Agitating – Mortar mixer type – Methods
Reexamination Certificate
1998-10-07
2001-02-06
Soohoo, Tony G. (Department: 1723)
Agitating
Mortar mixer type
Methods
C366S016000, C366S018000, C366S030000, C366S039000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06183123
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to apparatus and methods for concrete manufacturing and, more particularly, to such apparatus and methods in which the concrete includes a fiber ingredient.
Referring to
FIG. 1
, the prior art system of manufacturing concrete with steel fiber additive
10
includes a cement/flyash silo
12
with a dump drum
14
, an aggregate bin assembly
16
with a scale
18
and an aggregate hopper assembly
20
all resting on a generally flat section of ground or floor
22
. The aggregate hopper assembly
20
includes three compartmental sections for separately receiving through open tops
20
A and capable of separately holding three different types of aggregate, such as CA-
7
coarse, A-
2
fine, rocks and sand. After the aggregate is loaded by front loaders in through the tops of the compartmental sections, selected amounts are allowed to fall through individual gate controlled openings in the bottom
20
B of the aggregate hopper assembly
20
onto three underlying, parallel, aggregate belt conveyors
24
, respectively. The three conveyors
24
separately convey from the three separate aggregate hoppers from the bottom
20
B to the tops
16
A of the compartmental sections of the aggregate bin assembly
16
.
The amount of aggregate in each of the three compartmental sections is weighed by the associated scales
18
and selected amounts are then passed to the bottom of a mixed aggregate belt conveyor
26
. The conveyor
26
receives aggregate from any and all of the selected compartmental sections of the aggregate bin assembly
16
, and the aggregate from the different compartmental sections are dumped together on the one conveyor
26
. The aggregate mix on the conveyor
26
is conveyed to an aggregate inlet
14
A of the dump drum
14
. In addition a selected amount of cement/flyash mixture is allowed to pass into a cement/flyash inlet
14
B of the dump drum
14
by gravity feed through a chute
28
.
The mixture of the selected amount of cement/flyash and the weighed and selected amounts the three possibly different types of aggregate are then mixed in the dump drum during rotation of the drum. Water is then added into the drum
14
from the water feed tube
14
C from water source
14
D to be mixed with the dry aggregate. After this wet concrete mixture has been blended in the dump drum
14
, it is available to be gravity feed loaded from the dump drum
14
into a succession of dump trucks
27
for conveyance of the mixed wet concrete to another site.
In the case of the dry concrete recipe or formula calling for the inclusion of steel fibers, the steel fibers are packaged in bags
30
weighing approximately forty pounds that are delivered to the site and are manually opened, lifted and hand dumped onto the aggregate belt conveyor
26
from a platform. Alternatively, the bags are manually dumped onto one of the three aggregate conveyors
24
for conveyance to the conveyor
26
, or onto a separate fiber conveyor
32
for conveyance via the aggregate bin assembly
16
and the aggregate belt conveyor
26
to the dump drum
14
. In the case of the preparation of premixed concrete on site, the dry concrete formula apart from the fiber additive is delivered into a premix cement truck (not shown) without mixing in the dump drum
14
, and a separate, special additive conveyor (not shown) is used to move the fiber additive to a load receiving opening of the cement truck into which the other ingredients are also received. The forty pound bags of additive
30
are opened manually and manually dumped onto this special additive conveyor.
The present inventors have determined that this process of manufacturing concrete with fiber additive is disadvantageously labor intensive, inefficient and wasteful of material due to breakage of the forty pound bags of fiber additive and spillage during manual handling and dumping of the bags.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the present invention, the disadvantages of the known apparatus and processes for manufacturing concrete with fiber additive are overcome by elimination of the need for manual labor to open and dump individual forty pound bags of fiber additive.
It is therefore the principle object of the invention to provide a method of manufacturing concrete with a fiber additive and other ingredients, comprising the steps of mechanically manipulating a shipping a shipping container having a gross amount of fiber additive substantially greater than the an amount susceptible to unaided manual handling with a mechanical manipulator to dump the gross amount of fiber additive from the shipping container into an additive hopper, moving at least some of the fiber additive dumped in the additive hopper to an additive bin by means of a mechanically powered conveyor; and conveying a preselected amount of the fiber additive from the additive bin to a mixer for mixing with the other ingredients of the concrete being made.
It a further object of the invention to provide a concrete fiber additive shipping and handling module, having a rectilinear shipping container with a bottom and a closed top and containing a gross amount of steel fiber additive substantially greater than an amount susceptible to unaided manual handling with a shipping pallet underlying the bottom of the shipping container; and means for releasably attaching the shipping pallet to the shipping container.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3885774 (1975-05-01), Harris et al.
patent: 3986611 (1976-10-01), Dreher
patent: 4940335 (1990-07-01), Gibson
patent: 2-89795 (1990-03-01), None
Osborn Arthur Robert
Sniegowski Richard M.
K-Five Construction Corporation
Potthast James W.
Potthast & Associates
Soohoo Tony G.
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