JP2010163261A - Conveying device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To avoid interferences between adjacent carriages or conveyed materials in the back and forth direction in a horizontal curved route without widening a dog pitch and increasing a radius of curvature of the horizontal curved route, using a normal carriage. <P>SOLUTION: A power chain, which is supported and guided by a power rail 3 provided along a conveyance route including the horizontal curved route C2 and to which driving dogs are fitted at a fixed interval, is moved by a driving device at a fixed speed. Driven dogs fitted to a carrier 2 supported and guided by a free rail 4 provided along the conveyance route is engaged with the driving dogs so as to convey the carrier 2, towing it with the power chain. In the horizontal curved route C2, a radius of curvature of the power rail 3 around the center of curvature is reduced relative to the radius of curvature of the free rail 4 around the center of curvature, and the power rail 3 is arranged inside in the radial direction relative to the free rail 4. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a transport apparatus that transports a carrier along a transport path including a horizontal curved path.

For example, in a car body painting process, etc., as a transport device that transports objects to be transported placed on many trolleys along a transport path, a drive chain with a fixed drive dog is fixed by the drive device. 2. Description of the Related Art Conveying devices that move while pulling a carriage with a drive chain while moving at a speed and engaging a driven dog of the carriage with a driving dog are widely used.
As a configuration in which the carriage is conveyed along the conveyance path including the U-turn path by such a conveyance device, a guide roller body guided so as to be able to roll by the rail is fixed to the center portion of the support frame of the carriage, and the center portion An arc-shaped long hole centering on the arc centered on the central portion is formed at a symmetrical position in the front and rear of the support frame with respect to the transport direction, and the upper and lower support roller bodies are placed in the front and rear long holes. The center part of the support frame always moves along the rail by rolling the vertical roller horizontally provided on the upper body part along the lower surface of the support frame while engaging the horizontal roller protruding from the body part. (For example, refer to Patent Document 1).
According to such a configuration, the center portion of the support frame does not go out of the center line of the rail and pass inside, so that the interval between the drive dogs attached to the drive chain is increased and the curvature radius of the U-turn path is increased. Without interference, it is possible to avoid the interference of the carts adjacent in the front-rear direction on the U-turn path.

JP 2008-201506 A

However, it is necessary for the transport apparatus as in Patent Document 1 to newly install a guide roller body at the center of the support frame of the carriage, and to form the arc-shaped elongated holes before and after the support frame. In addition, it is necessary to attach a horizontal roller and a vertical roller to the upper body part of the front and rear support roller bodies, and all of the many carts transported along the transport path including the U-turn path are specially structured as described above. It needs to be a trolley.
Therefore, the reliability may decrease due to the increase in the number of parts and the complexity of the configuration, and the cost increases significantly.

  Therefore, in view of the above-mentioned situation, the present invention intends to solve the problem of widening the interval between the drive dogs attached to the drive chain and the horizontal direction such as the U-turn path while using a normal carrier without producing a special carrier. An object of the present invention is to provide a transport apparatus capable of avoiding interference between carriers or objects to be transported adjacent to each other in the front-rear direction in the horizontal curved path without increasing the curvature radius of the curved path.

  In order to solve the above problems, the transport device according to the present invention drives a power chain that is supported and guided by a power rail installed along a predetermined transport path including a horizontal curved path and that has a fixed drive dog attached thereto. The carrier is pulled by the power chain by moving the driven dog attached to the carrier supported and guided by a free rail installed along the transport path to the driving dog by moving the device at a constant speed. A conveying device for conveying along the conveying path, wherein, in the horizontal curved path, a curvature radius of the power rail around the center of curvature is set to a curvature radius of the free rail around the center of curvature. It is made smaller.

  According to the transport device of the present invention, a power chain that is supported and guided by a power rail installed along a predetermined transport path including a horizontal curved path and that has a fixed driving dog is attached at a constant speed by the drive device. The transport path is pulled while the carrier is pulled by the power chain by engaging a driven dog attached to a carrier supported and guided by a free rail installed along the transport path. The horizontal curved path has a smaller radius of curvature of the power rail around the center of curvature than the radius of curvature of the free rail around the center of curvature in the horizontal curved path. In the horizontal curved path, the power rail is installed radially inward relative to the free rail. Drive dog at regular intervals of the support guided power chain Wareru is, pulls the driven dog of carriers supported and guided on the outside of the free rail.

Therefore, in the horizontal curved path, the driven dog of the carrier is pulled by the driving dog located inside in the radial direction, and the driving dog is attached to the power chain at regular intervals. Because the distance between the carriers is wide, it is possible to use the normal carrier without producing a special carrier, and without increasing the distance between the drive dogs attached to the drive chain or increasing the radius of curvature of the horizontal curved path. It is possible to avoid interference between a carrier adjacent to the carrier or an object to be conveyed.
Therefore, as a configuration for avoiding interference in such a horizontal curved path, it is not necessary to use a large number of carriers transported along the transport path as special carriers, and normal carriers having a simple configuration can be used. Therefore, a decrease in reliability and an increase in cost can be suppressed.

It is a schematic plan view which shows typically the state which is conveying the carrier along the conveyance path | route including a horizontal curve path | route by the conveying apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a front view which shows the state in which the carrier is conveyed along the linear path | route. It is the longitudinal cross-sectional view seen from the front which shows the state in which the carrier is conveyed along the horizontal curve path | route. It is a schematic plan view which shows typically the conveyance state of the carrier in a horizontal curve path | route, (a) shows the structure of the conventional conveying apparatus, (b) shows the structure of the conveying apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention. ing. It is explanatory drawing of the principle which the space | interval between carriers spreads in a horizontal curve path | route.

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments shown in the accompanying drawings, and includes all the embodiments that satisfy the requirements described in the claims. It is a waste.
In the present specification, the front side (downstream side) is the front (see arrow F in the figure), the rear side (upstream side) is the rear, and the left and right are frontward along the conveyance direction of the carriage 2. The view from the left is the front view.

As shown in FIG. 1, the transport apparatus 1 connects reciprocating parallel straight paths C1 and C1, which are an example of a predetermined transport path including a horizontal curved path, by a U-turn path C2 that is a horizontal curved path. Along the conveyance path, the carriages 2,..., Which are carriers for conveying the articles to be conveyed W,.
As shown in FIG. 2, the carriage 2 includes a free trolley 8, a front trolley 11, a front load trolley 12, a rear load trolley 13, a rear trolley 14, and a connecting rod 15 that connects these trolleys 11 to 14. , 16, 17 etc.

As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the yokes 10,... Arranged along the transport path and fixed to the floor surface FL have a pair of left and right cross sections with openings facing each other at intervals in the left-right direction. The lower power rail 3 and the upper free rail 4 constituted by substantially U-shaped rails are fixed by, for example, welding.
The left and right wheels 6A of the power trolley 6, attached to the power chain 5 that is driven by a driving device (not shown) and moves at a constant speed are engaged with the power rail 3, and the free rail 4 is engaged with the free rail 4. The left and right wheels 8A of the free trolley 8 are engaged.

  Further, the power trolley 6 attached to the power chain 5 has driving dogs 7 projecting upward at regular intervals P (hereinafter referred to as “dog pitch P”, see FIG. 2). Since the driven dog 9 protrudes downward from the leading trolley 11 of No. 2, the carriage 2 is pulled by the power chain 5 in the conveyance path when the driven dog 9 is engaged with the driving dog 7. Move along.

Next, the positional relationship between the power rail 3 and the free rail 4 will be described.
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 4 (b), in most parts of the straight path C1, the power rail 3 is located immediately below the free rail 4, that is, the center of the free rail 4 in the left-right direction is connected in plan view. The straight line and the straight line connecting the left and right center of the power rail 3 overlap.
On the other hand, in the U-turn path C2, the power around the curvature center G with respect to the curvature radius R1 at the center in the left-right direction of the free rail 4 around the curvature center G (see FIG. 4B) in plan view. The radius of curvature R2 at the center in the left-right direction of the rail 3 is reduced, and the power rail 3 is installed at a position offset to the inner side (left side) in the radial direction with respect to the free rail 4.

  In addition, the position where the power rail 3 in the U-turn path C2 is offset to the left in the plan view with respect to the free rail 4 and the position where the power rail 3 in the straight path C1 overlaps the free rail 4 in the plan view are as follows. In the plan view shown in FIG. 1, the path of the power rail 3 is smoothly connected while a part of the straight path C1 of the power rail 3 on the U-turn path C2 side is offset to the left side.

Here, as shown in FIG. 3, the shape of the drive dog 7 attached to the power chain 5 via the power trolley 6 is substantially T-shaped when viewed from the front, and the drive dog 7 is long in the left-right direction. As described above, even when the power rail 3 is offset to the left with respect to the free rail 4 in the U-turn path C2 or the like, the driven dog 9 is engaged with the driving dog 7.
Further, since the shape of the drive dog 7 is substantially T-shaped when viewed from the front, the drive dog 7 extends in the right direction and the left direction with respect to the power chain 5 (the center in the left-right direction of the power rail 3). The driven dog 9 can be engaged with the same drive dog 7 regardless of whether the curve direction of the horizontal curved path is to the left or to the right.

Next, with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5 which are schematic diagrams and principle explanatory diagrams, the conveyance of the carriages 2... In the U-turn path C2 will be described.
4A, the straight line connecting the center of the free rail 4 in the left-right direction and the left-right direction of the power rail 3 in plan view over the entire transfer path including the straight path C1 and the U-turn path C2. It overlaps the straight line connecting the centers.
Therefore, in the conventional transfer apparatus, for example, as shown in FIG. 4A, the center of the article W (cart 2) is moved away from the center line of the free rail 4 along the U-turn path C2. Depending on the size of the dog pitch P (see FIG. 2), the objects W and W adjacent in the front-rear direction interfere with each other (see A in FIG. 4A). Or when the trolley | bogie 2 is large, the trolley | bogies 2 and 2 adjacent in the front-back direction may interfere.

  On the other hand, in the transfer apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 4B, the U-turn path C2 has the power rail 3 in the radial direction with respect to the free rail 4 as described above in plan view. The drive dog 7 of the power chain 5 supported and guided by the inner power rail 3 is installed at a position offset to the (left side), and the driven dog 9 of the carriage 2 supported and guided by the outer free rail 4. The drive dog 7 is attached to the power chain 5 for each dog pitch P.

Here, as shown in FIG. 5, the center of curvature G and the front and rear ends of the dog chain pitch P of the power chain 5 when the power rail 3 is installed so that the curvature radius of the curve connecting the center in the left-right direction is R1. And the center of curvature G of the power chain 5 when the power rail 3 is installed so that the radius of curvature of the curve connecting the center in the left-right direction is R2 (<R1). If the fan-shaped angle β formed by the front and rear ends of the dog pitch P is β> α.
Therefore, in the U-turn path C2, as shown in FIG. 4B, the case where the power rail 3 is installed at a position offset to the inner side (left side) in the radial direction with respect to the free rail 4 is shown in FIG. Drive dogs 7 and 7 (dog pitch P) before and after the power chain 5 moving along the power rail 3 than when the power rail 3 is directly below the free rail 4 as shown in FIG. The space | interval between the carts 2 and 2 before and behind towed by 9,9 engaging becomes large (refer D of FIG. 5).

Due to such a principle, as shown in FIG. 4A, the same carriage 2 and the same dog pitch P are used as in the case where the objects W and W adjacent in the front-rear direction in the U-turn path C2 interfere with each other. However, in the transport apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 4B, the distance between the transported objects W and W (carts 2 and 2) adjacent in the front-rear direction in the U-turn path C2 is increased. Conveyed objects adjacent in the front-rear direction without increasing the dog pitch P or increasing the radius of curvature of the horizontal curved path such as the U-turn path C2 while using the normal carriage 2 without producing a special carriage Interference of W, W or carts 2 and 2 can be avoided.
Therefore, as a configuration for avoiding such interference in the horizontal curved path, it is not necessary to use a large number of carts transported along the transport route as special carts, and an ordinary cart with a simple configuration is used. Therefore, a decrease in reliability and an increase in cost can be suppressed.

  In the above description, the transport device 1 is a floor conveyor that transports the carriages 2..., But the transport device 1 is an overhead conveyor that transports a carrier with a hanger that suspends the article W to be transported. There may be.

C1 Straight path C2 U-turn path (horizontal curved path)
F Forward G Curvature center P Drive dog spacing R1 Free rail curvature radius R2 Power rail curvature radius W Conveyed object 1 Conveyor 2 Carriage (carrier)
3 Power rail 4 Free rail 5 Power chain 6 Power trolley 6A Wheel 7 Driving dog 8 Free trolley 8A Wheel 9 Driven dog 10 Yoke 11 Top trolley 12, 13 Road trolley 14 Rear trolley 15, 16, 17 Connecting rod

Claims (1)

A power chain that is supported and guided by a power rail installed along a predetermined conveyance path including a horizontal curved path and that is attached with a fixed interval driving dog is moved at a constant speed by a driving device, and is installed along the conveyance path. A transporting device that transports along the transport path while pulling the carrier by the power chain by engaging a driven dog attached to a carrier supported and guided by the free rail, ,
In the horizontal curved path, the conveying device is characterized in that the radius of curvature of the power rail around the center of curvature is made smaller than the radius of curvature of the free rail around the center of curvature.

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