IE46536B1 - Apparatus for transporting and cleaning root crops - Google Patents

Abstract

Apparatus for transporting and cleaning root crops, such as sugar beet or fodder beet, consists of a loader bucket (20) suitable for mounting on a tractor, the bucket having a single rotatable shaft (32) with means such as radial rubber paddles (35) on the shaft for agitating the roots in the bucket so as to knock soil off the roots, the part of the principal bucket wall below the shaft having apertures through which the soil can fall. The principal bucket wall can be constructed as a framework, for example of parallel tubes (26) with spaces (25) between the tubes.

Description

This invention relates to apparatus for transporting and cleaning root crops.

When root crops, such as sugar beet and fodder beet, are harvested, substantial quantities of soil are often picked up with the. crops. In the case of fodder beet, farmers do not want to feed soil to their animals. In the case of sugar beet and other root crops which are supplied to a processing factory or to some other location for sale, it is undesirable for soil to be carried along with the crops. However, the cleaning of root crops by conventional methods is troublesome and may cause a risk of damage to the crops.

Roll-type cleaning mechanisms are known, for example from British Patent Specification Nos. 1 339 706 and 1 384 410, which use a series of parallel rollers or grab rolls which tumble the beets and provide a scrubbing action thereon and which are spaced sufficiently far apart to permit passage of loosened soil, small rocks and foreign material. It is known in such roll15 type cleaners to have helical flights mounted on and fixed to the rollers which serve to convey the beets along the grab rolls. However, such rolltype mechanisms have generally been incorporated as part of a beet harvester which is a complex and expensive machine.

British Patent Specification No. 1 176 727 describes an apparatus for lifting root crops from the ground which includes a system of agitated guide bars over which the crop moves with the result that soil falls through gaps between the adjacent guide bars. However, the use of such apparatus involves the towing of the cleaning mechanism over all of the crop area and if the dwell time of the beets on the guide bars is to be long enough to achieve effective clean25 ing, the apparatus must be quite large, which makes it less satisfactory for towing. - 3 U.S. Patent No. 3 629 890 describes a beet cart having a pair of cleaning rollers at the bottom and the cart being open below the cleaning rolls.

The cleaning rolls have helical flights which convey the beets along the cart towards an elevator add which also rub and clean dirt from the beets. However, this cart is designed to be pulled over* beet fields alongside a harvester and is a substantial item of equipment which has only limited use. The beets must be fed into the cart, for example from a harvester, and the beets are removed from the cart by an elevator.

It is known to use a bucket loader to pick up a load of root crops from ground level, transport them and deliver them by tipping the bucket. Such a bucket loader may be a vehicle in its own right, or it may be obtained by fitting a tipping loader bucket on to the front or back of a tractor, which may be either an agricultural tractor or an industrial tractor.

It is also known to fit an auger in a tipping loader bucket so as to discharge a root crop through a closable aperture in one side of the bucket. However, such loader buckets have had solid walls, apart from the discharge aperture.

The present invention provides a loader bucket for handling root crops having a rotatable shaft mounted in the bucket with means on the shaft for agitating the roots in the bucket so as to knock soil off the roots, at least part of one wall of the bucket below the shaft being formed with apertures through which the soil can fall.

Said wall of the bucket below the shaft may suitably comprise a framework with open spaces between the framework elements. In preferred embodiments of the invention, the said wall of the bucket below the shaft comprises a plurality of parallel tubes or bars with spaces between the tubes or bars. In an alternative embodiment the said wall may comprise a grid or mesh. Normally the said wall having apertures therein forms the bottom of the bucket when the bucket is positioned with its mouth open vertically upwards. In the preferred embodiments, the loader bucket comprises a pair of end walls and a principal bucket wall which extends between said end walls and which defines a longitudinal trough, the shaft being journalled in said end walls with its axis i 46S36 -4 lying along the length of the trough, and the part of the principal bucket wall at the bottom of the trough having apertures through which soil can fall but which are small enough to prevent root crops from falling through. The major part of the principal troughed wall of the bucket is suitably formed as an Open framework so that soil does not accumulate on side walls of the bucket but passes out through the openings in the framework.

The rotatable shaft may suitably be driven by a hydraulic motor operated by the hydraulic system of a tractor or alternatively it may be driven from the power take-off of the tractor. The agitating means on the shaft may suitably be separate radial projections from the shaft such as flaps or short arms, bars or claws. Preferably the projections are wholly or partly of flexible material, for example an'elastomeric material such as rubber.

The speed of rotation of the shaft may be varied to achieve agitation of the roots without damaging them. A suitable range of rotational speeds is from 75 - 200 r.p.m.

The apertures in the wall of the bucket should be small enough to prevent the roots to be transported from falling through. For fodder beet or sugar beet, the apertures may suitably have a minimum dimension in the range IJ - 3 inches (3.0 - 7.6 cm) i.e. in the case of parallel bars, the space between the bars may suitably be in the range IJ to 3 inches (3.0 - 7.6 cm), preferably about lg inches (4.8 cm).

Two embodiments- of the invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 is a side view of a loader bucket according to the invention; Figure 2 is a cross section on the line A - A of Figure 1; Figure 3 is a rear view of a second embodiment of a loader bucket according to the invention, in the direction of arrow C in Figure 4 (the shaft and paddles being omitted); Figure 4 is a section (on the line B - β in Figure 3 but to a larger scale) of the bucket of Figure 3; and Figure 5 is a diagrammatic projection from the front and one side of a loader bucket of the same kind as that of Figures 3 and 4. - 5 In the drawings, the buckets are shown in the position appropriate for nicking up a root crop i.e. with the mouth of the bucket open frontwards.

During a cleaning operation, the buckets would normally be positioned with the mouth of the bucket open upwardly.

As shown in Figures 1 and 2, a loader bucket, particularly for use as a front loader on an agricultural tractor, comprises a bucket 1 of V-shaped cross section having a Dair of lower mounting plates 2 for attachment at point 4 to a pair of tractor lifting linkages and a higher mounting plate 3 for attachment to a hydraulic ram 5 by which the bucket may be tipped about pivot point 4.

The bucket 1 has its principal wall constructed of a row of parallel V-shaped steel tubes 6 joined by transverse straight tubes 7. In the trough of the V-shape and for approximately half the length of the arms of the V, spaces 8 are left open between the tubes. In the embodiment shown in the drawings, the separation between the tubes is about 2$ inches (5.8 cm). The outer arm parts of the V-shaped tubes are covered by steel sheets 9. The end walls of the bucket are formed by steel sheets 10, 11.

A single steel shaft 12 is journalled in bearings attached to the end walls 10, Π.

One end of the shaft extends through and beyond end wall 10 to carry a pulley 13 which is driven via a belt 14 from a tractor power take-off.

A plurality of fixed radial steel plates 16 project radially from the shaft at a variety of different positions along and around the shaft and at a variety of different inclinations to the axis of the shaft. In the embodiment shown, there are thirteen plates welded to the shaft. Bolted to the plates are rubber paddles 17, some of which are L-shaped in cross section.

After a root crop has been harvested and the crop has been collected in a heap, a tractor approaches the heap with the loader bucket in the position shown 46S3G -.6in Figure 1 and the lower lip 18 of the bucket at or adjacent to the level of the ground on which the crop is heaped. The bucket loader then picks up a load of roots, after which the bucket 1 is raised and tipped so that the V-shape is approximately upright and the mouth 19 of the bucket is open vertically upwards while the load is being transported.

The belt drive rotates shaft 12 slowly (for example at about 100 r.p.m.) and the paddles engage the roots in the bucket and move them around inside the bucket. Contact between the paddles and the roots, and also among the roots themselves, knocks soil off the roots. The soil is broken down by the agitating movement and it falls out through the apertures formed by the spaces 8. However, the roots are not damaged by the gentle agitating movement and they do not pass through the spaces 8. At a desired delivery location the bucket 1 is tipped to allow the roots to tumble out over lip 18.

If desired, a flap on the edge of the bucket adjacent to lip 18 may be hinged so as to make delivery of the roots out of the bucket eadier.

In another embodiment of the invention, the sheets 9 covering the outer arm parts of the tubes are omitted.

The tubes may, if desired, be replaced by bars.

The agitation means may alternatively be formed by short steel tubes welded radially to the shaft and somewhat longer lengths of rubber or plastics tubing projecting from the steel tubes.

Figures 3 to 5 show a loader bucket suitable for mounting on the front of an industrial tractor having suitable tipping loader attachments, for example a Volvo (Trade Mark) tractor. Figure 5 is a general diagrammatic view of the bucket; for purposes of clarity, the number of tubes has been reduced and a third row of paddles bdhind the shaft has been omitted. The mounting and drive housings have also been omitted.

As shown in Figures 3 to 5, the loader bucket 20 of generally U-shaped cross section has its principal wall constructed of a row of parallel curved steel 46336 - 7. tubes 26 which at their upper ends are chamfered and welded to a top plate 27 and which at their lower ends are welded to a transverse-stiffener 28 forming part of a bottom plate structure 29. There are spaces 25 between each of the tubes in the row. The tubes form both the bottom and part of the sides of the bucket trough. The top plate 27 is of folded steel plate having generally S-shaped cross section. Both the top plate 27 and bottom plate structure 29 extend across the width of the bucket between two end walls 30, 31.

Journalled in bearings in the two end walls is a single tubular shaft 32.

One end of the shaft extends through and beyond end wall 31 into a drive housing 33 where the shaft is drivably connected to a hydraulic motor (not shown) driven by the hydraulic system of the tractor. The drive from the hydraulic motor to the shaft is geared down via two chain-and-sprocket drives. A 17-tooth sprocket on the hydraulic motor drives a 76-tooth auxiliary sprocket. A 19-tooth sprocket fixed to the auxiliary sprocket drives a 76-tooth sprocket fixed to the shaft 32.

A plurality of radial steel torque arms 34 project radially from the shaft 32 along three lines which are equiangularly spaced around the shaft, the arms in each line being offset with respect to the other lines. In the em20 bodiments of the invention shown in Figures 3 and 4 there would be 15 torque arms in three lines (5 arms in each line) along a shaft approximately 7 feet 6 inches (2.25 m) in length. Bolted to the arms 34 are rubber paddles which, as shown in Figure 5, are formed of flat pieces of fabric-reinforced rubber bent around the plates in U-shape. In use for cleaning roots, the shaft 32 is rotated in a clockwise direction as viewed in Figures 4 and 5, so that the loading edge of each paddle is a soft nose 36 formed by the folded rubber. The paddles sweep close to the trough of the bucket formed by the tubes 26 so that the beets are continuously agitated and tumbled in the bucket. The shaft 32 may also be rotated in the anticlockwise direction as viewed in Figures 4 and 5 to assist in clearing roots out from the bottom of the bucket during unloading. In this case, the bifurcated ends 40 of the rubber paddles 35 engage the beets. - 8 At the front edge of the bottom plate structure 29 is a row of toes 37 which are useful in picking up the crop from the ground. In an alternative embodiment, the toes 37 are replaced by short lengths of tube projecting forwardly in suitable positions.

As shown in Figures 3 and 4, the loader bucket 20 has two pairs of back mounting plates 22 and one pair of upper mounting plates 23 for attachment to a standard lifting and tipping gear. The front edges of back plates 22 project between adjacent tubes 26 and have the same curved configuration as the tubes 26 so that several tubes are effectively replaced in the tubular framework by the front edges of the back plates 22.

The loader bucket of Figur'es 3 to 5 is used in the same manner as that of Figures 1 and 2.

The loader buckets of the present invention may be fitted to lifting and tipping gear of the kind described in our co-pending Irish Application No. 2368/77 entitled “Improved means for mounting implements on tractors.

The invention provides a convenient form of apparatus for cleaning root crops while they are being transported. If the cleaning operation is carried out while the crop is moved across farm land, valuable top soil is returned to the land instead of being carried away with the crop. The load in the bucket may also be washed to remove any remaining soil or dirt, the washing water being free to flow away through the apertures in the bucket wall.

The invention provides a useful accessory which can be fitted to an existing tractor by a farmer or contractor and which does not require a substantial investment in a separate beet cleaning machine. The apparatus of the invention combines the functions of picking up a load of beets from the ground, cleaning them, transporting them and delivering them.

Claims (10)

1. A loader bucket for handling root crops having a rotatable shaft mounted in the bucket with means on the shaft for agitating roots in the bucket so as to knock soil off the roots, at least part of one wall of the bucket below the shaft being formed with apertures through which the soil can fall.

2. A loader bucket according to claim 1, wherein said wall of the bucket below the shaft comprises a framework with open spaces between the framework elements.

3. A loader bucket according to either of the preceding claims, wherein said wall of the bucket below the shaft comprises a plurality of parallel tubes or bars with spaces between the tubes or bars.

4. A loader bucket according to any of the preceding claims, wherein said wall having apertures therein forms the bottom of the bucket when the bucket is positioned with its mouth open vertically upwards.

5. A loader bucket according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the agitating means on the shaft are separate radial projections from the shaft.

6. A loader bucket according to claim 5, wherein the radial projections comprise flexible material.

7. A loader bucket according to claim 6, wherein the radial projections comprise rigid arms secured to the shaft and paddles of flexible material secured to the arms.

8. A loader bucket according to claim 7, wherein each paddle has a U-shape enclosing a radial arm.

9. A loader bucket according to any of the preceding claims comprising a pair of end walls and a principal bucket wall which extends between said end walls and which defines a longitudinal trough, the shaft being journalled in said end walls with its axis lying along the length of the trough, and the part of the principal bucket wall at the bottom of the trough having apertures through which soil can fall but which are small enough to prevent root crops from falling through.

10. A loader bucket substantially as described herein with reference to Figures 1 and 2, 3 and 4 or 5 of the accompanying drawings.