JP5246731B2 - Mold cleaning method and apparatus - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a mold cleaning method and apparatus, and more particularly, to a method for cleaning dirt due to preheating immediately after replacing a bladder for a tire vulcanization mold and a mold cleaning apparatus usable in the method .

  In the vulcanization process, which is the final stage of the tire manufacturing process, green tires (raw tires) are placed in the mold of a vulcanizer, and a rubber balloon-like compression member that passes a high-temperature, high-pressure fluid through the inside called a bladder. Press the green tire from the inside toward the inner surface of the mold. At this time, the rubber and sulfur molecules of the green tire are combined by heat and pressure applied from the bladder, and elasticity and durability are imparted to the rubber. The final shape and tread pattern of the tire are also formed by the mold at this time. The vulcanized tire is removed from the mold to complete the tire. At this time, a release agent made of silicon or mica is applied to the bladder surface so that the tire can be easily separated from the mold.

  Since the bladder deteriorates due to repeated use, it is replaced at a specified number of times or when it is significantly deteriorated. However, since the temperature is low immediately after the replacement, the stretchability is low. Therefore, usually, immediately after bladder replacement, the mold is closed without putting the green tire into the mold, and the vulcanizer is heated (preliminary heating) to warm the bladder. At this time, when the outer peripheral surface of the bladder comes into contact with the inner surface of the side mold constituting the mold, the release agent is transferred to the inner surface of the side mold and contaminated.

  Therefore, although not described in the patent literature or non-patent literature, in order to prevent contamination of the above-described mold, as shown in FIG. 5, the upper surface mold and the upper side mold of the lower side mold 31 are manually formed. After the anti-contamination rings 33 and 34 are attached to the lower surface of 32, a bladder B is attached, the mold is closed, and heating is performed. After the heating is finished, the pollution prevention rings 33 and 34 are manually removed, and vulcanization of the green tire is started.

  However, in the conventional pollution prevention method described above, manual attachment / detachment of the pollution prevention ring has been an obstacle to labor saving and full automation of the vulcanization equipment. In addition, if the pollution prevention ring cannot be removed in a timely manner after the preheating is completed, a time during which the vulcanizer cannot be operated occurs, resulting in a reduction in production efficiency.

The present invention has been made to solve such problems, and an object of the present invention is to enable preheating of a mold for tire vulcanization without using a pollution prevention ring.

The invention according to claim 1 is a preheating step of heating the mold without attaching a bladder to the mold, without attaching a pollution prevention ring to the mold, and without putting a green tire in the mold, and the preheating. Storage means in which three-dimensional position data of a portion to be cleaned of the mold is registered, a cleaning hand, and control means between the vulcanization step of vulcanizing by putting the green tire in the mold after the process A mold cleaning method executed by a mold cleaning apparatus comprising: the mold that faces an outer peripheral surface of the bladder in the preliminary heating step, which is a site to be cleaned of the mold. A position data acquisition step of acquiring the three-dimensional position data of the part from the storage means, and the control means, based on the acquired three-dimensional position data, the cleaning Controlling the three-dimensional position of the command, which is a mold cleaning method characterized by comprising a cleaning step of cleaning the cleaning target site.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a cleaning hand to which a cleaning member is attached, a robot arm capable of setting a three-dimensional position of the cleaning hand, and storage means in which position data of a cleaning target portion of a mold is registered in advance. Control means for operating the cleaning member while controlling the three-dimensional position of the robot arm so that the cleaning member faces the cleaning target site based on the position data, and the storage means The position data relating to a plurality of molds having different dimensions is registered, and the position data is a displacement amount with respect to a reference position data of a preset reference mold. .
According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the mold cleaning apparatus according to the second aspect, the cleaning member includes a motor and a cylindrical polisher that is rotationally driven by the motor, and a longitudinal axis of the cleaning hand. It is attached so that rotation with respect to is possible.

In the invention according to claim 1, between the preheating step and the vulcanization step, the control means acquires the three-dimensional position data of the site to be cleaned of the mold from the storage means, and the control means is the three-dimensional Based on the position data, the three-dimensional position of the cleaning hand is controlled, and the portion of the mold facing the outer peripheral surface of the bladder is cleaned in the preliminary heating step, which is the portion to be cleaned.
In the invention according to claim 2, by controlling the three-dimensional position of the robot arm position data of the cleaning target portion of the registered dies based on a displacement amount with respect to the position data of the reference mold, gold cleaning member The cleaning is performed by facing the part to be cleaned of the mold .
In the invention according to claim 3, cleaning is performed by rotating a cylindrical polisher attached to the longitudinal axis of the cleaning hand by a motor.

According to the cleaning method of a mold according to the present invention, after the preheating step, prior to the vulcanization step, automatically cleaning the site of the mold was face the outer peripheral surface of the bladder at the preheating step since it is, it is capable of ing preheated mold of tire vulcanizing without contamination preventing ring. In addition, according to the mold cleaning device of the present invention, it is possible to automatically clean the part to be cleaned of the mold.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a longitudinal sectional view for explaining the configuration of a tire vulcanization mold to be cleaned by a mold cleaning method according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a mold according to the embodiment of the present invention. It is a general | schematic flowchart of the whole cleaning method. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration of a handling robot as a cleaning device, and FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a procedure of a cleaning operation of the handling robot.

  As shown in FIG. 1A, the vulcanization mold that is a cleaning target of the present embodiment includes a tread mold 1, a lower side mold 2, and an upper side mold 3. The tread mold 1 is held from the outer peripheral side by a segment 4 that can move in the tire radial direction. The lower side mold 2 is held by a base 5 attached to the central axis C from the inside in the tire radial direction. The upper side mold 3 is held by the top plate 6 from above in the tire main axis direction. A taper surface is formed on the outer peripheral side of the segment 4, and is slidably engaged with the taper surface formed on the inner peripheral side of the container ring 7. The lower end on the outer peripheral side of the top plate 6 is supported by the upper end on the inner peripheral side of the segment 4. A lower clamp ring 8 and a lower bladder ring 9 that sandwich one end of the bladder B are attached to the base 5. Further, an upper clamp ring 10 and an upper bladder ring 11 that sandwich the other end of the bladder B are attached above the base 5.

  When opening the mold, if the container ring 7 is lifted by a driving means (not shown), the segment 4 slidingly engaged with the container ring 7 with a tapered surface moves upward in the outer circumferential direction. Since the held tread mold 1 also moves upward in the outer circumferential direction and the top plate 6 moves upward at the same time, the upper side mold 3 held by the top plate 6 also moves upward, as shown in FIG. It will be in the state shown. In this state, the bladder B can be removed by releasing the engagement between the upper and lower clamp rings 8 and 10 and the bladder rings 9 and 11. Further, as will be described later, the base 5, the clamp ring 8, and the bladder ring 9 can be moved away from the lower side mold 2 and integrally above the central axis C, and the upper surface of the lower side mold 2 is opened by the movement. And make it cleanable.

  A procedure for cleaning the tire vulcanizing mold having the above-described configuration immediately after the bladder replacement will be described with reference to FIGS. First, the mold is opened to the state shown in FIG. 1B, the old bladder is removed, and a new bladder is attached (step S1 in FIG. 2). Next, the mold is closed in the state shown in FIG. 1A, and is stored in a vulcanizer (not shown), the vulcanizer is preheated, and the bladder is preheated. Next, as shown in FIG. 1B, the mold is opened again, and the base 5, the clamp ring 8 and the bladder ring 9 are moved away from the lower side mold 2 and integrally moved above the central axis C. After the upper surface of the side mold 2 is opened, the upper surface of the lower side mold 2 and the lower surface of the upper side mold 3 are cleaned by a cleaning robot.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the configuration of the cleaning robot. The cleaning robot includes a support base 21 having a built-in controller, a robot main body 22 mounted on the support base 21 so as to be rotatable in an azimuth direction, and a swing shaft 22 a in the robot main body 22. A first arm 23 attached to be swingable in the elevation direction, a second arm 24 attached to the swing shaft 23a near the tip of the first arm 23 so as to be swingable in the elevation direction, and a second arm In the vicinity of the distal end of the second arm 24, the cleaning arm 25 is rotatably attached to a longitudinal rotation shaft (not shown) of the second arm 24. The cleaning hand 25 includes a plate-like base 25a, a motor 25c attached to the surface of the cleaning hand 25 via an air cylinder 25b, and a cylindrical polisher 25d attached to the rotating shaft of the motor 25c. Here, the motor 25c and the polisher 25d can advance and retreat in a direction orthogonal to the rotation axis of the motor 25c by controlling the air pressure of the air cylinder 25b.

  Accordingly, the cleaning hand 25 is centered on the support 21 by the rotation of the robot body 22 in the azimuth direction, the swing of the first arm 23 in the elevation direction, and the swing of the second arm 24 in the elevation direction. It can be moved to the three-dimensional position. In the cleaning hand 25, the polisher 25d is arranged below the base 25a as shown by the solid line in FIG. 3, and the polisher 25d is arranged above the base 25a as shown by the one-dot chain line in FIG. It can be rotated between states. Further, the pressure at which the polisher 25d contacts the surface to be cleaned can be adjusted by adjusting the pressure of the air cylinder 25b.

  The controller built in the support base 21 includes a microcomputer, and its memory (ROM, etc.) cleans various data (type, position data of the site to be cleaned, etc.) for each mold to be cleaned. It is registered in advance before performing. Here, the position data of the site to be cleaned is three-dimensional position data of the upper surface of the lower mold 2 of the mold and the lower surface of the upper mold 3 with a predetermined reference position as the origin. Therefore, the support base 21 of the cleaning robot is installed at the reference position, and the upper surface of the lower side mold 2 and the upper side mold 3 which are the cleaning target portions of the mold are cleaned based on the position data of the cleaning target portion. be able to. This position data may be described in absolute coordinates with respect to the origin for the molds of individual dimensions, but is described in absolute coordinates only for the molds of reference dimensions, and for molds of other dimensions, You may describe with the displacement amount from the absolute coordinate of the metal mold | die of a reference | standard dimension. By describing the displacement in this way, the teaching operation for each mold size is not required.

  A procedure for cleaning a desired mold using the cleaning robot having the above configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. Here, as a premise for executing the procedure of FIG. 4, the cleaning robot shown in FIG. 3 has been installed at the reference position for cleaning the mold, and the mold type when the cleaning robot is installed at the reference position. It is assumed that information is automatically input from a vulcanizer control device (not shown). Moreover, the procedure of this figure is performed by the microcomputer built in the support base 21.

  First, as shown in step S31 of FIG. 4, the position data and the cleaning program of the cleaning target portion of the mold corresponding to the mold format information are read from the ROM (step S31). Next, based on the read shape data, the azimuth angle of the base 21 and the elevation angles of the arms 23 and 24 are controlled (step S32), and the cleaning hand 25 is further controlled so that the polisher 25d faces downward (step S33). Then, the polisher 25d is rotationally driven (step S34). The lower side mold 2 is cleaned by the above procedure. During this cleaning, the air pressure of the air cylinder 25b is controlled based on the cleaning program read from the ROM, and the contact pressure with respect to the upper surface of the lower side mold 2 of the polisher 25d is controlled.

  When the cleaning of the lower side mold 2 is completed (YES in step S35), the polisher 25d is controlled to face upward (step S36). By this procedure, the upper side mold 3 is cleaned. When the cleaning of the upper side mold 3 is finished (YES in step S36), the cleaning process is finished.

  In the above embodiment, the mold is preheated in the vulcanizer, but the mold may be preheated outside the vulcanizer (outside setup). The mold cleaning apparatus according to the present invention can also be applied to cleaning of molds other than tire vulcanization molds.

It is a longitudinal cross-sectional view for demonstrating the structure of the tire vulcanization metal mold | die which is the cleaning object of the metal mold | die cleaning method which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a general | schematic flowchart of the whole mold cleaning method which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the structure of the handling robot which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the procedure of the cleaning operation | movement of the handling robot which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a figure for demonstrating the contamination prevention ring attachment / detachment operation immediately after the conventional bladder replacement | exchange.

Explanation of symbols

  B ... Bladder, 2 ... Lower side mold, 3 ... Upper side mold, 23 ... First arm, 24 ... Second arm, 25 ... Cleaning hand, 25c ... Motor 25d: Polisher.

Claims (3)

A preheating step of attaching the bladder to the die, attaching no pollution prevention ring to the die, and heating the die without putting the green tire in the die, and the die after the preheating step to the die By a mold cleaning apparatus comprising a storage means, a cleaning hand, and a control means in which the three-dimensional position data of the part to be cleaned of the mold is registered during a vulcanization process of putting and vulcanizing a green tire A mold cleaning method to be performed,
A position data obtaining step for obtaining, from the storage means, three-dimensional position data of the mold part facing the outer peripheral surface of the bladder in the preliminary heating step, which is a part to be cleaned of the mold;
A cleaning step for controlling the three-dimensional position of the cleaning hand based on the acquired three-dimensional position data and cleaning the site to be cleaned;
A mold cleaning method comprising the steps of: Based on the cleaning hand to which the cleaning member is attached, the robot arm capable of setting the three-dimensional position of the cleaning hand, the storage means in which the position data of the cleaning target part of the mold is registered in advance, and the position data, Control means for operating the cleaning member while controlling the three-dimensional position of the robot arm so that the cleaning member faces the cleaning target site ;
The storage means stores the position data relating to a plurality of molds having different dimensions, and the position data is a displacement amount with respect to a reference position data of a reference mold set in advance. Mold cleaning device.   3. The cleaning member includes a motor and a cylindrical polisher that is rotationally driven by the motor, and is attached to be rotatable with respect to a longitudinal axis of the cleaning hand. The mold cleaning apparatus as described.

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