Apparatus for processing rubber-based materials

Solid material comminution or disintegration – Apparatus – Series material flow only through plural comminuting zones

Utility Patent

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C241SDIG014

Utility Patent

active

06168103

ABSTRACT:

The invention relates especially to the technical field of recovering waste rubber, particularly any type of rubbery or plastic material that has integral, generally metal, strengthening reinforcement. Advantageously, the invention has an especially advantageous application for the processing of tires but this does not exclude other applications, including the processing of certain electric cables.
It is known that the storage, transport and recycling of used tires of light vehicles or heavy goods type vehicles pose genuine problems.
Many systems have been suggested to allow the recycling or treatment of tires with a view to various applications including fuels. After processing, the tires may also be used for certain road equipment.
Generally speaking, the tires are subjected to operations capable of reducing them to a certain particle size and, if applicable, separating metal and/or textile reinforcement from the rubbery material.
Apparatus of the crusher type is generally used to achieve this result. This state of the art is illustrated by the facts disclosed in Patents FR 2 377 271, FR 2 419 110, FR 2 451 819, EP 0 334 387 and EP 0 434 975. These various techniques use cutting tools in order to initially chop the tire into pieces.
This solution is unsatisfactory because the pieces obtained still contain the metal reinforcement. Problems therefore occur when such pieces are incinerated, given the fact that they contain steel. In addition, the metal reinforcement quickly damages the cutting tools.
European Patent 0 561 285 discloses a system for processing tires by destructive means without previously removing metal components by using cutting tools specially designed to exhibit practically zero wear.
Separating the rubber from the metal reinforcement requires an additional system which is relatively complex in terms of the facilities it uses. All known systems are extremely large and require special infrastructure which makes it impossible to process tires in situ. It is generally necessary to transport the tires to the site of the system because it is a static plant.
This transport consequently increases the cost of processing tires.
One should also mention Patent WO-A-9313858 which describes a device for size reduction of tire casings based on crushing the articles to be processed and then passing them between pressure rollers. This device has rollers that cooperate with a means of reaction consisting either of a fixed plate or another cylindrical roller. The system works by crushing so that it is necessary to delimit the compression area. For this purpose, the rollers have shoulders that match up with the means of reaction.
In a preferred form, this device uses two rollers, thus making it possible to avoid the occurrence of stresses inside the material to be processed. As a result, the processing principle relies exclusively on high compression and the existence of friction associated with high pressure causes an unacceptable temperature increase in the material to be processed.
German Utility Model DE-U-8901786 also discloses a machine for processing used tires by means of two rollers having different linear velocities. However, it appears that the use of two rollers only produces shear forces over a small area of the tires and this makes it impossible to obtain effective cohesion.
The invention set itself the goal of overcoming these drawbacks in a simple, reliable, effective and efficient manner.
The problem which the invention aims to solve is to separate the rubbery material from any type of reinforcement or strengthening of any kind, whether metallic and/or textile, in any product, especially a tire, without making use of cutting tools and by using the actual metal reinforcement as a means of cutting.
Another problem which the invention aims to solve is to process articles of tire and other types at any location, for instance in situ where they are produced or stored, in contrast to static installations.
In order to solve such a problem, an apparatus has been designed and perfected of the type comprising at least two rows of rotating rollers with parallel centerlines which are superposed two by two, the articles being fed in flat between said rollers that are capable of continuously and successively ensuring loss of cohesion of the rubbery material with a view to separating it from the metal reinforcement in order to produce a resulting powder which is a mixture of rubber and metal or textile particles characterised in that the rollers in the first row are positively driven in the same direction of rotation at different linear velocities whereas the rollers in the other row rotate in the other direction in order to transport the articles by friction.
The problem of ensuring loss of cohesion of the rubbery material and separation of the metal reinforcement is solved in that the rollers are designed and/or controlled by means to exert pressure on the tire to be processed combined with frictional movement due to relative displacement between said tire and said rollers.
Advantageously, said rollers form three separate, continuous areas which each correspond to one function, namely:
primary loss of cohesion of the rubbery material in order to detach it from the metal reinforcement,
stripping of the rubbery material from the metal reinforcement,
separation of the rubbery material and the metal reinforcement in order to obtain a powder.
In order to achieve this result, the rollers are driven at the same angular velocity and are, in each area, of different diameter.
The rollers are devised to be driven simultaneously in rotation by means of one or more motors in combination or not in combination with a device of the inertia flywheel type in order to subject the tire to a pressure force during an extremely short time interval.
Given the design of the apparatus, it may have various geometrical shapes. For this purpose, the roller areas either have a linear, superposed or side-by-side configuration.


REFERENCES:
patent: 264055 (1882-12-01), Angell
patent: 5234171 (1993-08-01), Fantacci
patent: 8901786 (1989-04-01), None
patent: 3830959 (1990-03-01), None
patent: 0567759 (1993-11-01), None
patent: WO93/13858 (1993-07-01), None
patent: 9407670 (1994-04-01), None

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