Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor having impinging fluid to feed – shift or discharge... – Having cleaning means
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-09
2001-11-13
Ellis, Christopher P. (Department: 3651)
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor having impinging fluid to feed, shift or discharge...
Having cleaning means
C198S499000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06315105
ABSTRACT:
The present invention relates to conveyors and, in particular, to scraping apparatus for a conveyor.
Conveyors are widely used to quickly and efficiently move objects and material from one location to another. A conveyor includes a continuous loop conveyor belt that is looped over a rotatable head pulley and a rotatable tail pulley. The head pulley is powered to rotate in a direction that pulls the portion of the conveyor belt that is between the tops of the head and tail pulleys toward the head pulley to convey material to that location. The lower portion of the conveyor belt is slack and moves from the head pulley towards the tail pulley. Objects and material may be loaded onto the conveyor belt at any location or locations along the top portion thereof and are unloaded or discharged at the location of the head pulley as the conveyor belt moves downward as it travels around the head pulley. Where the belt is long or the load heavy, the belt is supported intermediate the head and tail pulleys on rollers, slider bars and other conventional support arrangements.
The efficiency of the conveyor depends upon completely discharging the load at the head pulley. Although some loads discharge simply by falling off the conveyor belt under the influence of gravity as the belt travels around the head pulley, other loads, such as loads including wet and/or sticky materials, tend to adhere to the conveyor belt and so would be carried along with the belt as it returns toward the tail pulley.
Discharge efficiency is improved by employing a scraper at the head pulley to bear against the conveyor belt as it travels around the head pulley so as to scrape material and deposits off of the conveyor belt to clean the belt, which material would otherwise adhere to the surface of the conveyor belt.
A common type of scraper assembly comprises a blade positioned transverse to the direction of belt travel or movement and bearing against the belt where it travels around the head pulley. A mounting tube supporting the blade via mounting brackets to nearby structure includes a tensioning system to bias the blade against the belt. Conventional mounting and tensioning arrangements employ tubes, bars, rods, levers, bearings and the like to allow movement and tensioning of the blade and springs and like arrangements to tension the blade against the conveyor belt. Additional complexity is often required to provide cushioning of the blade against irregularities in the conveyor belt
All of these arrangements are susceptible to malfunction, wear, corrosion and stress as a result of the rigors of use, not the least of which are the effects of the dirt and grit that are ever present in many applications, for example, mining and quarrying. The need to clean and repair such conventional arrangements imposes additional costs and requires additional labor, and may even require the stopping of the conveyor, thereby causing the loss of production. This is in addition to the necessary periodic replacement of the scraper blade which necessarily wears with use.
Accordingly, there is a need for a scraping apparatus that avoids the many of the problems of conventional scrapers and desirably incorporates a tensioning and cushioning arrangement into the replaceable scraper blade.
To this end, the scraping blade according to the present invention comprises a blade base, and an elastomeric blade web extending from the blade base and having a blade edge on the blade web distal the blade base. The blade web has at least one groove therein substantially parallel to the blade edge for imparting flexibility to the blade web in a region proximate the at least one groove.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, apparatus for scraping a belt comprises a scraping blade and a blade mount assembly. The scraping blade comprises a blade base adapted to engage a blade mount, a blade web extending from the blade base and having a forward side and a rearward side, the forward side having a blade edge substantially parallel to the blade base for engaging the belt, and the blade web having a plurality of grooves on the rearward side thereof substantially parallel to each other and to the blade base. The blade mount assembly comprises a blade mount engaging the blade base, and a rotatable mount rotatably supporting the blade mount, the rotatable mount being lockable in a plurality of rotation positions for urging the blade edge of the scraping blade against the belt.
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Martin Engineering, Martin XHD Durt Tracker Belt Cleaner and Tensions, Operator's Manual, Dec. 1998, 50 Pages, Neponset, IL.
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Gibbs A. Todd
Mott George T.
ASGCO Manufacturing, Inc.
Crawford Gene O.
Dann Dorfman Herrell and Skillman, P.C.
Ellis Christopher P.
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