US3505835A - Apparatus for the continuous liquid treatment of fabrics - Google Patents

Description

April 14, 1970 I A. REGGIANI 3,505,835

APPARATUS FOR THE CONTINUOUS LI UID TREATMENT- OF FABRICS Filed Dec. 8, 1966 INVENTOR. ARHHND REGGIAIVI Arman Er;

mp mhwm United States Patent US. CI. 68-22 4 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Apparatus for the continuous treatment of fabrics open widthwise with liquids wherein the fabric undergoing treatment therein is provided with thin surface films of treating liquid, is agitated and is inclined with respect to its horizontal plane of advancement therethrough.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to apparatus for the continuous treatment of fabrics open widthwise with liquids; more particularly in this invention relates to apparatus for continuously washing, desizing, leaching (lixiviating), acidifying, neutralizing or for any other operation that involves the treatment of fabrics with liquids.

It is known that treatment of fabrics with liquids may be effected either while the same are in open width, that is with the piece of fabric being spread out widthwise, or in rope form, that is with its width not spread out.

In the known machines for the treatment of fabrics open widthwise with liquids, for example in washing machines, the fabric is subjected to numerous dippings or immersions into a vat containing the treating liquid, which is preferably maintained in a state of turbulence in order to favor continuous action of the liquid on the surface of the fabric. In certain cases, the fabric is, furthermore, subjected to a shaking action by suitable means, completely submerged in the liquid mass, such as eccentric or vibrating spindles.

The numerous repeated dippings or immersions of the fabric into the vat containing the liquid are obtained by means of alternatively arranged transmission rollers, some completely immersed in the liquid mass and some without this mass, with the consequent disadvantage that rollers immersed in the liquid mass require a continuous control and burdensome maintenance. In fact, the bearings of these transmission rollers, since they are continuously in contact with the more or less corrosive treating liquid, are subject to rapid wear and thus require frequent cleaning and replacement, which cause even prolonged stoppages of the machine.

Furthermore, and still owing to the fact that the bearings of said transmission rollers are immersed in the liquid, and that for this reason no ball bearings can be fitted to the same supports, the rollers themselves are not very smooth running and are therefore readily susceptible to wear, wherefore the known machines are rather limited in their working speed and the fabric treated thereon is subjected to rather high tensions in order to maintain said transmission rollers rotating. These tensions may sometimes even cause the breaking of the fabric, with all the obvious inconveniences deriving therefrom.

Furthermore, in the known machines of the above cited type, the permeation of the liquid through the fabric is not very eflicient and complete even at low working speeds, in consequence whereof the treatment of the fabric by the liquid is limited only to the superficial zone of the fabric and does not extend also to the inner fibers of the fabric itself.

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Therefore, an object of this invention is that of providing apparatus for the treatment of fabrics open widthwise with liquids, for instance for washing, in which apparatus all the above cited drawbacks and disadvantages will be avoided.

Another object of this invention is that of providing apparatus of high efficiency and output capacity which will allow a high speed treatment of the fabric, while obtaining a homogeneous treatment of the same fabric also for its innermost fibers through the efficient and complete permeation of the treating liquid through the fabric itself.

A still further object of the invention is that of reducing maintenance and operating costs, thus ensuring a considerable economic advantage, also reducing the tensions to which the fabric is subjected during treatment, thereby avoiding possible stoppages due to breakages or rents of the fabric itself.

THE INVENTION Surprisingly, it has been found that the above and still other objects, that will appear even more clearly to any expert in the art from the detailed description that will follow hereunder, are conveniently attained by a machine for the continuous treatment of fabric open widthwise with liquids in which the contact of the fabric with the liquid is achieved via the formation on the surface of the fabric of a thin film of treating liquid which accompanies and permeates the fabric itself throughout its course within the apparatus, the permeation of the liquid through the fabric being made more effective by means of vibrations and/or shaking imparted to the fabric, as well as by a suitable inclination given to the fabric with respect to the horizontal plane.

The invention will now be described more in detail with reference to the hereto attached drawing, given for illustrative purposes, in which the sole figure of drawing represents a longitudinal cross-section of one treating unit according to one form of embodiment of this invention.

This treating unit is constituted by a metal framework 1 suitably anchored to a Supporting basement 2, which supports the treatment chamber 3 made of sheet metal, preferably of stainless steel sheet. Numerals 4 and 5 mark respectively the cover and the bottom of the treatment chamber 3; 6 indicates a panel with inspection ports for the visual control of the interior of the treatment chamber 3, into which the same is cut.

Inside the treatment chamber 3 are mounted pairs of rollers 7 and 8; rollers 7, which are driving transmission rollers, are driven by a motive source not indicated in the drawing, while rollers 8 are idling or freewheeling rollers and are saddling with their weight on rollers 7.

Externally rollers 8 are lined with a layer of rubber 9 or of another suitable elastic material, thus exerting an elastic pressure on rollers 7.

With 10 are indicated transmission rollers cooperating with driving transmission rollers 7, which have a hexagonal cross section and act as vibrating swifts or spindles. Rollers 10 are idly mounted within chamber 3.

Rollers 7 and 10 of each pair of rollers are suitably sized and arranged so that the fabric 12, guided by said rollers, will form with the horizontal plane an average angle at of about 78 on the onward leg 23 and of about 77 on the return leg 24.

As average angle one understands the average value of the angle that the fabric 12 forms with the horizontal plane, and which will vary owing to the effect of the vibrations and/or shakings to which said fabric 12 is subjected under the action of the rotating hexagonal swifts 10 or following the action of other similar or equivalent systems. The value of said average angle on may be 3 selected according to requirements, but preferably it is chosen in the range from 50 to 80.

With 11 are indicated some devices of a tubular shape suited for spraying the treating liquid over the full width of the piece of fabric 12 passing through the inside of the treatment chamber 3.

The bottom of chamber 3 forms the collecting tank for the treating liquid coming from the spraying devices 11, said tank 5 being crossed by pipes 13 which are connected, by means of respective flanges, on the one side to a vapor source and on the other to a vapor exhaust, said pipes serving to warm the treating liquid contained in the tank 5.

With 14 are indicated some diaphragms which partially separate the tank 5 into a number of intercommunicating cells corresponding to the number of vibrating swifts with 15 is indicated an overflow or a level spillway that conveys the exhausted treating liquid to the outlet of the treatment chamber 3 through discharge 16.

In the spraying devices 11 is fed the fresh treating liquid; however, also a feeding with recycle liquid may be foreseen, which in such case the same will be drawn from tank 5 by means of a pump 17 driven by motor 18, as shown in the drawing. In such a case the recycle liquid, before it is fed to the sprayers 11, will be properly purified by passing it, for example, through a filter 19 as shown in the drawing, or by means of other suitable systems, as the case may be.

The above described equipment may constitute either a single individual treatment apparatus or it may form a unit suitably connected to other similar units, so as to form a greater continuous treatment apparatus. In such a case the above described treatment unit will be hydraulically connected to the other units through flanged orifices 20 and 16.

Given this case, the outlet 16 will have to be connected to inlet 20 of the unit placed upstream, while inlet 20 will be connected to outlet 16 of the unit placed downstream with respect to the direction of the feed motion of the fabric. In this way a counterflow circulation of the treating liquid is realized with respect to the feed motion of the piece of fabric 12 to be treated.

The operation of the machine object of this invention is the following:

The piece of fabric open widthwise, that is spread out to its full width, is advanced, in the direction shown on the drawing by the arrows, by means of driving and transmission rollers 7, which impart the motion to said fabric 12 inside the treatment chamber 3.

Before entering said chamber 3, the fabric passes onto guide roller 21.

The fabric, while passing through the pair of rollers 7 and 8, is slightly squeezed due to the pressure exerted by rollers 8 resting on rollers 7; this squeezing of the fabric permits one to predispose the fibers of the fabric to be in the most suitable condition for being soaked with the treating liquid sprayed on by sprayers 11, each one supplying on the full width of the fabric a quantity of treating liquid suflicient to form a thin film of said liquid over the whole surface of the fabric, which liquid film, while performing its treating action, will accompany the fabric itself up to the transmission roller 10, acting also as vibrating swift.

The sprayers 11, since they are arranged on both sides of the fabric, form the above said film of liquid on both surfaces of the fabric undergoing treatment.

Vibrating swift 10, which may be of polygonal crosssection, as shown in the drawing, or which may be replaced by an eccentric shaker or vibrator device, or by any other equivalent means, is mounted in an idling way and therefore is made to rotate by the fabric 12, causing by said rotation a continuous vibration or shaking of the fabric itself and of the film of liquid in contact with the fabric, thus facilitating the penetration and intimate permeation of the liquid throughout the fabric. The permeation of the liquid through the fabric, in order to permit treatment of the innermost fibers, is made more efiicient by the inclination of the fabric 12 with respect to the horizontal plane in combination with the vibrations or shakings to which the fabric is subjected. Furthermore, swift 10 being partially immersed in the mass of liquid contained in the collecting tank 5, as indicated in the drawing, though its support is arranged without said liquid mass, said swift causes a shaking of fabric 12 on the surface of the liquid mass contained by tank 5. The shaking on that surface is efiicient for the treatment of the fabric with said liquid, particularly because such a shaking takes place with the fabric inclined at an acute angle with respect to the free surface of the liquid mass contained by tank 5; said inclination is made possible both by the convenient arrangement of rollers 10 with respect to rollers 7 and by the polygonal shape of rollers 10.

According to a variant, still falling within the scope of this invention, rollers 10 may also be arranged completely outside the liquid mass contained in tank 5, thereby renouncing the shaking of the fabric on the free surface of the liquid of tank 5.

By means of the pair of rollers 7 and 8 and by swifts 10, said treatment is repeated in chamber 3 a number of times.

It must be remarked that rollers 8 are fitted with a device, known per se, which allows one to regulate the squeezing pressure according to need until reducing it to zero, if necessary.

Fabric 12 on leaving chamber 3 passes through a device 22, known per se, and not described herein, which serves the purpose of squeezing the fabric at the end of the treatment or between the treatment in one unit and that of the following unit.

Employing the apparatus of this invention constant and eflicient contact between the treating liquid and the fabric to be treated is obtained without immersing the fabric in the liquid mass, except for immersing it only superficially in a few instances.

In this way none of the supports of the transmission rollers are in contact with the treating liquid and they may therefore be fitted with ball bearings, thus eliminating the drawbacks previously mentioned.

The advantages of this invention may be summarized as follows: high operational speed of the machine (about double that of known machines); reduced tension of the piece of fabric under treatment with consequent reduction of the possibility of apparatus stoppage because of tearing of the fabric or because of needed maintenance of the roller supports; saving in the manufacture of said supports, which may be of the traditional design not requiring any liquid-tight devices.

As many apparently widely different embodiments of the present invention may be made without departing from the spirit and scope thereof, it is to be understood that the same is not intended to be limited to the specific embodiments thereof, except as defined in the appended claims.

What is claimed is:

1. Apparatus for the continuous treatment with liquids of fabric open widthwise without danger of creasing or folding the same, which comprises a treatment chamber having a collecting tank for the treating liquid utilized; means for advancing the fabric to be treated in lapped relationship through said chamber comprising a series of driven upper rollers and a series of lower rollers, said lower rollers being horizontally displaced relative to said upper rollers and the axes of rotation of and supports for all said rollers being parallel and disposed without the collecting tank; means for feeding in lapped relationship the fabric over the upper rollers in succession with intervening passage under a lower roller; a third series of rollers perpendicularly disposed relative to said upper rollers and idly coacting therewith to subject successive laps to an individual squeeze; the said lower rollers ex- 5 6 hibiting an irregular cross-section such as to impart an 4. The apparatus as defined by claim 3, wherein the agitating motion to each Of Said laps Of advancing fabric lower rollers are hexagonal in cross-section, without creasing or folding the same and being so horizontally displaced relative to the upper rollers as to effect References Cited an average angle of inclination of fabric advanced through the chamber of from between 50 and 80 with respect to 5 UNITED STATES PATENTS the horizontal plane of advancement of the fabric, and 2,976,713 3/1961 Mann at 68-22 said lower rollers constituting the sole means for impart- FOREIGN PATENTS mg the said agitating motlon, and a plurality of spray 1,529 1880 Great Britain.

means for providing and substantially continuously main- 10 taining thin, continuous surface films of treating liquid upon both sides of the lapped fabric while concurrently permeating the same, said spray means being individually disposed such as to interpose their action on the advanc- 228,835 2/ 1925 Great Britain.

908.5 60 10/ 1962 Great Britain.

922,302 3/ 1963 Great Britain. 87,03 6 2/ 1921 Switzerland.

ing laps between the successive squeezes thereof. 15

2. The apparatus as defined by claim 1, wherein the WILLIAM PRICE Primary Examiner rollers are ball bearing mounted. U S cl 3. The apparatus as defined by claim 1, wherein the 62 lower rollers are polygonal in cross-section. i

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