JPS6226423Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention generally relates to a fiberglass cutter assembly. The present invention relates in particular to continuous cutting for glass fiber cutting assemblies. Most particularly, the present invention relates to a continuous annular cutting ring having integral chisel teeth around the periphery.
The continuous cutter according to the invention can be formed either directly as an annular ring or a hoop, or as a flat strip initially formed with teeth and then folded into a circle.

The ends of the strip are then joined to form an annular continuous cutter. The cutting teeth are generally chiseled and thicker than in conventional devices. These teeth act to bend and cut the elongated glass fiber strand into specific pieces of glass fiber of the desired length.

The continuous cutter ring is carried on a rotatable cutter wheel, the teeth on the outer circumferential surface of the ring being adapted to cooperate with a second rotatable wheel having an elastic tire, i.e. an elastic ring around the circumference. ing. The chisel-like teeth do not cut or damage the elastic tire, thereby increasing the life of the tire. Continuous cutting rings with integral teeth have a much longer lifespan than traditional equipment.
Moreover, the integral teeth do not separate or come off from the cutter, thereby improving production efficiency and the life of the cutter.

In the conventional technology, glass fiber pine,
It is known to make short lengths of glass fibers for use in many industrial applications such as cladding structural elements, reinforcement materials, etc. The molten glass is passed through a plurality of bushes and drawn into long thin strands of glass fiber. These strands are pulled from the bush by suitable devices, such as cooperating rolls, belts, etc. The strands are generally sized by applying a sizing agent and then cut into groups or bundles of uniform length by a cutting device. No. 3,869,268, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, is an example of an apparatus and method for cutting glass fibers and is incorporated herein by reference. Glass fiber cutting assemblies are also shown in the following patents:

Patent Number Patentee 3508461 Stream 3644109 Klink et al 3731575 Gelin 3771981 Sears et al 3873290 Marzocchi 4163653 Szymborski et al
(Symborski et al) Although the aforementioned patents are not a complete listing of all prior art relating to glass fiber cutting assemblies,
It is intended to be used as an example.

In prior art apparatus, particularly as seen in US Pat. No. 3,869,268, strands of glass fibers have been cut into short lengths by passing them between a pair of opposing rotating wheels. 1st
The wheel has a plurality of independent thin, sharp blades secured in spaced, generally transverse slots around its outer periphery. The second part of collaboration
The wheel has an elastic tire around it,
A strand of glass fibers is passed between the blades of the first wheel and the resilient surface of the second wheel and is cut by contact of said blades with the resilient tire during cutting of the fibers.

Replaceable blade cutters, such as those shown in US Pat. No. 3,869,268, use thin blades similar to injector-type razor blades. Although the blades themselves are each inexpensive, the cutter wheel slots to which they are secured are difficult to clean and maintain, and blade replacement is expensive and time consuming. Improper positioning of the blade is a serious problem as it is difficult to properly seat the blade in the slot and ensure uniform blade height across the cutter wheel. If the blade is not properly positioned, bending strain will occur, causing rapid fatigue and damage to the blade. The broken blades fall into the glass fiber receiving container, and the fragments must be located and removed before the cut glass fibers can be further processed or used. Additionally, voids in the cutter wheel due to missing broken blades create long lengths of cut glass fibers, reducing the quality of the group of glass fibers containing them.

A thin, sharp blade cuts the glass fiber strand by pressing it against a resilient body on a second wheel. Because the strands are extremely thin,
It is difficult to position the two wheels properly so that the thin, sharp blades can cut all of the fiberglass strands without digging into the surface of the tire. As a result, the surface of the tire becomes cut and is rapidly damaged. The downtime required to change tires reduces production efficiency, and particles of elastic material cut from the tire surface fall into the cut glass fibers, reducing the quality of the fibers.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a continuous cutting ring for a glass fiber cutting assembly.

Another object of the invention is to provide a continuous cutting ring with integrally formed teeth.

Another object of the invention is to provide a continuous cutting ring that is inexpensive, durable, and resistant to damage.

As detailed in the description of the preferred embodiment,
A continuous cutter ring according to the invention is an annular ring or wheel having a plurality of equally spaced, generally chisel-shaped teeth formed around it. The annular ring may be formed either directly and teeth formed thereon, or by forming teeth on a flat strip of material and bending the strip into a suitable shape and joining the ends together to form a ring. Can be formed. The continuous cutter ring may be made of tool steel or a similar material so as to have a long life and not be easily damaged. Teeth integrally formed on the outer periphery of the ring are generally chisel-shaped and have one generally flat side and the other generally sloped side.

In contrast to cutting devices according to the prior art, the teeth of the continuous cutter ring according to the invention are formed as an integral part of the cutter ring and cannot become dislodged from the ring or become misaligned. As a result, the quality of the cut glass fibers is improved because all the teeth are properly spaced and remain on the cutter wheel. In contrast to the individually fixed blades of the prior art, which can fall or be mispositioned, the cutter blades according to the invention do not come off the ring and therefore cannot fall onto the cut glass fibers. . Furthermore, because the teeth do not separate from the ring, the length of the cut glass fibers is uniform throughout the group, which would not have been possible with prior art blades that were separate from the ring.

The teeth themselves are generally chisel-shaped and, in contrast to traditional thin, sharp blades, cut glass fiber filaments not sharply, but rather by bending and breaking action. do. As the teeth press the filaments, or fibers, against the elastic tire wheel, the elastic material of the wheel deforms, bending the fibers sharply around the teeth and effectively increasing the distance between the teeth. This causes the fibers to break. Because the teeth are chisel-shaped, they will not damage the elastic tire like the thin, sharp blades of prior art devices.

By using the continuous cutter according to the present invention, the production efficiency of glass fiber cutting equipment is significantly improved. Downtime required for changing individual blades was effectively eliminated, and in actual use, this continuous cutter operated successfully for over 390 hours of continuous operation. This is 24 mm for a blade replaceable type cutter head.
There is no comparison with the average production duration of less than 1 hour. The life of the elastic tires on the cooperating second wheel is correspondingly improved, being 10 to 20 times that obtained with conventional thin, sharp, interchangeable cutter blades.
This is made possible by the chisel-like shape of the teeth on the continuous cutter ring, which do not cut or bite into the elastic tire. in this way,
The continuous cutter with chisel-shaped teeth according to the present invention is efficient, reliable and durable, and can greatly improve the production efficiency and quality of the glass fiber cutter for glass fiber cutting assembly. It turns out that it provides.

The patentable features of the continuous cutter for glass fiber cutting assemblies according to the invention are particularly set out in the patent claims, but reference is made to the following description and the description of the preferred embodiments seen in the accompanying drawings. I can fully understand this idea.

Referring first to FIG. 1, a first preferred embodiment of continuous cutting according to the present invention is indicated generally at 10. The cutter ring 10 is annular and has an inner peripheral surface 12 and an outer peripheral surface 14. A plurality of equally spaced chisel-shaped teeth 16 are formed on the outer peripheral surface 14 and extend outwardly therefrom. Although not shown, a continuous cutter ring 10 is shown in U.S. Pat. It can be seen that it is intended for use in glass fiber cutting assemblies of the type described above. In the present invention, the continuous cutter ring 10 is rotated and the teeth 16 cut the glass fibers by contacting a second wheel (not shown) of the type described above.

As can be seen in FIG. 2, the diameter of the cutter ring 10 is significantly larger than its width. The teeth 16 are arranged around the circumference 14 of the ring and are aligned with the axis 1 of the cutting ring 10.
It is angled relative to 8. In the preferred embodiment, the teeth are positioned at a 27 degree angle to axis 18. This angle of the teeth 16 relative to the axis 18 can be varied depending on the rotational speed of the cutter, the fineness of the fibers, and other parameters.

In the preferred embodiment, the cutter ring 10 has an inside diameter of 139.7 mm (5.5 inches) and a thickness of 6.35 mm (0.25 inches).
inch), and the tooth height is 3.81 mm (0.15 inch). The cutter ring 10 has 40 teeth 16,
The teeth 16 are each spaced 0.5 inches or 9 degrees from the next tooth and are equally spaced on the outer circumferential surface 14. Cutting ring 1
0 has a width of 25.4 mm (1.0 inch) and is made of tool steel.

As shown in FIG. 3, each tooth 16 has a chisel-like shape as a whole, and
It is supported by Each tooth 16 has a vertical leading surface 20
having a leading surface extending upwardly to a point defined by its upper edge and the first edge 22 of the first generally horizontal surface 24. Ru. A second, transition surface 28 extends downwardly away from the second edge 26 of the horizontal surface 24. Said transition section 28 terminates at a point of intersection with a skirt section 30 of the inclined teeth, which skirt section 30 intersects with the circumferential surface 14 of the cutting ring 14. As previously indicated, in the preferred embodiment, the vertical leading surfaces 20 of the teeth 16 are 0.15 inches high and extend across the width of the ring 10. The width of the horizontal plane 24 is 0.51 mm (0.02 inch).
The transition surface 28 has a width of 1.02 mm (0.04 inch) and is inclined at an angle of 15 degrees from the horizontal plane 24. The tooth skirt 30 extends from the leading surface 20.
It has a 45 degree angle. As you can see from the drawing,
And as previously mentioned, each tooth 16 is chisel-shaped and stretches and bends to cut the glass fiber strands into short lengths, rather than cutting the glass fibers as traditional thin blades do. do it like this. tooth 1
The position and dimensions of 6 are such that the filament is always pressed by at least two of the teeth 16 against the elastic body on the second wheel during cutting of the filament. These teeth slightly deform the resilient surface of the second wheel without permanently chopping or nicking. As the fibers or filaments held between the teeth are stretched and deformed, the fibers are broken and cut to the appropriate length.
Since the cutter wheel, second wheel and filament move at a speed of 3,000 meters (10,000 feet per minute), cutting is accomplished very quickly and without damage to the elastic material as occurs with conventional equipment. Furthermore, as mentioned above, since the teeth 16 are integrally formed with the cutter ring 10, they are relatively thick compared to conventional devices, so that they cannot break or separate from the cutter wheel as in conventional devices. do not have.

Now refer to FIGS. 4 and 5. A second preferred embodiment 40 of a cutter according to the invention is shown. As can be seen from Figure 5, cutting ring 4
0, the chisel-shaped teeth 42 are generally parallel to the axis of the ring 40, and the outer circumferential surface 44 of the ring 40 is
The first embodiment 1 in that it extends over
Different from 0.

The cutter ring 40 is generally fixed to a disc-shaped cutter wheel 50 which is rotatably mounted in a manner known in the art at its central opening 52 on a rotatable shaft of a cutting assembly (not shown). You can do it like this. The cutter wheel 50 has a reduced thickness section 54 at its outer edge, which section forms two shoulders 56 on which a clamping ring 58 is supported. These clamping rings 58 are attached to the cutter wheel 50 by inserting screws 60 into threaded holes 62 in the reduced thickness portion 54 of the cutter wheel 50. The cutter ring 40 has two tightening rings 5
It is held on the outer circumference of the cutter wheel by tightening the cutter. An elastic expansion ring 70 is positioned between the cutter ring 40 and the cutter wheel 50 to center the cutter ring 40 around the rotatable axis and to buffer and transmit shocks and vibrations that may occur during cutting. Power can be prevented from flowing back into the drive mechanism.

The dimensions and materials of the second preferred embodiment of cutter ring 40 are similar to those of the first preferred embodiment of cutter ring 10. The difference between these two embodiments lies in the angle at which the teeth are positioned on the outer circumference of the cutter.
As mentioned above, this angle is the rotational speed of the cutter,
It can be selected depending on the drawing speed of the glass fiber, the thickness of the filament to be cut, etc.

The cutter ring is first formed as a cylindrical member, on which teeth are formed, for example, by milling, hobbing or shaping operations. Alternatively, the teeth may be formed on the surface of the flat strip material by machining similar to those described above, or by stamping or other cutting operations. Once the teeth are formed, the strip is bent into a circle and the ends are joined, such as by welding.

As mentioned above, in use, the cutter ring is fixed to the cutter wheel of the glass fiber cutting device,
It is positioned to cooperate with a second wheel with a resilient tire around its periphery. Once the molten glass has been formed into a filament by a suitable bush and dimensioned as desired, the filament is cut into short pieces by a cutter ring rotatably carried on a cutter wheel. The chisel-shaped teeth on the cutter ring do not break or cut sharply, and do not damage the elastic surface of the elastic tire. In this way, production efficiency is significantly increased since both the cutter ring and the wheel with tires have a much longer lifespan than conventional equipment. In addition, production quality is greatly improved since blade fragments and elastic material fragments are not mixed into the cut glass fiber group, and the traditional problem of blade fragments being mixed in is eliminated, so the glass fiber The length will be much more uniform.

It will be seen that a continuous cutter in the form of a chisel for use in a glass fiber cutting assembly has been thoroughly described. Although the features of the present invention are particularly described in the claims of the utility model registration, without departing from the true spirit and scope of the present invention, the dimensions of the cutter ring, the materials used, the equipment used to form the cutter teeth, etc., etc. It will be obvious to those skilled in the art that numerous modifications are possible and that the invention is limited only by the scope of the utility model claims.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a side view of a first preferred embodiment of a continuous cutter according to the present invention showing typical tooth positions;
2 is an end view of the continuous cutting ring of FIG. 1 showing typical tooth positions; FIG. 3 is a side view of a preferred embodiment of the chisel-shaped teeth of the continuous cutting ring; FIG. FIG. 5 is a partially cross-sectional side view of the second preferred embodiment of the continuous cutter according to the invention, mounted on a cutter wheel, and FIG. FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional end view. In the figure, 10, 40...cutting, 1
1... filament, 13... second wheel,
12... Inner circumferential surface, 14... Outer circumferential surface, 15... Elastic tire, 16, 42... Teeth, 20... Leading surface, 2
4... Horizontal surface, 28... Transition surface, 30... Skirt portion, 44... Outer peripheral surface, 50... Wheel, 58
... Tightening ring, 70 ... Expansion ring.

Claims (1)

[Claims for Utility Model Registration] (1) A continuous cutter for a glass fiber cutting device that cuts a glass fiber filament to a predetermined cutting length passing between the continuous cutter and an elastic ring that cooperates with the continuous cutter, , an annular ring having an inner circumferential surface and an outer circumferential surface, and a plurality of chisel-shaped teeth integrally formed on the outer circumferential surface, each tooth extending radially outwardly from the outer circumferential surface. an extending leading surface, a horizontal surface extending rearward in the direction of rotation of the cutter ring from the upper edge of the leading surface, a transition surface extending downward and rearward from the horizontal surface, and a transition surface extending from the transition surface to the annular ring. a skirt portion extending downwardly and rearwardly to the outer circumferential surface, the plurality of chisel-shaped teeth being equidistantly spaced on the outer circumferential surface and generally transverse to the outer circumferential surface. The filament of glass fiber is sharply bent by the cooperation of the horizontal portion of the tooth and the elastic ring, and the filament of glass fiber is cut by the bending and breaking action. Continuous cutting is characterized by its shape. (2) The continuous cutter ring according to claim 1, wherein the teeth extend across the outer peripheral surface at an angle to the axis of the annular ring. (3) The continuous cutter according to claim 2, wherein the angle is about 27 degrees. (4) The continuous cutter ring according to claim 1, wherein the teeth extend across the outer peripheral surface substantially parallel to the axis of the annular ring. (5) said annular ring is secured to a cutter wheel of said glass fiber cutting device by a pair of spaced apart clamping rings, said clamping rings being secured to said cutter wheel at an outer portion of said cutter wheel; The continuous cutting ring according to claim 1, wherein the continuous cutting ring is fixed to both sides of the cutting ring, and the continuous cutting ring is held between the pair of spaced apart tightening rings. (6) The continuous cutter ring according to claim 5, wherein the outer portion of the cutter wheel is provided with a shoulder, and the tightening ring engages with the shoulder. (7) The continuous cutter ring according to claim 5, wherein an elastic expansion ring is disposed between the inner peripheral surface of the cutter ring and the outer peripheral surface of the cutter wheel.