GB2194931A

GB2194931A - Installation for removal of rod material, in particular with disentanglement of the rod material

Info

Publication number: GB2194931A
Application number: GB08721172A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Rudolf Freyler
Original assignee: Dudweiler Untertage Masch; Untertage Maschinenfabrik Dudweiler GmbH
Current assignee: Dudweiler Untertage Masch; Untertage Maschinenfabrik Dudweiler GmbH
Priority date: 1986-09-10
Filing date: 1987-09-09
Publication date: 1988-03-23
Anticipated expiration: 2007-09-09
Also published as: GB2194931B; DE3630726A1; IT1213882B; GB8721172D0; IT8712511A0

Abstract

In order to singly remove rods from a loose bundle or the like of deposited rod material (3) and to supply it to a processing machine, for example a aligning machine (43) there is provided liftable pincers (17) and also a liftable support arm (18), which cooperate to remove the rod (3') possibly with disentanglement, from the rod bundle, lifting it and supply it to the subsequent processing machine possibly after lateral movement (a sideways direction relative to the bundle of rods). In doing this the pincers (17) which grip one end of the rod are driven forwards in the direction of support arm (18), so that the rod gripped by the pincers is rolled over the support arm (18) in the direction of the machine (43). <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Installation for removal of rod material in particular with disentanglement of the rod material This invention relates to an installation for the removal of rod material, from a depository or the like, in particular with disentanglement of the rod material which is deposited in a loose bundle of rods or the like.

In rolling mills, but also in other manufacturing material for example rolled sections with U-, T-, or Section, or some other section from a loose bundle or heap of rods, and delivering it to a subsequent device. For example rolled section rods, which may be more or less disordered in a loose bundle, may have to be individually removed from the bundle and delivered to a processing machine for example a roller aligning machine.

For the above purposes there are no efficient installations available. It is the task of the invention to create an efficient installation, with which the individual removal of rod material and targetted transmission of the latter can be achieved and which is preferably also suitable for the simultaneous disentanglement of the rod material which is in a loose bundle or the like.

According to the invention there is provided an installation for removing rod material from a depository or the like, characterised in that, that the installation comprises pincers for gripping the rod to be removed at the end of the rod and a support arm for supporting the rod at a distance from the pincers and that the pincers and the support arm can be lifted and lowered and are movable approximately in the longitudinal direction of the picked-up rod.

Preferably the support arm consists of a support roller. Preferably the pincers and the support arm are also movable transversely to the longitudinal direction of the rod.

With embodiments of the installation according to the invention it is possible individually to remove rod material, which can have various lengths from for example 5m to 20m, from a depository or the like, in that the rod is gripped by the pincers at the rod end and is lifted far enough on one side for the support arm to be brought under the inclined rod, after which the support arm can in turn be lifted to take up the rod. Preferably the working process is such, that the support arm which has been brought under the rod while the latter is lifted on one side is driven back in the direction of the free end of the rod, whereby the support arm lifts up the rod at its free end, until finally it is held at one end by the pincers and in the region of its other end by the support arm.In this situation the picked-up rod can be transported by means of the pincers and the support arm to a different depository or respectively transferred to a subsequent manufacturing installation or processing machine, by means of the rod being transported over and past the support arm by means of the pincers which are moved relative to the support arm in the longitudinal direction. In a preferred embodiment the arrangement is such that the pincers and the support arm can be moved together also transversely to the longitudinal direction of the rod, that is towards the side, to bring the picked-up rod into a position from which it can then be passed over to a subsequent manufacturing installation or processing machine by means of the pincers and the support arm, in that by means of the longitudinally movable pincers it is pushed over and past the stationary support arm.The various possibilities for moving the pincers and the support arm thus make it possible to target deposit or transferal of the picked-up rod at a particular transferal place and to use the movement of the pincers for the transport of the rod to the tranferal position or as the case may be to the processing machine. With the help of the installation of the invention it is above ali also possible to disentangle rods which lie more or less disordered in a loose bundle of rods or the like and to remove them from the bundle. It should be understood here that the pincers require the necessary freedom of movement.

The pincers are suitably rotatable about an axis of rotation pointing in their longitudinal direction preferably both clockwise and anticlockwise.

In order that the picked-up rod can roll over the support arm, the support arm is suitably formed by a support roller or a group of support rollers. It is further to be recommended, that the support arm is mounted swivellable about a vertical axis, preferably about an axis of swivel of about 95" to 110 . Because of this swivel movement the support arm can be swiveiled into its support position under the rod which has been picked-up on one side by the pincers. Further provision of at least one side roller, which laterally supports the rod lying on the support arm is to be recommended. In order that the rod comes into abutment on the side roller the support roller forming the support arm is suitably slightly inclined, so that it imparts to the rod passing over it a component of movement in the direction of the side roller.The support arm which is mounted at one end for lifting and lowering, suitably has at its free end a lateral abutment which prevents dropping off of the picked-up rod from the support arm.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention the pincers and the support arm are mounted on a common carrier beam for being lifted and lowered and for movement in the latters longitudinal direction, whereby the carrier beam can suitably be drivable transversely to its longitudinal direction. The carrier beam projects beyond the bundle of rods in the depository or the like and can be driven transversely to this.

For this the arrangement is suitably such that the pincers and the support arm are respectively mounted hanging from a waggon movable along the carrier beam. The pincers and the support arm are advantageously movable independently of one another with overlap of their work paths for a distance longitudinally along the carrier beam, which distance corresponds to at at least three quarters of the rod length, and preferably to -at least the complete length of the rod.

Further advantageous characteristics of an embodiment of the invention can be seen from the subsequent description of the preferred embodiment of the invention shown in the drawing. In the drawing there is shown by: Figures 1 and 2 respectively in schematic simplification an installation according to the invention from one view; Figures 3 and 4 the two end regions of the views of Figures 1 and 2 of the installation with pincers (Figure 3) and support arm (Figure 4) respectively on a larger scale; Figure 5 a view of the installation according to the invention in the direction of arrow V of Figure 3; Figure 6 a view on a larger scale of the support arm provided in the installation of Figures 1 to 5 together with its mounting, partly in vertical section; Figure 7 is a cross section on line Vll-Vil of Figure 6;; Figure 8 is a section on line IX-IX of Figure 6.

The installation according to the invention has below a carrier beam 1 a depository 2 for rod-like material 3. The depository 2 consists of two carrier consoles laterally spaced from each other, which support the rod-like material along its length at any desired number of places. The supply of rod-like material 3 to the depository 2 takes place by means of lateral-transport waggons 4 onto which the bundle of rods 5 is deposited for example by means of an indoor crane. In Figure 5 the deposited loose bundle of rods is only indicated schematically. The lateral-transport waggons 4 are so formed, that they can transport the deposited bundle of rods 5 in the lateral direction to depository 2. This station is the disentanglement and removal station, in which the rods are dientangled and removed indivually from the bundle or heap of rods respectively.In Figure 5 there is indicated a loose bundle of rods 5 in this station with substantially unordered attitudes of the individual rods, which here consist of I-section rods.

The carrier beam 1 spans the whole length of depository 2 and its two facing ends are connected to a runner waggon 6 which runs guidedly on runner rollers 7 on rails 8, which are arranged on the carriers 10 carried by supports 9. Thus the carrier beam 1 is movable to and fro at right angles to its longitudinal direction between end stops 11 and 12.

This is done by means of a drive motor 13 whose driven pinion 14 is in toothed engagement with a toothed or driving rod 15 of the head carrier 10. The lateral mobility of the carrier beam 1 is indicated by the double arrow 16.

Pincers 17 on a support arm 18 are each mounted on the carrier beam and respectively liftable and lowerable and movable in the longitudinal direction along the carrier beam. For this the pincers 17 and the support arm 18 are respectively mounted on a waggon 19 or 20 respectively which is movable along the carrier beam 1. The two waggons 19 and 20 are suitably guided with rollers on the carrier beam 1; they each have a drive motor. As is shown in particular in Figure 3, pincers 17 are mounted at the lower end of a lifting beam 21 carried in waggon 19 which can be lifted and lowered in the runner waggon 19 by means of for example a hydraulic cylinder 22 whose piston rod 23 is jointedly connected to the pincer carrier 24.The pincers 17 are mounted in the pincer carrier 24 rotatable about an axis 25 which runs parallel to the beam axis of carrier beam 1, and can as desired be rotated clockwise or anti-clockwise whereby the rotation is achieved by means of for example a hydraulic rotary motor 26 on the pincer carrier 24. The pincers have a fixed cheek 27 and a cheek 28 which is movable about a transverse axis 29. Preferably the arrangement is such that the movable cheek has associated with it a spring device which holds this cheek 28 and thus the pincers in their open position. Closure of the pincers is thus achieved against the bias force of the spring device by a separate closure drive, for example a hydraulic cylinder drive on pincers 17.

Pincers 17 are thus rotatable about axis 25, and at the same time liftable and lowerable in the vertical direction as indicated by arrow 30, and further movable in the longitudinal direction of carrier beam 1, that is in the direction of the double arrow 31 as well as together with the carrier beam 1 in a direction transverse to the latter as indicated by double arrow 16.

The support arm 18 which is also arranged hanging down from its runner waggon 20 comprises according to Figures 4 and 6 to 8 a support roller 32, whose free end carries a head piece which forms a lateral abutment 33 for the rod lying on the support roller. With its other end the support roller 32 is rotatably mounted about its roller axis in a bearing housing 34, which is situated at the lower end of the crank 35 in which there is a pipe shaped piston rod 36.The vertical crank 35 is connected at its upper end with a, for example hydraulic, swivelling device 37, with whose help the support arm 32 is swivellable about the vertical crank axis 38, preferably about an angle which is bigger by 5 to 15 than 90". The lifting arm 36 carrying the support arm 32 with the bearing housing 34, the crank 35 and the rotatable drive 37, is situated within a console 44 on which a lifting cylinder 39 with its piston rod 40 engages in a joint 41. Thus with help of the cylinder 39 the support arm 18 can be lifted and lowered.

Simultaneously the support arm 28 can be swivelled about the vertical axis 35, is longitudinally movable with its waggon 20 in arrow direction 31 (Figure 3) and together with pincers 17 is transversely displaceable by transverse displacement of the carrier beam 1 in the direction of arrow 16.

On beam 36 there is laterally mounted a vertical side roller 42, on which the rod resting against the support arm 32, as indicated in Figure 7 in dot-dash-lines at 3', can support itself laterally. The support roller 32 forming the supporting arm is, as above mentioned, swivellable about an angle which exceeds 90 , for example an angle of 100" about the vertical axis 38. It can thus be put into a swivel position corresponding to that of Figure 7, in which it imparts to the rod 3' passing over it in arrow direction 31 a component of motion in the direction towards the side roller 42, so that the rod 3' lies against the side roller 42 when it is pushed over and past the support roller 32 by pincers 17 moving in arrow direction 31.The support roller 32 hereby is in a position, in which its roller axis is not at 90" to the direction of motion 31, but at an angle which deviates from 90" by for example 10 in such a way that abutment movement of rod 3' against side roller 42 takes place.

In Figure 1 the pincers 17 and the support arm 18 are shown in their end positions near the two ends of the carrier beam 1. The pincers 17 can be longitudinally displaced from their end position in the direction of the support arm 18 in its end position, to the immediate proximity of the support arm, whereas conversely the support arm 18 can be displaced in the opposite direction to the proximity of the pincers 17 in their end position. The pincers 17 and support arm 18 thus are respectively displaceable over a work path in arrow direction 31, which at least approximately corresponds to the length of the rod material 3 or may even be larger than this.

It will now be assumed that there is in depository 2 a loose bundle of substantially unordered rod material 3. To single out the rods first by means of pincers 1 7 one of the uppermost rods is gripped at its front face, clamped and lifted on one side by an upward movement of the pincers by means of lifting cylinder 22. The support arm 18 with its runner waggon 20 has been moved to a parking position near the pincers 17, as is indicated in Figure 2. In this position the support arm 18 or respectively the support roller 32 forming it, are swivelled by drive 37 from the side to under the rod, designated in Figure 2 as 3', which has been lifted up on one side, and lifted until it contacts rod 3'.At the same time or subsequently the support arm 18 with its runner waggon 20 are moved on the carrier beam 1 in the direction of the free end of the rod 3', whereby the support arm further lifts the rod 3' out of the bundle 5. At a distance of for example lm to 2m in front of the free end of rod 3' the support arm 18 is stopped and optionally further lifted by means of its lifting cylinder 39, in order to lift the rod 3' completely out of bundle 5. In this position the carrier beam 1 together with the rod 3' carried by pincers 17 and support arm 18 are displaced in the transverse direction in accordance with arrow 16 to a transfer station in which picked-up rod 3' is transferred to a processing machine or the like, for example an aligning machine.By rotating, lifting or lowering pincers 17 and support arm 18 the free rod end can be transferred precisely to the processing machine for example to the entry location of an aligning machine. Subsequently the pincers 17 are driven forwards in arrow direction 31 that is in the direction of the support arm 18. In this the rod 3' is moved over and past the support arm 18 in the direction of the aligning machine and thus precisely into the aligning machine. This arrangement can be made such that on entry thepincers 17 are displaced by the pulling forces on rod 3' whereby by means of an end switch the pincers are opened to free the rod 3'.

It can be seen that with the help of the described installation rod material can be disentangled from a bundle or heap of rods and singled out and supplied to a subsequent manufacturing installation or processing machine. The various work movements of the carrier beams, support arm and pincers can using an absolute position indicator be stored in a storage device and be carried out automatically for similar sections. In Figures 1 and 2 a downstream manufacturing installation or processing machine for example an aligning machine is indicated at 43 to which the rod which has been lifted to the position 3" indicated by dot-dash lines is supplied in arrow direction 31', so that the pincers 17 are moved forward on the carrier beam relative to the stationary support arm 18.In the described manner of working it is possible to take out rods individually from a loose bundle of rods or the like and in quick succession supply them to the downstream manufacturing installation or processing machine respectively.

The various working movements for the disentanglement of rods and for supplying them in the correct position to a subsequent manufacturing installation or processing machine respectively can be carried out by pincers 17.

Naturally the construction of the invention can also be used with advantage even if it is not necessary to disentangle rods from a bundle of rods or the like.

As shown with reference to for example Figure 2, in the embodiment described the pincers move to grip the end of the rod in a direction along the rod axis. While this is ad vantageous, it is also possible for the pincers to grip the rod at or near its end from a position to one or other side of the rod, or from above or below and this also falls within the scope of the invention.

The pincers can serve to disentangle the rod by pulling it out of a loose bundle, and such disentanglement may be facilitated by the pincers rotating the rod to and fro about its longitudinal axis, or reciprocating (i.e. shak ing the rod) through a short path transverse to the longitudinal axis of the rod.

Claims

1. Installation for removing rod material from a depository or the like, characterised in that, that the installation comprises pincers for gripping the rod to be removed at the end of the rod and a support arm for supporting the rod at a distance from the pincers and that the pincers and the support arm can be lifted and lowered and are movable approximately in the longitudinal direction of the picked-up rod.

2. Installation according to claim 1, charac terised in, that the pincers and the support arm can be moved together also transversely to the longitudinal direction of the rod.

3. Installation according to claim 1 or 2, characterised in, that the support arm can be swivelled about a vertical axis.

4. Installation according to claim 3 wherein the support can be swivelled over a swivel angle of between about 95" to 110 .

5. Installation according to one of claims 1 to 4, characterised in, that at least one side roll is provided, which laterally supports the rod lying on support arm.

6. Installation according to one of claims 1 to 5, characterised in, that the support arm which is liftably mounted at one of its ends, has at its other free end a lateral abutment for the rod.

7. Installation according to any one of claims 1 to 6, characterised in that the sup port arm consists of a support roller.

8. Installation according to claim 7, charac terised in, that the support roll is at one end mounted for rotation about its roller axis in a bearing housing which is arranged on a lifting arm liftable and rotatable about the vertical axis.

9. Installation according to one of claims 1 to 8, characterised in, that the pincers are rotatable about a rotation axis pointing in the direction of their longitudinal movement.

10. Installation according to claim 9, charac terised in that the pincers can be rotated as desired either clockwise or anti-clockwise.

11. Installation according to one of claims 1 to 10, characterised in, that the pincers and the support arm are mounted on a common carrier beam for being lifted and lowered and for movement in the latters longitudinal direction.

12. Installation according to claim 11, characterised in, that the carrier beam is mobile transversely to its longitudinal direction.

13. Installation according to claim 11 or 12, characterised in, that the pincers and the support arm are respectively mounted hanging from a waggon movable along the carrier beam.

14. Installation according to one of claims 11 to 13, characterised in, that the pincers and the support arm can each be moved independently from one another with overlap of their work paths a distance longitudinally along the carrier beam which is at least three quarters of the rod length.

15. Installation according to any one of claims 1 to 14, characterised in that, the pincers can be closed by means of a closing drive, against the return force of a spring device which biasses them to an open position.

16. Installation according to claim 15, characterised in that the closing drive is a hydraulic cylinder.

17. Installation for removal of rod material substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.