JP2000185262A - Pipe length classifying apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a pipe length classifying apparatus for efficiently classifying a pipe even if there are variations in the quantities of the lengths of pipes to be classified. SOLUTION: A length discerning means for discerning the length of a pipe is arranged to a feed conveyor 5 and the pipe of which the length is discerned is housed in a predetermined housing truck 2 by a transfer device 3. At this time, the length of the pipe to be housed is arbitrarily preset to each of the housing trucks 2 and, when one housing truck 2 is filled, a housing destination is changed over to a preparatory or empty housing truck 2 so as not to stop classifying work.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to, for example, the length of a pipe to be sorted into predetermined lengths after washing off a deposit such as concrete or paint adhering to a temporary pipe used at a construction site or the like. The present invention relates to a sorting device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As shown in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-52080, as a pipe length sorting device, screw shafts rotating on the same plane are opposed to each other, and the interval between the screw shafts is set from the front to the front. It is installed so that it gradually widens toward, and various pipes with different lengths are transported forward so as to span the opposite screw shafts, and the distance between the screw shafts with respect to the pipe length increases. There is a type in which pipes of various lengths are sorted into predetermined lengths by utilizing the fact that the pipes fall downward at a predetermined time.

[0003]

However, many pipes used at construction sites and the like have a specific length, and such pipes containing many of the same length are used as described above. If an attempt is made to sort by a conventional length sorter, the pipes will concentrate on a specific truck and the truck will quickly fill up. When the trolley is full, it is necessary to pull out the trolley, take out the stored pipes, tie them up, and return the empty trolley to its original place. It is necessary to slow down the feeding speed or to stop the apparatus, which may reduce the efficiency of the sorting operation.

[0004] In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a pipe length sorting apparatus capable of efficiently sorting pipes even if the length of the pipes to be sorted varies quantitatively.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides a pipe length sorting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a conveyor for conveying pipes and a conveyor for conveying the pipes are provided. Length determining means for determining the length of the disposed pipe, a plurality of storage carts for storing the pipes of which the length has been determined, and a transfer for transferring the pipe whose length has been determined by the length determining means to the storage cart. Device, and a control device for arbitrarily setting the length of the pipe to be stored in the storage trolley, and controlling the transfer of the pipe whose length has been determined to a predetermined storage trolley by the transfer device. I have.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the pipe length sorting device, the control device positions the center of the pipe whose length has been determined by the length determining means below the holding means of the transfer device. Thus, the stop of the conveyor can be controlled.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a pipe length sorting apparatus for dispensing pipes on a conveyor and aligning a plurality of pipes below the transfer apparatus. And a holding means for holding a plurality of pipes on the pipe alignment device and capable of holding and releasing the pipes one by one.

[0008]

According to the pipe length sorting apparatus of the first aspect of the present invention, the length of the pipe conveyed by the conveyor is discriminated by the length discriminating means. The discriminated pipe is clamped by the transfer device and stored in a predetermined storage cart. The length of the pipes to be stored in each storage trolley can be set arbitrarily. If the pipes to be sorted contain many pipes of the same length and the predetermined storage trolley becomes full, a spare or empty pipe is set. Is set so that the pipe of that length is stored in the storage trolley, and is subsequently stored in this storage trolley. Also, the full storage cart is pulled out and the pipes are tied together, and the empty storage cart is returned to its original position again and waits for the next storage. In this way, if the empty storage cart always waits and the length of the pipe to be stored can be set arbitrarily,
The efficiency of the sorting operation can be improved, such as being able to flexibly cope with the quantitative variation in the length of the pipes to be sorted, without stopping the apparatus, and also having a margin for the binding work of the pipes.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the pipe length sorting apparatus, the conveying conveyor is arranged so that the center of the pipe whose length is determined by the determining means is positioned below the holding means of the transfer device. Since it stops, the vicinity of the center of gravity of the pipe can be clamped by the transfer device, and even pipes of different lengths can be stably transferred to the storage trolley, and the structure of the transfer device can be simplified.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a pipe length sorting apparatus, wherein a plurality of pipes discharged from a conveyor are aligned by a pipe aligning apparatus, and a plurality of pipes can be gripped by the pipes. Is distributed and stored in a predetermined storage trolley by the transfer device having the above, so that the number of reciprocations of the transfer device can be reduced as much as possible, and the sorting operation can be performed more efficiently.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

As shown in FIG. 1, the pipe length sorting device of the present invention is a length discriminating device 1 for discriminating the length of a pipe.
And a storage truck 2 for storing pipes at predetermined lengths, and a transfer device 3 for transferring the pipe whose length has been determined to any storage truck 2.

As shown in FIG. 3, the length discriminating apparatus 1 is provided with a pipe detector 6 serving as a pipe length discriminating means on a transport conveyor 5 on a gantry 4, and the transport conveyor 5 is elongated. A large number of rollers 8 are arranged on the frame 7 at predetermined intervals along the longitudinal direction of the frame 7, and as shown in FIG.
A roller 9 is rotated via a chain 10 by a motor 9 disposed below one end of the frame 7 to convey the pipe, and a pipe detector made of a photoelectric sensor is provided on the side of the frame 7. A large number of pipes 6 are arranged along the longitudinal direction of the frame 7 at intervals of about 250 mm to 500 mm, and the pipe detector 6 detects the leading end and the end of the pipe moving on the roller 8 to move. Is determined.

A pipe aligning device 11 is disposed adjacent to the conveyor 5 of the length discriminating apparatus 1, and a pipe on the conveyor 5 is hooked on the gantry 4 as shown in FIG. A kicker 13 having a cut-out piece 12 which is rolled forward so as to lift
, The chain 18 is rotatably wound around sprockets 16 and 17 disposed before and after a support member 15 erected in a direction perpendicular to the conveyor 5.
An alignment conveyor 20 for rotating the chain 18 by a motor 19 is provided. When the pipe on the transporting conveyor 5 is hooked by the cut-out piece 12 and taken into the aligning conveyor 20, the aligning conveyor 20 is advanced by one pitch. In the illustrated example, three pipes are moved on the aligning conveyor 20. Can be arranged at regular intervals.

The storage cart 2 is, as shown in FIGS.
The wheels 22 are arranged on the lower surface of the elongated machine frame 21, the columns 23 are erected around the upper surface of the machine frame 21, and the bottom plate 24 is arranged between the columns 23 to accommodate about 50 pipes. In this way, it is preferable to prepare a number corresponding to the number of types of pipe lengths to be sorted, and further prepare one or more spares. Further, it is preferable that the length of all the storage carts 2 in the longitudinal direction is set to a dimension that can accommodate the longest pipe to be sorted. Horizontal wheels 25 are provided on both sides of the machine casing 21 so that the storage cart 2 can be moved smoothly even when it comes into contact with a lateral pillar or the like when the storage cart 2 is put in and out.

The transfer device 3 is, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a storage cart waiting area 2 disposed on the side of the pipe alignment device 11.
A gripper 28 serving as a holding means for gripping and separating a pipe is movably disposed on a portal frame 27 disposed so as to straddle the conveyor 6 and the conveyor 5.
8 and 9, a traveling body 30 is disposed on a traveling rail 29 laid on an upper side of the portal frame 27, and a rack gear 31 and a traveling body 30 disposed on the upper side of the portal frame 27 are provided. And a pinion gear 33 attached to a traveling motor 32 mounted on the vehicle, and the traveling body 30 can travel along the traveling rail 29 by driving the traveling motor 32.

A support plate 34 is vertically disposed on the lower surface of the traveling body 30. A slide guide 35 is attached to the support plate 34, and a slide shaft 3 is attached to the slide guide 35.
6 is slidably inserted, an elevating body 37 is attached to the lower end of the slide shaft 36, and the tip of a piston rod 39 of a cylinder 38 attached to the support plate 34 is attached to the elevating body 37.
And the elevating body 37 can be moved up and down by the expansion and contraction of the piston rod 39.

On the lower surface of the elevating body 37, gripping claws 28 for gripping and separating the pipes are made openable and closable by the operation of a cylinder (not shown), and three sets of grippers are provided so as to simultaneously grip three parallel pipes. The claws 28 are arranged in parallel.
Needless to say, the number of the gripping claws 28 may be any number instead of three.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the storage truck waiting area 26 below the gate frame 27 is
Are provided, and there are provided sections of the number of pipe lengths to be sorted, and one or more spare sections for holding the above-mentioned spare storage carts. In the illustrated example, for example, the types of the lengths of the standard temporary pipes used at the construction site are 6.0 m, 5.5 m, 5.0 m, 4.5 m,
4.0m, 3.5m, 3.0m, 2.5m, 2.0m,
11 types of standard lengths such as 1.5 m and 1.0 m and one type of non-standard length cut to an arbitrary length are added.
Since there are only about three kinds of sections, 13 sections are obtained by adding one spare section to these 12 kinds of sections.

Reference numeral 40 in FIG. 1 denotes a control unit for controlling the pipe length sorting device. As shown in FIG. 10, the control unit 41 is constituted by a microcomputer and controls the flow of various data and performs calculations. And a data input unit 43 for inputting set values and various data, and an input / output unit 44 for inputting and outputting input signals from sensors and control signals to each device. ing.

The control device 40 has a sequence program 4 for operating each device of the length sorting device in accordance with the procedure.
5 and the pipe detector 6 of the length determination device 1
Length determination means 46, which is a program for determining the length of a pipe in response to a pipe detection signal from the controller, and a transfer destination, which is a program for arbitrarily assigning the type of pipe to be transferred to each of the storage carts 2 arranged in parallel. A setting means 47 and a detachable control means 48 which is a program for controlling the operation of each of the three sets of gripping claws 28 and the like are mounted.

Next, a method of sorting pipes by the pipe length sorting apparatus will be described.

As described above, in many cases, 11 types of temporary pipes and 12 types of non-standard pipes are collectively sorted according to their lengths as described above. Therefore,
First, the data input unit 43 of the control device 40 is operated, and the transfer destination setting unit 47 operates the data storage unit 12 in the storage cart standby area 26.
The length type of the pipe to be stored in the storage trolley 2 waiting in the section is set. At this time, when the pipes to be sorted include all length types, the types of pipes to be stored in the storage trolleys 2 waiting on the 12 sections are allocated, but if the sorting types are limited, the number of processed pipes is expected to be large. The type of pipe can also be assigned to the storage trolley 2 waiting in a plurality of sections. The storage trolleys 2 waiting in the spare section can be manually or automatically assigned storage of the full type after the storage trolleys 2 in the other sections are full. When the storage cart 2 is made to stand by in each section, the conveyor 5 of the length discriminating apparatus 1 is driven to start supplying the pipe.

When the leading end of the pipe conveyed by the conveyor 5 is detected by the pipe detector 6 disposed at the front of the frame 7, the pipe detector 6
An ON signal is output to 0. While the pipe passes in front of the pipe detector 6, the pipe detector 6
If the end of the pipe passes through the pipe detector 6, the pipe is no longer detected and the pipe detector 6 outputs an OFF signal. When the signal from the pipe detector 6 is once turned on and then turned off, the length determining means 46 of the control device 40 determines which pipe detector 6 on the frame 7 has the head of the pipe being transferred. It is determined whether or not it has arrived, thereby determining the length of the pipe.

When the length of the pipe can be determined, the length from the head to the center of the pipe being transferred is calculated, and when the head of the pipe being transferred reaches any pipe detector 6 on the frame 7. It is determined whether the central portion of the pipe being transported reaches below the gripping claw 28 of the transfer device 3, and when the leading end of the pipe is detected by the pipe detector 6, the drive of the transport conveyor 5 is stopped. .

Next, the kicker 13 of the pipe alignment device 11
Is rotated and the conveyor 5
The upper pipe is hooked, lifted and rolled forward and transferred onto the alignment conveyor 20. Then, when the pipe moves to the position before the alignment conveyor 20, the alignment conveyor 20 is advanced by one pitch. During this time, the conveyor 5 conveys the next pipe, determines its length in the same manner as described above, and stops at a predetermined position. The kicker 13 is rotated to transfer the pipe onto the alignment conveyor 20 by the cut-out piece 12, and the alignment conveyor 20 is further advanced by one pitch. Subsequently, the same operation is repeated to transfer the third pipe from the transport conveyor 5 onto the alignment conveyor 20.

When the three pipes are aligned on the alignment conveyor 20 in this manner, the piston rod 39 of the cylinder 38 of the transfer device 3 waiting above the alignment conveyor 20 is extended, and the gripper 28 is lowered together with the lifting / lowering body 37. Then, the three pipes on the alignment conveyor 20 are grasped and raised.

In the control device 40, the types of these three pipes are grasped by the length discriminating means 46. After the pipes are grasped and raised, the traveling motor 32 of the traveling body 30 is driven to remove the grasped pipes. It is transported along the gate-shaped frame 27 and stops on a predetermined section of the storage trolley waiting area 26 set in advance. Then, only the grasping claw 28 of the corresponding type is opened by the attachment / detachment control means 48, and the pipe of the type corresponding to the storage trolley 2 waiting at a lower position is dropped. The same operation is performed for the remaining two pipes, and the two pipes are respectively stored in the predetermined storage carts 2.

At this time, if the three temporary pipes gripped by the gripping claws 28 are of the same type, the three gripping claws 28 are simultaneously opened on the section corresponding to the type, and the lower storage cart Dropped into 2.

When one of the storage trucks 2 becomes full, a spare or empty storage truck is set manually or automatically as a transfer destination of the full pipe type, and the pipe of that type is set. It will be transferred to a spare or empty storage cart. Then, the storage trolley 2, which is full during that time, is pulled out from the compartment as shown in FIG. 1, and about 50 trolleys are packed together with steel tape or the like and transported to a storage place.
The empty storage cart 2 returns to the original section and waits for the next storage.

As described above, if the spare or empty storage truck 2 is always kept on standby and the length of the pipe to be stored can be set arbitrarily, the spare or empty storage truck 2 becomes full when one storage truck 2 becomes full. The storage destination can be switched to the storage trolley 2 to continuously store the storage trolley 2, and the pipes of the full storage trolley 2 can be packed and carried out with a margin without stopping the sorting operation, and the efficiency of the sorting operation can be improved. Can be improved.

If the central portion of the pipe conveyed by the conveyor 5 is positioned below the gripping claw 28 serving as the holding means of the transfer device 3 and is stopped, the center of gravity of the pipe is moved by the gripping claw 28. Can be stably transferred to the storage trolley 2 even with pipes having different lengths, and the transfer device 3 can also have a simple structure by hanging the pipe at one point.

Further, a plurality of pipes discharged from the conveyor 5 are aligned by the pipe alignment device 11,
If this is distributed and stored in the predetermined storage cart 2 by the transfer device 3 having the gripping claws 28 capable of holding a plurality of pipes, the number of reciprocations of the transfer device 3 can be reduced as much as possible, and the sorting operation can be performed. Can be performed more efficiently.

In this embodiment, the gripping claw has been described as an example of the holding means. However, the present invention is not limited to the gripping claw, but means for holding the pipe, for example, various kinds of means such as magnets and suction pads. It is needless to say that these may be adopted and these may be adopted.

[0035]

As described above, in the pipe length sorting apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention, the length of the conveyor for transporting the pipe and the length of the pipe disposed on the conveyor for transport are described. Length discriminating means for discriminating, a plurality of storage carts for storing the pipes whose lengths have been discriminated, a transfer device for transferring the pipes whose lengths have been discriminated by the length discriminating means to the storage cart, and The length of the pipe to be stored is arbitrarily set, and the control unit controls the transfer of the pipe whose length has been determined to a predetermined storage cart by the transfer unit. And the efficiency of the sorting operation can be improved, for example, without stopping the apparatus and allowing a margin for the work of binding pipes.

Further, in the pipe length sorting apparatus according to the second aspect, the control device positions the center of the pipe whose length is determined by the length determining means below the holding means of the transfer device. The transfer conveyor can be controlled to stop as described above, so that the transfer device can clamp the vicinity of the center of gravity of the pipe, and pipes with different lengths can be stably transferred to the storage cart, and the structure of the transfer device is simple. It will be.

In the pipe length sorting apparatus according to the third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a pipe alignment apparatus for paying out pipes on a conveyor and aligning a plurality of pipes below the transfer apparatus. With the holding means capable of holding and holding and releasing a plurality of pipes on the pipe aligning device one by one, the number of reciprocations of the transfer device can be reduced as much as possible, and the sorting operation can be performed more efficiently. .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an embodiment of a pipe length sorting apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a side view in which a part of FIG. 1 is omitted.

FIG. 3 is an enlarged view of a main part in which a part of FIG. 1 is omitted.

FIG. 4 is a front view in which a part of FIG. 3 is omitted.

FIG. 5 is an enlarged view of a main part of FIG. 2, in which a gripper of the transfer device is positioned on an alignment conveyor.

FIG. 6 is a front view showing the storage cart.

FIG. 7 is an enlarged side view of FIG. 6;

FIG. 8 is an enlarged view in which a part of FIG.

FIG. 9 is an enlarged view of a main part of FIG. 2 with a part cut away.

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of a control device.

[Description of sign]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Length discriminating device 2 ... Storage trolley 3 ... Transfer device 5 ... Conveyor 6 ... Pipe detector 11 ... Pipe alignment device 13 ... Kicker 20 ... Alignment conveyor 26 ... Storage trolley standby area 27 ... Portal frame 28 ... Gripping claw (clamping means) 30 ... Traveling body 37 ... Elevating body 46 ... Length discriminating means 47 ... Transfer destination setting means 48 ... Removal control means

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on front page F term (reference) 2F065 AA22 AA61 BB08 BB11 DD06 FF02 JJ01 JJ24 MM03 PP16 QQ23 QQ24 TT01 TT02 TT03 3F027 AA03 CA04 DA03 EA01 EA06 FA12 3F079 AD22 BA13 CA18 CB32 DA33 CC01 DA01

Claims (3)

[Claims] A transport conveyor for transporting the pipes, length determining means for determining the length of the pipes disposed on the transport conveyor, a plurality of storage trucks for storing the pipes having the determined lengths, A transfer device for transferring the pipe whose length has been determined by the length determining means to the storage trolley, and the length of the pipe to be stored in the storage trolley is set arbitrarily. A pipe length sorting device, comprising: a control device for controlling transfer to a storage trolley. 2. The transfer device according to claim 1, wherein the control device can stop and control the transport conveyor so that the center of the pipe whose length is determined by the length determining device is positioned below the holding device of the transfer device. Pipe length sorting device as described. 3. A pipe aligning device for paying out pipes on a conveyor and aligning a plurality of pipes below the transfer device, and the transfer device holds a plurality of pipes on the pipe aligning device and holds the pipes one by one. 3. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a releasing means.