JP3944324B2 - Heating and quenching equipment - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a heat treatment apparatus, and more particularly, to a heating and quenching apparatus that rapidly cools a workpiece after heating.
[0002]
[Prior art]
For example, it is known that a process of rapidly cooling a liquid crystal panel after heating the liquid crystal panel is generally required to perform a liquid crystal reorganization process in a heat treatment process of the liquid crystal panel. Conventionally, in order to realize such a process, a conveyance path is provided between a heating apparatus and a cooling apparatus that are installed apart from each other, and the heated object is conveyed to the cooling apparatus for cooling. .
[0003]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, in the conventional apparatus as described above, the object to be processed is gradually cooled during the transfer from the heating apparatus to the cooling apparatus. Therefore, the cooling in the cooling apparatus is no longer the ideal “rapid cooling”. Don't be. Therefore, a desired processing result may not be obtained. Further, since a heating device and a cooling device are required separately, the installation space as a whole device is large.
[0004]
In view of the conventional problems as described above, an object of the present invention is to provide a heating and cooling device that realizes heating and rapid cooling of an object to be processed and a reduction in installation space.
[0005]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
The heating and quenching apparatus of the present invention is a heating and quenching apparatus installed in a clean room, circulating a hot air maintaining a predetermined degree of cleanliness, and performing a heat treatment on the loaded workpiece, A quenching device that is installed adjacent to the workpiece unloading side of the heating device, has a blowing means and an exhaust means through a clean filter passage, and forcibly air-cools the workpiece unloaded from the heating device by blowing air And an openable / closable shutter installed in an adjacent portion of the heating device and the quenching device, and a transport device that transports the object to be processed from the heating device to the quenching device, A blowout nozzle that is disposed above the workpiece and blows air blown from the blowing means onto the workpiece; and is provided below the blowout nozzle so as to be movable up and down. A hood surrounding the four sides, and wherein the exhaust means includes a suction port for suction of air after it has been blown to the object to be processed below the object to be treated is blown into the processing object A part of the remaining air is sucked into the blowing means, and the rest is exhausted into the clean room (claim 1). In such a heating and quenching apparatus, the object to be treated is heat-treated with the heating apparatus, and after the heat treatment, is conveyed to a quenching apparatus installed adjacent to the heating apparatus. The object to be processed conveyed to the rapid cooling device is cooled at once by blowing. By closing the shutter at the time of this air blowing, air can be prevented from entering the heating device by the air blowing.
[0006]
Furthermore, the forced air-cooling in the quench unit but it may also be air of at least the clean room is used. In this case, clean air in the clean room circulates inside and outside the quenching device and is used for forced air cooling of the workpiece.
[0007]
Further, the blowout nozzle may be provided retractably (claim 2). In this case, air can be appropriately blown in accordance with the form of the object to be processed by the advancement and retreat of the nozzle.
[0008]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
FIG. 1 is a front view of a heating and quenching apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a side view showing an internal configuration related to the quenching apparatus of the apparatus. In addition, the arrow in FIG. 2 shows the flow of air.
In FIG.1 and FIG.2, the said heating rapid cooling apparatus is installed in the clean room, mainly the heating apparatus 1, the rapid cooling apparatus 2 installed adjacent to this, and the conveying apparatus 4 which conveys the to-be-processed object 3, and It is constituted by. The heating device 1 has a known configuration in which a hot air maintaining a predetermined cleanness is circulated to heat-treat the workpiece 3.
The quenching device 2 includes a blower chamber 2A provided in the horizontal direction on the heating device 1, an air cooling chamber 2B provided adjacent to the workpiece unloading side (right end side) of the heating device 1, and an air cooling chamber 2B. The exhaust device 2 </ b> C is branched from the lower side into two hands on the front side and the back side and extends in the horizontal direction. The heating and quenching apparatus configured as described above has a small installation space and a simple configuration due to the adjacent installation structure of the heating apparatus 1 and the quenching apparatus 2.
[0009]
The object to be processed 3 has a weight of about 30 kg obtained by vertically stacking 20 baskets called liquid crystal glass-containing cassettes, and is subjected to heat treatment for liquid crystal reorganization processing. There are a plurality of types (heights) of the workpiece 3, and the figure shows two types of sizes.
The transport device 4 is, for example, a chain conveyor or a walking beam mechanism, and is installed horizontally from the front of the carry-in entrance 1a of the heating device 1 to the carry-out stand 5 through the heating device 1 and the air cooling chamber 2B. The objects to be processed 3 are transported in two rows by the transport device 4 in the transport direction.
[0010]
A plurality of intake blowers 21 (six in this embodiment) are installed in the blower chamber 2A. On the outer surface of the blower chamber 2A, suction ports 22 with a clean filter are provided at a plurality of locations (three on the front side and three on the back side). The outlet of each intake blower 21 is connected to the air duct 23. The air duct 23 includes a horizontal portion 23a and a vertical portion 23b that is configured to branch downward from the right end portion in an inverted U shape (see FIG. 2). FIG. 3 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of the air cooling chamber 2B in FIG. Referring to FIG. 3, blowing nozzles 24 are attached to the respective lower ends of the vertical portion 23 b so as to be slidable in the vertical direction, and can advance and retreat with respect to the workpiece 3. The blowing nozzle 24 is driven by a slide mechanism (not shown) and slides up and down.
[0011]
A hood 25 for efficiently applying air blown from the blowing nozzle 24 to the workpiece 3 is provided at each lower portion of the blowing nozzle 24 so as to be vertically movable. The hood 25 is also driven by a lifting mechanism (not shown) to move up and down.
A shutter 26 is provided at an adjacent portion between the air cooling chamber 2 </ b> B and the heating device 1 so as to face the carry-out port 1 b of the heating device 1 so as to be freely opened and closed. A shutter 27 is also provided in the air cooling chamber 2B so as to be openable and closable on the workpiece outlet 2b1 side. These shutters 26 and 27 are opened and closed by respective opening / closing mechanisms (not shown).
A suction port 28 for sucking air used for air cooling is provided at the lower part of the air cooling chamber 2B, and one end of an exhaust duct 29 is connected to the suction port 28. A pair of suction ports 28 and exhaust ducts 29 are provided on the front side and the back side (see FIG. 2), and a plurality of (two) exhaust blowers provided in the exhaust device 2C are provided at the other end of each exhaust duct 29. 20 is connected.
[0012]
Next, the operation of the heating and quenching apparatus configured as described above will be described.
The object to be processed 3 introduced in the direction of the arrow from the carry-in port 1a of the heating apparatus 1 is conveyed through the inside of the heating apparatus 1 by the tact operation of the conveying apparatus 4, while the object to be processed 3 reaches a predetermined temperature (120 ° C.). It is heated and is soaked at that temperature for a predetermined time (about 30 minutes). When the heat treatment is finished in this way, the shutter 26 is opened, and the workpieces 3 for 1 column each in two rows are conveyed into the air cooling chamber 2B. At this time, the hood 25 is raised to the rising end in advance, and does not prevent the workpiece 3 from being carried in. After the carry-in, the shutter 26 is closed and the blowing nozzle 24 is lowered to a position corresponding to the height of the workpiece 3. That is, as shown in FIG. 2, when the right workpiece 3 is lower than the left workpiece 3, the right blowing nozzle 24 slides to a position lower than the left blowing nozzle 24. At the same time, the hood 25 is lowered to the lower end.
[0013]
Next, the intake blower 21 and the exhaust blower 20 are operated simultaneously. Thus, air in the heating and quenching apparatus is installed clean room is sucked from the blower chamber 2A via the suction port 22 with clean filter and is exhausted from the exhaust unit 2C. At this time, the air blown from the blowing nozzle 24 in the air cooling chamber 2B reaches, for example, a flow rate of 240 m3 per minute and a wind speed of 30 m / s. By the forced air cooling by this large amount of air blowing, the workpiece 3 is cooled at a stroke with a cooling gradient of 2.67 ° C. per second, for example. In general, it can be said that the cooling gradient is sufficient if the rapid cooling standard required in the liquid crystal reorganization process is that the cooling gradient from 120 ° C. to 80 ° C. is 1 ° C. or more per second. In addition, according to the cooling gradient (2.67 ° C./second) of the present embodiment, the arrival time from 120 ° C. to 80 ° C. is within 15 seconds.
[0014]
The air that has cooled the workpiece 3 is sucked by the exhaust blower 20 and exhausted from the suction port 28 through the exhaust duct 29 into the clean room. As a result, the flow from the intake air to the exhaust air is rectified to efficiently ventilate the air. Further, as shown in FIG. 2, a part of the air that has cooled the workpiece 3 is sucked into the intake blower 21 and circulates in the blower chamber 2A and the air cooling chamber 2B. The amount of return to the blower chamber 2A at this time can be made variable by controlling the rotational speed of the intake blower 21 and the exhaust blower 20, for example. Usually, this return amount is set in a range of 20 to 40% of the total amount of air blown from the blowing nozzle 24.
During the air blowing, the shutters 26 and 27 are closed. Since the shutter 26 is closed, it is possible to prevent air from entering the heating device 1 by blowing air. Therefore, temperature fluctuations in the heating device 1 can be prevented. Further, since the shutter 27 is closed, the external environment is not greatly affected by the air blowing.
[0015]
When the rapid cooling process by the rapid cooling device 2 is finished, the intake blower 21 and the exhaust blower 20 are stopped, the hood 25 is raised, the shutter 27 is opened, and the object 3 is carried out. After unloading, the shutter 27 is closed again, and the above-described processes are repeated thereafter.
According to the heating and quenching apparatus as described above, even if the interval in the transport direction of the workpieces 3 is narrow, rapid quenching can be performed every two rows, and thus high throughput can be realized. Moreover, since only the air in the clean room is used for cooling, the running cost is low.
[0016]
In the above embodiment, the nozzle 24 and the hood 25 are used in the air cooling chamber 2B. However, depending on the form of the object to be processed, a configuration in which these are omitted is also possible.
[0017]
【The invention's effect】
The present invention configured as described above has the following effects.
According to the heating and quenching apparatus of the first aspect, the object to be processed after the heat treatment is transported to the quenching apparatus installed adjacent to the heating apparatus and cooled at once by clean air blowing.
Therefore, desired rapid cooling is possible, and the installation space is reduced. In addition, since the shutter prevents air from entering the heating device due to air blowing, temperature fluctuations in the heating device can be prevented.
[0018]
Further , at least clean air in the clean room circulates inside and outside the quenching device and is used for air cooling of the object to be processed, so that cleanliness can be maintained and running cost is low.
[0019]
Further , since the nozzle can be advanced and retracted, air can be appropriately blown in accordance with the form of the object to be processed, so that cooling can be performed efficiently.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a front view of a heating and quenching apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a side view showing an internal configuration of the quenching device in the heating and quenching device.
FIG. 3 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of a part of the heating and quenching apparatus shown in FIG.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Heating device 2 Rapid cooling device 2A Blower chamber 2B Air cooling chamber 2C Exhaust device 3 To-be-processed object 4 Conveying device 20 Exhaust blower 21 Intake blower 22 Inlet (with clean filter)
23 Blow duct 24 Blowout nozzle 25 Hood 26 Shutter 28 Suction port 29 Exhaust duct

Claims (2)

A heating / cooling device installed in a clean room,
A heating device that circulates hot air that maintains a predetermined degree of cleanliness and heat-treats the workpieces that are carried in, and
Rapid cooling that is installed adjacent to the workpiece unloading side of the heating device, has a blowing means and an exhaust means through a clean filter passage, and forcibly air-cools the workpiece unloaded from the heating device by blowing air Equipment,
An openable / closable shutter installed in an adjacent portion of the heating device and the quenching device, and a transport device for transporting the object to be processed from the heating device to the quenching device,
The quenching device is disposed above the object to be processed, and a blowing nozzle that blows air to be processed from the blowing means to the object to be processed.
A hood that is provided at the lower part of the blowing nozzle so as to be movable up and down, and that surrounds the four sides of the object to be processed .
The exhaust means has a suction port for sucking the air after being blown to the object to be processed below the object to be treated, and a part of the air after being blown to the object to be treated is A heating / quenching apparatus characterized by being sucked by a blowing means and exhausting the remainder into the clean room . The blowout nozzle, heating and quenching apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the provided retractably.

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