Metal working – Means to assemble or disassemble – Heat exchanger
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-14
2002-06-18
Cuda-Rosenbaum, I (Department: 3726)
Metal working
Means to assemble or disassemble
Heat exchanger
C029S03300H, C029S03300H
Reexamination Certificate
active
06405428
ABSTRACT:
CLAIM OF PRIORITY
This application makes reference to, incorporates the same herein, and claims all benefits accruing under 35 U.S.C. §119 from an application for A AUTOMATIC INSERTION MACHINE FOR RETURN BEND PIPE OF HEAT EXCHANGER earlier filed in the Korean Industrial Property Office on Sep. 8, 1999 and there duly assigned Serial No. 38152/1999.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic assembling apparatus of automatically assembling return bends and hair pins in a heat exchanger, and more particularly to an automatic assembling apparatus of automatically inserting the return bends into the hair pins mounted in a plurality of flat plate fins in a heat exchanger.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Return bends are inserted into corresponding hair pins for forming a passageway of a coolant circulating the hair pins mounted in the flat plate fins of a heat exchanger. The return bends had been manually arranged with and inserted into the hair pins. This manual assembling process causes misalignment and inaccurate coupling of hair pins and return bends during assembling of a heat exchanger.
As shown in
FIG. 1
, a heat exchanger
1
generally includes a plurality of flat plate pins
10
arranged in parallel to an air flowing direction and spaced-apart from each other by a first predetermined interval for allowing air to pass through between the flat plate fins, a plurality of hair pins
12
inserted into holes formed on the flat plate fins
10
and mounted in perpendicular to the flat plat fins by a predetermined horizontal interval for allowing coolant to circulate therein, and a plurality of return bends
14
respectively coupled to a pair of ends
12
a
of the hair pins to form a single coolant pass line.
In a conventional method of inserting return bends
14
to hair pins
12
of the heat exchanger
1
, after a plurality of hair pins
12
have been assembled with a plurality of flat plat fins
10
, ends
14
b
of each return bend are manually matched with ends
12
a
of hair pins
12
and forcibly inserted into ends
12
a
of hair pins by a rubber hammer by a predetermined length.
However, there has been problems in a conventional method of manually inserting return bends
14
into hair pins
12
and manually assembling the heat exchanger
1
such as inefficiency due to workers' fatigue. Return bends
14
are neither accurately aligned with hair pins
12
nor inserted into hair pins by a uniform length to thereby increase a number of defects and consume a lot of time in assembling the return bends and hair pins. These problems of the conventional method prevent a mass production.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic assembling apparatus able to automatically and simultaneously assemble a plurality of return bends and a plurality of hair pins in a heat exchanger.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an automatic assembling apparatus able to automatically align the return bend and the hair pin.
It is yet another object to provide an automatic assembling apparatus able to automatically and precisely insert the return bend into the hair pin.
It is still another object to provide an automatic assembling apparatus able to accurately coupling the return bend and the hair pin.
It is a further object to provide an automatic assembling apparatus able to prevent defects on the return bend and the hair pin and the deterioration of the coolant flow passing through the return bend and the hair pin.
It is also object to provide a heat exchanger assembling apparatus able to increase the efficiency of the heat exchanger by reducing assembling time and suitable to a mass production of the heat exchanger.
These and other objects may be achieved by providing an automatic assembling apparatus including a heat exchanger transferring unit clamping both lateral sides of the heat exchanger having the hair pins and flat plat fins and horizontally transferring the heat exchanger on a working station, a bend inserting unit installed at one end of the heat exchanger transferring unit and coupling the return bends into the hair pins, a transferring member installed in rear of a supporting frame for horizontally transferring the heat exchanger, and a clamping member connected to the transferring member and clamping and maintaining the heat exchanger in a predetermined height.
The bend inserting unit includes first and second return bend supplying member installed at both upper ends of a main body and accommodating and supplying the return bends one after another and a bend inserting member installed on a center of a lower end on a front lateral surface of the main body and clamping the return bends respectively supplied from the first and second bend supplying member and coupling return bends to the hair pins.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4625378 (1986-12-01), Tanno et al.
patent: 4734969 (1988-04-01), Currier et al.
patent: 4780955 (1988-11-01), Stroup
patent: 4836828 (1989-06-01), York et al.
patent: 4839950 (1989-06-01), Stroup
patent: 5533251 (1996-07-01), Vetter
patent: 5996217 (1999-12-01), Tokunaga et al.
patent: 6167619 (2001-01-01), Beagle
Bushnell , Esq. Robert E.
Cuda-Rosenbaum I
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