Metal working – Method of mechanical manufacture – Scrap recovering or utilizing
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-27
2003-07-22
Vidovich, Gregory (Department: 3726)
Metal working
Method of mechanical manufacture
Scrap recovering or utilizing
C029S403200, C029S403300, C029S426100, C029S426300, C100S901000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06594877
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method and equipment of recycling used-automobiles, for scrapping a used-automobile to collect recyclable useful objects and subsequently pressing a body of the used-automobile.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In view of effective resource utilization, energy conservation and environmental protection, recycling of resources has been recognized as one significant subject. As to automobiles, continuous efforts has been made to establish a recycle system wherein after collecting reusable parts or the like and removing harmful or hazardous objects or materials from used or damaged automobiles, a bared body (referred to as a body iron) is pressed by a soft press machine or other press machine to form an iron scrap serving as a raw material of steel, or the body iron is crushed to fragments by a shredding machine to fractionate and collect valuable metals.
In late years, increased usage rate of automobile parts containing disadvantageous materials to steel making, such as copper, causes a difficulty in applying the pressed material formed by pressing the used-automobiles as-is after collecting recyclable parts to a raw material for steel making.
Further, in the existing circumstances, since the recycle system in automobiles involves questions of economic viability in the scrapping process itself, it has been promoted with giving weight primarily to the recycling of disassembled parts. Thus, in order to improve scrapping efficiency and parts collection rate and to reduce the scrapping process cost, there has been disclosed one technique related to a scrapping process comprising the steps of (1) carrying a used-automobile in, (2) temporarily storing, (3) preprocessing, (4) taking off parts, (5) tearing down the used-automobile, (6) pressing a body, (7) temporarily storing, and (8) carrying out, i.e. a reverse process to that of assembling automobiles.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-16840 discloses a technique in which a platform having a certain height is provided with an opening serving as a transfer space for a scrapping line, a plurality of transfer carriages longitudinally movable along the scrapping line being provided as a transfer device for transferring a used-automobile between each scrapping station, each of the transfer carriages including a fork member vertically movable between higher and lower positions than the surface of the platform to serve as a table for transferring and processing the used-automobile, and a conveyer for carrying disassembled or removed parts out of the line and the like being provide on both sides in the longitudinal direction of the platform.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-230822 discloses another technique comprising transfer carriages for automatically transferring a used-automobile from an operation station to a subsequent operation station with supporting the used-automobile thereon, and a lift for carrying out the operation in each station, wherein particularly in order to collect recyclable parts, reference cards are attached on the recyclable parts in a checking/sorting station, and each scrapping operation is carried out based on the reference cards in each subsequent operation station.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No Hei 11-78810 discloses still another technique comprising an overhead crane type traveling device reciprocatable along a transfer path, and a vertically movable lift provided at lower section of the traveling device, wherein a used-automobile is supported by the lift at an optimum height for scrapping operations, and an extracting station for extracting liquid such as waste liquid or waste oil and a disassembling station for disassembling or retrieving recyclable parts are separately carried out.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 11-188535 disclosed yet another technique comprising an operation space provided between cabinets for each part, a loop type carrier provided in the operation space to support a vertically movable hanger for hanging a used-automobile and to transfer the used-automobile to a plurality of operation stations at low speed, and a carriage with stopper, for justifying the used-automobile carried in the hanger to locate at a given set position of the used-automobile and serving as an operation table for disassembling doors, front wind shield grass or the like by use of a balancer, wherein the hanger is sequentially moved to the plurality of operation stations by the loop type carrier, and each desired recyclable part is disassembled in each operation station and stored in the given part cabinet after rinsed and inspected.
Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-16841 previously filed by the applicant discloses a technique comprising a transfer device using an overhead type hoist crane for moving between scrapping stations to transfer a used-automobile with hanging the used-automobile thereon, a body rolling device provided in a functional part collecting station for disassembling or retrieving functional parts such as engine, wherein electric parts such as motors, and harnesses, instrument panels, or the like which has been regarded as non-recyclable parts are disassembled and removed from a body, whereby the content of copper and tin is lessened down to an allowable value or less to allow the scrap pressed article formed from the body iron to be available for a raw material of steel sheet having a high commercial value, and undesirable materials are reduced after shredding the body iron.
When such disassembling/removing operations are carried out in a flow system, it is necessary for used-automobiles carried in the line in sequence to be processed one by one sequentially in each scrapping station. If each scrapping station has different workload levels, undesirable holding time can arise in some scraping station, resulting in a degraded operation efficient.
In the aforementioned Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-230822, dominant recyclable parts, such as doors, bumpers, fenders and the like, are collected in other parts collecting station as a final scrapping process, while in the aforementioned Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 11-78810, the liquid extracting operation is separated from the recyclable parts disassembling operation. However, no solution of the above problem may be provided by these techniques.
Each of the aforementioned Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-16840, 11-188535 and 10-16841 intends to equalize workload in each scraping station by dividing the recyclable parts collecting operation into a plurality of scrapping stations, these technique cannot be provide a sufficient solution. Further, while the Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-16840 may increase the number of used-automobiles to be processed by providing a plurality of scrapping lines, the above problem will be remained in situ.
In the Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-16840, some discriminative marker is attached on each collected recyclable part and transferred onto the conveyer to carry it out of the scrapping line. However, it is necessary to sort the collected parts based on the marker at a terminal end of the scrapping line. In case of using box-like pallets provided on a chain conveyer to carry the collected parts out of the scrapping line sequentially, the load on the chain conveyer can be undesirably destabilized due to the variance of the stored amount or weight of the collected parts in each pallet.
Furthermore, in sophisticated equipments such as the transfer carriage having the vertically movable fork member in the Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-16840 or the loop type carrier having the vertically movable hanger in the Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 11-188535, their equipment cost is inevitably increased, and it is required to maintain and check out them by a full-time staff to assure their smooth operation, which causes questions of economic viability in disassembling/remov
Eguchi Katsumi
Kamiota Hirohumi
Kawasaki Tomio
Mori Toshio
Morimoto Seietsu
Cozart Jermie E.
Jordan and Hamburg LLP
Vidovich Gregory
Yoshikawa Kogyo Co., Ltd.
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