JPH03167448A - Automatic rotor attaching and removing apparatus for rotary-type viscosimeter - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To attach and remove a rotor stably and securely in association with the operation of a robot without imparting shock on a rotor part by providing a connecting adaptor having a spring made of shape memory alloy and a heating/cooling device. CONSTITUTION:When a rotor is attached, hot air is blown through a heating/ cooling device (nozzle) 24. When the temperature of a U-shaped plate spring 23e comprising shape memory alloy is increased to an operation starting point or higher where the transformation of the plate spring 23e is started, a U-shaped bias plate spring 23b is pushed and opened, and the pawls at the lower end of the plate spring 23b become the opened state. Under this state, the positions of a rotor 7 and a rotor shaft are determined in the coaxial state. The blowing air from the nozzle is switched to cold air. Then the tips of the pawls are engaged with an inverted taper part 7b of a tip part 7a of the rotor stem. Thus, the rotor 7 is securely held in the coaxial state with the rotor shaft. When the rotor is removed, hot air is blown through the nozzle again, and the pawls at the lower end of the plate spring 23b are released, and the rotor 7 is automatically released and dropped. Thus the rotor 7 can be removed.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Industrial use! ! f] The present invention relates to an automatic rotor attachment/detachment device for automating viscosity measurement using a rotational viscometer.

[Conventional technology] Petroleum/oil industry, paint/ink industry, synthetic chemical industry such as synthetic resins and synthetic fibers, food industry, pharmaceutical industry,
Furthermore, when measuring liquid viscosity for the purpose of process control and quality control in almost all industrial fields that handle liquids, such as the detergent and cosmetics industries, the liquid to be measured often contains impurities, especially particulate foreign matter, fixed components, etc. Since in-process measurement is difficult due to the inclusion of air bubbles, ifflt is determined by sampling. The thin tube type adopted at this time,
Among methods such as rotary type and falling body type, rotary viscometers are often used because they are easy to handle, have a wide measurement range, and have high reliability of measured values, but in this case, the target liquid must be manually loaded each time the measurement is performed. However, the viscometer is operated manually to collect data. FIG. 2 shows a diagram of the operating principle of a rotational viscometer using a rotor, which is widely used in this way.

In the figure, (1) is a drive motor with a speed change mechanism, (2) is a rotating shaft, (3) is a scale plate, (4) is a spring, (5) is a rotor shaft, (6) is a sample liquid, and (7) is a The rotor (8) is a pointer, and the viscous resistance torque of the rotating rotor is visually read as the amount of displacement of the spring interposed between the rotating shaft and the rotor shaft with the pointer on the scale plate, and from that value. Determine the viscosity of the sample liquid by calculation.

FIG. 3 shows an improved type with a built-in converter that converts the amount of spring displacement into an electrical signal and outputs it instead of visually reading it. In the figure, (1) is a fat-moving moke with a transmission mechanism, (2)
) is the rotary drive shaft, (2a) is the shaft coupling, (l2) is the arm, (
5a) is a bottle, (4) is a spiral spring, (13) is a signal converter, (14) is a bipot, (15a) is a U-shaped member, (15b) is a lower end, (7) is a cylindrical rotor, (l6)
is a jewel bearing. All operations are performed manually in this type as well.

Figures 4 (a) and (b) show how to attach and detach the viscometer body and the rotor.
).

In the figure, (15a) is a U-shaped member, (l5b) is the end of the rotor shaft, (7d) is the tip of the rotor stem, (7°)
is a rotor stem, and (7) is a cylindrical rotor.

FIG. 4(a) is a diagram showing a state in which the rotor is separated from the end of the rotor shaft, and FIG. 4(b) is a diagram showing a state in which the rotor is connected. The rotor can be attached and detached by screwing (15b) and (7a) together and detaching them.

[Problem to be solved by the invention] This viscometer uses a bivot 1-(1
The rotor shaft (5) system including the cylindrical rotor (7) is supported with low friction by using the rotor shaft (5) and the jewel bearing (l6). With this structure, if an excessive external force is applied to the rotor shaft (5), the contact surface of the pivot (l4) may deform, peel, or chip, and the jewel bearing may be damaged, resulting in a serious situation. As a countermeasure to avoid this problem, the inventor of the present application proposed the registered utility model No. 1203992 in which the pivot and the jewel bearing are manually held apart during transportation, and also the pivot is automatically supported on the jewel bearing only during measurement. , Patent Application No. 1-51 states that they should be kept separate at other times.
There is also No. 655.

The process of automatically measuring liquids to be measured sampled from multiple processes using such a viscometer is as shown in Figure 5. Beakers containing the liquid to be measured (20a, 20b, 2
0c,...) is immersed in a constant temperature water bath (2l) and transported directly below the viscometer body (22), and as the target liquids arrive one after another, the viscometer descends and lowers the rotor into the liquid. The viscosity is measured at a predetermined rotational speed and the data is automatically recorded. It is difficult to clean and dry the rotor (7) each time the liquid to be measured changes and to completely remove the previous liquid to be measured if the rotor remains screwed and connected to the viscometer body, as the liquid to be measured tends to stick. At the same time, since there is a risk of damaging the pivot and jewel bearing, the test was carried out separately with the rotor removed from the viscometer body. This cleaning/drying cycle includes (I) a rotor removal process, (II) a cleaning process using, for example, solvent injection, (III) a drying process, and (IV) a rotor installation process. An industrial robot is used for automatic viscosity measurement, and each of the above steps is synchronized with the tact transportation.

The above method shows how to repeatedly use one rotor by cleaning and drying it, but in reality, to measure multiple sampled liquids, multiple rotors are placed in the rotor magazine (30) as shown in Figure 7. For each measurement of the storage and sampling liquid, the used rotor (7) is put into another rotor magazine (31),
After cleaning and drying, it is sent to the rotor magazine (30) for use in a highly efficient manner.

Among these processes, an automatic rotor attachment/detachment device is considered for the rotor installation and removal processes of (I) and (ff).
As a magnetic system, an electromagnet is buried at the end of the rotor shaft,
There have been configurations in which permanent magnets are buried, but in both cases a large external force is applied when attaching and detaching, and the former has problems due to large measurement errors due to the friction torque of the slip ring. The application of a quick connection/disconnection mechanism for connecting water pipes and hoses was also considered. In the figure, (15a) is a U-shaped member, (15b) is the lower end of the rotor shaft, (17) is a connection adapter, (17a) is a connection hole,
(17b) is a spring, (L7c) is a sleeve, (17e)
is a steel ball, (7) is a cylindrical rotor (7°) is a rotor stem, and (7e) is a detachable part at the tip of the stem. 6 When connecting the rotor to a viscometer, insert the detachable part at the upper end of the stem into the connection hole and insert it upward. When you push it into the sleeve (17c)
The latch (not shown) is released and moved downward by the spring (17b), and the steel ball (17d) is caught in the groove (7f) and connected. Also, when removing the rotor, the spring (1-
6b), the steel ball (17d) and the groove (7f) are disengaged, and
The rotor (7) can be taken out downward.

This configuration is problematic because not only external force is always applied when the rotor stem is attached and detached, but also external force is always applied when the tip of the rotor stem is pushed in and pulled out, and the sleeve is pushed up before being pulled out, and a complicated sequence of operations is required. Currently, there is no practical automatic rotor attachment/detachment device.

Although the present invention uses an industrial robot, when attaching and detaching the rotor of the viscometer, only the point-to-point positioning to the predetermined mounting position is performed. We have developed an automatic rotor attachment/detachment device that allows the rotor to be attached and detached stably and reliably while cooperating with the above-mentioned robot movements, without applying any external forces such as pushing/pull-out or screwing torque to the pivot and jewel bearings. [Means for Solving the Problem] In order to achieve the above object, the rotor automatic attachment/detachment device for a rotational viscometer of the present invention comprises a connection adapter and a heating/cooling device, This connection adapter consists of a connection fitting and a gripping member, this connection fitting is screwed onto the lower end of the rotor shaft and has a rotor mounting tapered hole on the lower surface, and the said gripping member is fixed to the connection fitting and has a spring made of a shape memory alloy. and has a pawl that engages with a tapered portion at the tip of the rotor stem whose inclination direction is opposite to that of the hole: The heating/cooling device is arranged opposite to the adapter and biases the built-in heater. - The rotor is held coaxially fixed to the rotor shaft and released by blowing hot or cold air onto the spring made of the shape memory alloy by deenergization and closing and opening the claws.

The grasping member may be a unidirectional shape memory alloy leaf spring or coil spring in combination with a bias leaf spring, or a bidirectional shape memory alloy C-shaped leaf spring may be used alone. A coil spring made of a homogeneous shape memory alloy and a bias coil spring are arranged in combination in the axial direction on a connecting fitting via a slider, and the inclined surfaces of the left and right legs of the slider slide on the opening edge of the cup-shaped cylinder. The automatic attachment/detachment device configured as described above may be used to close and open by moving the claws in the vertical direction. When hot air is blown from the nozzle of the heating/cooling device, whether the member made of the unidirectional shape memory alloy is a leaf spring or a coil spring, it recovers its original shape and resists the bias spring, forming a C-shaped bias plate. Release the spring claw. In this state, connect the rotor by inserting the tapered upper end connection portion of the stem into the tapered hole on the bottom surface of the connection fitting. Next, when cold air is blown from the nozzle, the elasticity of the member made of the shape memory alloy decreases, and the claw of the C-shaped bias plate spring closes due to the bias spring being pressed, and the inverted tapered part of the upper end of the stem closes. engagement to securely hold the rotor coaxially with the rotor axis.

As mentioned above, the closing and opening of the claws of the grasping member is caused by the phase transformation of the shape memory alloy due to hot air/cold air, and is performed slowly, without being instantaneous or impactful.

In the rotor removal step, when hot air is again blown from the nozzle, the claws of the C-shaped bias leaf springs are released as described above, and the rotor is automatically released and falls.

Furthermore, in the case of a combination of a cup-shaped cylinder and a slider having a tapered surface with a widening base, the coil spring made of a unidirectional shape memory alloy placed between the bottom surface of the cup-shaped cylinder and the outer wall of the upper end of the slider returns to its original shape by hot air. As the slider is pushed down against the bias spring, the slider pawl is released, and the bias coil spring pushes up the slider due to the cold air, and the tapered surface of the slider is squeezed by the opening edge of the cup-shaped cylinder, and the pawl is released. It closes while rising and engages with the reverse tapered portion at the tip of the rotor stem to hold the rotor coaxially with the rotor axis.

[Example] An example will be described with reference to the drawings. 5 Figures 1 (a) and (b) show a gripping member that is a combination of a bias spring and a U-shaped leaf spring made of a unidirectional shape memory alloy. (32
) is an example using a connection adapter including (23) is screwed and fixed to the lower end of the rotor shaft (15b) with a connection adapter. The connection attack consists of a central connection fitting (23a), a bias plate spring (23b) formed in a C-shape, and a plate spring made of a unidirectional shape memory alloy formed in a U-shape (23b).
23c).

(24) is a heating/cooling device, which is an air blowing nozzle with a built-in heater. Considering the temperature conditions for viscosity measurement, the shape memory alloy should be selected so that its activation temperature is slightly higher (approximately 20° to 50'C) than the measurement temperature. The effects of this embodiment are as follows. When installing the rotor, as shown in Fig. 1(a), hot air is blown from the nozzle (24) onto the attachment/detachment device, and the U-shaped leaf spring made of the shape memory alloy is raised above the activation point where it starts to transform. When heated, the U-shaped spring returns to its memorized open shape, so the claw at the lower end of the C-shaped bias leaf spring is in an open state.

In this state, the tip (7°) of the stem (7°) of the rotor (7)
The tapered surface of a) is inserted into the lower tapered hole (23d) of the connection fitting (23a), and the rotor and rotor shaft are positioned coaxially by the tapered surface. In this state, the nozzle (
When the blowing from 24) is switched to cold air, the U-shaped leaf spring (23c) made of shape memory alloy cools and returns to room temperature, loses its elasticity, and due to the pressing force of the bias leaf spring (23b) is shown in Fig. 1(b). As shown in , the tip of the pawl engages with the reverse tapered portion (7b) of the rotor stem tip (7a), and the rotor (7) is reliably held coaxially with the rotor axis.

When removing the rotor, blow hot air again from the nozzle (24) and remove the C-shaped bias leaf spring (23) as described above.
b) Release the claw at the lower end.

The rotor (7) automatically detaches and falls.

As a heating/cooling device, a blower with a built-in heater and capable of switching between hot and cold air is used as shown in the first figure. By rotating, surrounding air is taken in and blown in the axial direction. This air is fed to a heater (24
When passing through b), it is heated and becomes hot air through the nozzle (24c)
It squirts out and sprays the connection adapter, activating its shape memory alloy spring.

When blowing cold air, it is sufficient to turn off the power to the heater.

As a safety measure, if the liquid to be measured contains a flammable solvent,
The air supplied to the nozzle is taken in from a place that does not contain flammable gas, the heater is made of ceramic, and an in-lock is applied so that it is turned on only when pressure is applied inside the casing.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 8, the connection adapter has a gripping member (33
).

In the embodiment shown in Figure 9, the connecting adapter includes a C-shaped leaf spring (26) made of bidirectional shape memory alloy. In this alloy, the shape in the high temperature state (shown in Figure 9(a)) and the shape in the low temperature state (shown in Figure 9(b))
Two shapes can be memorized and the rotor can be attached and detached by heating and cooling as shown in FIG. In this case, only about 1/3 of the elasticity can be used during cooling compared to when the temperature is high, but it is suitable for low load and low viscosity measurements.

In the embodiment shown in FIGS. 10(a), (b), and (c), the connection adapter (27) includes a cup-shaped cylinder (27c) having an opening at the center of the bottom, and an opening edge of the cup-shaped cylinder. Sheet metal slider (2) that engages with the tapered surface of the wide hem
7d) and a connecting fitting (
A coil spring (27a) made of a unidirectional shape memory alloy and a bias coil spring (27b) are installed between the inner surface of the bottom of the cup-shaped cylinder that comes into contact with the retaining ring (27f) of 27e) and the step of the connecting fitting. The slider is disposed through the upper end wall of the slider so that the slider can freely slide on the connecting fitting, and on the outer periphery of the cup-shaped cylinder so that the hot air and cold air from the heating/cooling device reach the shape memory alloy coil spring. Multiple holes (27c')
to be placed.

Figure 10(a) shows a state in which hot air is blown, and the shape memory alloy coil spring (27a) is heated above the activation point and recovers its elasticity, causing the slider to recover the elasticity of the bypass coil spring (27b). The push-down slider moves downward while its tapered surface slides on the opening edge of the cup-shaped cylinder, thereby separating the claws (27 degrees) to the left and right.

FIG. 10(b) shows a state where the temperature has returned to room temperature by blowing cold air. In this state, the shape memory alloy coil spring (27a) loses its elasticity and the bias spring is applied to the sheet metal slider (27a).
Part of the taber of the left and right legs of 27d) is a cup-shaped cylinder (27
c) While squeezing the edges of the opening, press the left and right claws (27d').
) approaches and is pulled up to engage with the reverse tapered portion of the stem tip (7a) of the rotor (7), and the rotor (
7) Be sure to hold it coaxially with the rotor shaft.

Although this structure is a little complicated, since the upward movement of the claw (27d') can be increased when the claw (27d') is opened and closed, it has the effect of facilitating the vertical positioning of the rotor (7) by an industrial robot. .

FIG. 10(c) shows a developed view of the components of this embodiment.

[Effects of the Invention] The automatic rotor attachment/detachment device of the present invention uses a connection adapter with a spring made of a shape memory alloy to automate viscosity measurement using a rotational viscometer, especially a rotational viscometer with a signal converter. By using a spray heating/cooling device, 1) Grasping and releasing are done at a slow speed when attaching and detaching the rotor, so no impact is applied to the rotor shaft; 2) Simple and lightweight 3) Energy can be transmitted remotely by hot air; 4) No external force is applied to the rotor shaft; 5) Easy and reliable operation; 6) Hot air.・When the taper part is engaged with the pawl for closing/opening operation in a short time by blowing cold air, the vertical positioning accuracy of the rotor attachment/detachment position can be lowered. , an automatic viscosity measuring device can be easily constructed.

This has this effect.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1) In an automatic attachment/detachment device for automatically attaching/detaching a rotor (7) of a rotational viscometer to/from a viscometer body, a connection adapter (23) is provided.
, 25, 26, 27) and a heating/cooling device (24); the connection adapter has connection fittings (23a, 27e) that are screwed onto the lower end of the rotor shaft (15b) and have a tapered hole for rotor connection on the lower surface. and a grasping member fixed to the connecting fitting, including a spring made of a shape memory alloy, and having claws (23e, 26a, 27d') that engage with a reverse tapered portion of the rotor stem tip that is inclined in a direction opposite to the above-mentioned taper. (32
, 33, 34); The heating/cooling device is arranged opposite to the adapter, and blows hot/cold air onto the spring made of a shape memory alloy of the adapter by energizing/deenergizing a built-in heater. A rotor automatic rotor for a rotational viscometer, comprising a nozzle; the claws are closed and opened by blowing the hot air and cold air, thereby fixing and holding the rotor coaxially with the rotor shaft, and releasing the rotor. Attachment and detachment device. 2) The grasping member is a C-shaped bias leaf spring (23b) and 1
U-shaped leaf spring made of directional shape memory alloy (23c)
2. The automatic rotor attachment/detachment device for a rotational viscometer according to claim 1. 3) The grasping member is a C-shaped bias leaf spring (23b) and 1
The automatic rotor attachment/detachment device for a rotational viscometer according to claim 1, further comprising a coil spring (25) made of a directional shape memory alloy. 4) The automatic rotor attachment/detachment device for a rotational viscometer according to claim 1, wherein the grasping member comprises a C-shaped leaf spring (26) made of a bidirectional shape memory alloy. 5) The grasping member has a tapered surface whose left and right legs widen, and the tip of the tapered surface has a claw (27d'
) and is movable on the connecting fitting, and the bottom surface is stopped at the top of the connecting fitting, and the left and right legs and inner circumference of the slider are connected to the inclined surface and the opening end. a cup-shaped cylinder that engages at its edges and further has an opening in the center of the bottom and a plurality of holes in the outer peripheral surface near the bottom, and a bottom of the slider between the bottom of the cup-shaped cylinder and the step of the connecting fitting. It has a coil spring (27a) and a bias coil spring (27b) made of a unidirectional shape memory alloy arranged through the opening edge of the cup-shaped cylinder and the above by blowing the hot air/cold air. 2. The automatic rotor attachment/detachment device for a rotational viscometer according to claim 1, wherein said claws are closed and opened by vertical movement by sliding on a tapered surface.