JPH0120344Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed explanation of the idea] The present invention relates to an automatic feeder for short fibers.

Short fibers such as metal short fibers can be used as friction materials, reinforcement materials,
It tends to be used as a base material for composites such as conductive plastics, heat conductive plastics, soundproofing and sound absorbing materials, and as a raw material for manufacturing sintered fiber materials. This metal fiber is manufactured by, for example, shearing ultra-fine drawn wire or vibration-cutting a raw material block, but as it is manufactured, it contains a mixture of fine-sized and coarse-sized fibers, so the final process is difficult. It is necessary to select those with uniform specified dimensions.

This sorting process generally uses a vibrating sieve,
This is done by supplying short fibers to the sieve and storing the bottom of the sieve in a packaging container.This type of short fiber has minute dimensions, 5 to 50 μm in thickness and 0.5 to 30 mm in length. /thickness) is relatively large. Therefore, if you simply install a hopper above a vibrating sieve and feed short fibers into it, the short fibers will easily become mole-holes in the hopper due to their strong intertwining properties. A bridging phenomenon occurs, causing the fall to become discontinuous or stop. Therefore, in the past, a worker had to scoop up short fibers with a large spoon and scatter them little by little on a vibrating sieve, but with this method, only one worker was required to work on the machine. The process is tedious and the work is complicated.

The present invention attempts to solve the above-mentioned problems, and its purpose is to prevent short fibers, which have a relatively large aspect ratio and are highly entangled, unlike powdery materials, from causing blitzing. The object of the present invention is to provide a feeder with a simple structure that can automatically and continuously supply a distributed quantity without any problems.

In order to achieve this objective, the present inventor arranged a screw blade for destroying the bridge on the hopper, and tried to destroy the bridge by rotation of the screw blade and discharge it from the drop tube at the bottom of the hopper. According to this structure, the deposited fiber portion that is in contact with the screw blade falls almost continuously as the screw blade rotates. However, the outer circumferential side where the screw blades did not contact did not fall at all due to bridging.

Therefore, the inventor of the present invention conducted further research and experiments, and created a special structure that allows stable and continuous drop even to the zone close to the inner surface of the hopper that does not come into contact with the screw blade.In other words, the gist of the present invention is A rotatable shaft body equipped with screw blades is disposed loosely in the center of the short fiber storage hopper, which has a tapered inclined part and a cylindrical discharge part following the storage part, and at least the inclined part of the short fiber storage hopper. A plurality of spring plates, each with its base end, are fixed to the outer periphery of the screw blade in the area, each having a length such that the free end can touch the inner surface of the hopper at maximum expansion, and with the plate width direction oriented approximately parallel to the axis of the shaft body. Due to the elastic expansion and contraction of this spring plate in the circumferential and radial directions, it is constantly in contact with the inner surface of the short fibers deposited in a wall shape formed on the outer periphery of the screw blade, and at the same time automatically adapts to changes in the inner surface due to the decrease in short fibers. It is made to follow the flow of water and continuously scrape off and fall.

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

Figures 1 and 2 show an embodiment of an automatic feeder for short fibers according to the present invention, in which 1 is a hopper, and a storage having an input port 12 for short fibers A produced in the previous process. 11, a tapered inclined part 13 formed at the lower part of this storage part 11, and a cylindrical discharge part 14 formed at the lower end of the inclined part 13.

Reference numeral 2 denotes a shaft body disposed loosely in the center of the hopper 1, integrally having screw blades 3 on the outer periphery, partially supported by a bearing member 4, and installed outside the hopper 1. It is designed to be rotated by a drive mechanism 5 at a predetermined number of rotations. 6 is a vibrating sieve disposed below the discharge of the hopper 1;
7 is a container such as a cardboard box placed below the vibrating sieve 6.

Therefore, in the present invention, spring plates 8, 8 are attached around the screw blade 3 at a constant interval in the lead direction. That is, specifically,
As shown in Fig. 2, the base end 81 is integrated with the tip of the screw blade by welding or the like so that the plate width direction is oriented approximately parallel (vertical direction) to the axis of the shaft body 2.
The free end 82 extends in the radial direction, and has a length such that it can contact the inner surface 15 of the hopper 1 as shown in FIG. 1 at the time of maximum extension.

The spring plates 8, 8 may be attached over the entire length of the screw blade 3, but in this embodiment, they are attached only to the portion corresponding to the inclined portion 13 where bridging is particularly likely to occur. 8 has a length that becomes gradually shorter depending on the angle of the inclined portion 13.

Next, the usage situation and operation of the present invention will be explained.

When supplying the short fibers A, they are conveyed by a belt conveyor or the like and passed from the input port 12 to the hopper 1.
The drive mechanism 5 rotates the shaft body 2 in the direction opposite to the feeding direction of the short fibers (clockwise in the drawings) while feeding the short fibers into For,
Bridges of short fibers that are entangled and accumulated in the hopper are broken by contact with the screw blades 3, become dispersed, and fall through the discharge section 14 due to their own weight.

However, if only the screw blade 3 is used, the parts that are not in contact with the screw blade as shown in Fig. 5.
Regarding A′, the bridge remains as it is and does not fall. Even if rigid stirring bars are installed radially to overcome this problem, not only will they encounter greater resistance from the entangled short fibers, but there is also the risk of increasing the entanglement of the fibers, resulting in the formation of hard fiber balls. .

However, in the present invention, spring plates 8, 8 are attached at intervals around the screw blade 3, and the spring plates 8, 8 are rigid in the hopper height direction, but have sufficient flexibility in the hopper circumferential direction. are doing. Therefore, when the hopper 1 is filled with short fibers A, each spring plate 8, 8 becomes wrapped around the screw blade 3 due to the pressure from the outer periphery by the short fibers A and the rotation of the shaft body 2, as shown in FIG. Does not provide large resistance to rotation of the shaft body 2.

At this time, since the spring plates 8, 8 are about to expand in the radial direction due to their elasticity, mainly the free ends 82 are always in contact with the inner surface a of the wall-shaped short fibers A.
The inner surface is scraped off as the shaft body 2 rotates. As a result, the bridge is destroyed by a certain amount and falls smoothly from the discharge tube 14. When the short fibers A decrease, the spring plates 8, 8 automatically expand toward the outer periphery in response to this, and contact with the inner surface a of the wall of the short fibers as shown by the imaginary line in FIG. In order to last,
The entire amount can be reliably loosened and constantly supplied until the hopper 1 is empty, thereby achieving unmanned sieving process.

The present invention can of course be used not only as an automatic supply means for screening short fibers, but also as a means for filling packaging containers and the like. It goes without saying that it can also be applied to the automatic supply of short metal fibers, glass fibers, and carbon fibers.

According to the present invention explained above, the storage section 1
1, a tapered inclined part 13 and a cylindrical discharge part 1
A rotatable shaft body 2 with screw blades 3 is disposed loosely in the center of a short fiber storage hopper 1 having a short fiber storage hopper 1 with a screw blade 3. Sometimes the free end 82
A plurality of spring plates 8, 8, each having a length enough to touch the inner surface of the hopper and whose width direction is oriented substantially parallel to the axis of the shaft body, are each fixed with their base ends 81, so that the screw blades 3 feed out the short fibers. By driving and rotating the shaft body 2 so as to rotate in the opposite direction, the short fibers are lifted and loosened by the screw blades 3, and the spring plates 8, 8 on the outer periphery of the screw blades 3 are rotated in the hopper height direction. It has rigidity and exhibits good flexibility in the circumferential direction of the hopper, so when there is a large amount of short fibers A, they are wound close to the shaft 2, and the free ends are removed from the short fibers accumulated between the inner surface of the hopper and the screw blade 3. It comes into elastic contact with the inner surface of the fiber layer and scrapes off a fixed amount by rotation of the shaft, and as the short fiber layer becomes thinner, it expands in the radial direction accordingly, so the scraping of the inner surface continues. Therefore, the aspect ratio is relatively large,
The short fibers that tend to get entangled can be automatically and reliably separated in their entirety and discharged from the discharge section 14.
Furthermore, the structure is simple and can be implemented at low cost, which provides excellent effects.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a vertical cross-sectional side view showing an embodiment of an automatic feeder for short fibers according to the present invention, Fig. 2 is a perspective view showing the main parts of the present invention, and Figs. 3 and 4 are views of the present invention. Fig. 3 is a plan view when the hopper is filled with short fibers, Fig. 4 is a plan view when the hopper is empty, and Fig. 5 is a plan view of the hopper when the hopper is empty. It is a longitudinal side view showing the state when it is not applied. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Hopper, 2... Shaft body, 3... Screw blade, 8, 8... Spring plate, 11... Storage part, 13... Inclined part, 14... Discharge part, 81...
Base end, 82...free end.

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] A rotatable shaft body 2 equipped with a screw blade 3 is located at the center of a short fiber storage hopper 1 which has a tapered inclined part 13 and a cylindrical discharge part 14 following the storage part 11.
are loosely inserted, and at least have a length on the outer periphery of the screw blade 3 in the region of the inclined portion 13 so that the free end 82 can touch the inner surface of the hopper at the time of maximum expansion, and the plate width direction is approximately parallel to the axis of the shaft body. An automatic feeder for short fibers, characterized in that a plurality of spring plates 8, 8 are fixed with their base ends 81, respectively.