liquid materials will be as described in my said Patent.

Instead of a single laceration plate 50 a plurality of separately hinged plates or other formations may be provided to co-act with respective parts of rotor 34 andior various forms of laceration formations may be used including those having spikes or teeth for some applications.

The impeller means described in the above example may be referred to as an "undershot" impeller in that the direction of rotation is such that the material is carried below the impeller axis. An alternative construction incorporating what may be referred to as an "overshot" impeller will now be described with reference to Figures 2 and 3.

Again this is a trailer-type vehicle having the same form of body 10 and sideway sliding door 28 as described above except that the door is on the left-hand side of the body as viewed in Figure 2 and feed rotor 19 as described above is rotatably driven in the opposite direction, i.e. clockwise as viewed in Figure 2. Parts having the same function and common to both embodiments are given the same reference numbers in the drawings.

A distributor rotor 234 in the housing 35 is driven anti-clockwise in this example, i.e. in the opposite direction of rotation to the feed rotor 19, thus material is carried upwardly and over the top of rotor shaft 236 to be ejected for broadcast distribution laterally of the direction of travel of the vehicle. To assist in handling liquids and flowable materials the floor 40a of housing 35 dips below the level of floor 16 of body 10 and is part cylindrical in lateral section following closely the cylinder of revolution of rotor 234 so that liquid material will be scooped up by impeller means in the form of paddle-like blades 260 to be carried upwardly and around for ejection.

In this example an adjustable and resiliently mounted laceration formation is provided in the form of a plate 250 mounted adjacent the upper edge portion of door 28 and constrained for sliding movement parallel to the outer face of the associated side wall 15 so that its lower edge is operatively positioned in close proximity to and generally tangentially of the cylinder of revolution of rotor 234. The plate is resiliently urged downwards by springs 262 which will permit its upward displacement if struck by a foreign body and the spring and plate are carried on slide rods whose upper ends are connected to a quadrant lever 263 whose position can be angularly adjusted so as to vary the spacing between the lower edge of plate 250 and rotor 234. The action is the same as described with reference to the previous example, any substantial lumps or accumulations of semisolid or non-flowable material being acted on by the plate and divided or broken up before being ejected from the spreader.

It is to be understood that the invention may be applied to other forms of spreader vehicle, for example self propelled or tractor mounted spreaders or spreader attachments and/or spreader vehicles having other forms of distributor rotors eg spreading to the rear of and along the path of travel of the vehicle or incorporating spinners or other impeller means driven about a horizontal axis or an axis transverse to the direction of travel.

Claims (10)

1. Spreader mechanism for a spreader vehicle comprising an operatively rotatably driven distributor rotor having impeller means acting on material fed thereto to broadcast it by projecting it generally radially or tangentially of said means, and at least one laceration formation operatively located in close proximity to the envelope of revolution of said means between a pick-up zone in which the material is fed to the rotor in use and a discharge zone in which the material is projected from the rotor in use, said formation co-acting with the impeller means to break down any substantial lumps of material carried round by the impeller means.

2. Mechanism as in Claim 1 wherein the laceration formation or formations is or are resiliently mounted.

3. Mechanism as in Claim 1 or 2 including provision for selective adjustment of the effective positioning of said formation or formations relative to the rotor.

4. Mechanism as in Claim 1, 2 or 3 wherein the rotor is operatively driven about a horizontal axis to project the material laterally from the vehicle in use.

5. Mechanism as in Claim 4 wherein the operative direction of rotation of the distributor rotor is such that it acts as an "undershot" impeller as hereinbefore defined.

6. Mechanism as in Claim 4 wherein the operative direction of rotation of the distributor rotor is such that it acts as an "overshot" impeller as hereinbefore defined.

7. Mechanism as in Claim 6 wherein said at least one laceration formation is a plate constrained for sliding movement generally tangentially of said envelope of revolution.

8. Mechanism as in Claim 7 wherein said plate is urged towards said envelope by resilient means permitting its displacement if struck by a foreign body.

9. Spreader mechanism for a spreader vehicle substantially ds hereinbefore described with reference to and as shown in Figure 1 or Figures 2 and 3 of the accompanying drawings.

10. A spreader vehicle including mechanism as in any preceding claim.