Supports: racks – Knockdown – Stacked similar units
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-14
2001-11-20
Chin-Shue, Alvin (Department: 3634)
Supports: racks
Knockdown
Stacked similar units
Reexamination Certificate
active
06318571
ABSTRACT:
The present invention relates to a loader device or tool for supporting parts in a heat treatment furnace.
A particular but non-exclusive field of application for the invention is that of tooling for supporting parts to be subjected to treatment in a cementation furnace.
In this field, the tooling most commonly in use is made of metal. It suffers from two main drawbacks:
it too is subjected to cementation and rapidly becomes brittle, which can give rise to major disturbances inside furnaces; and
under the effect of temperature it deforms, thereby causing the parts it carries to be deformed, which can require them to be corrected subsequently with consequent loss of thickness in the layer of cementation, thereby also making the operations of loading and unloading unsuitable for robotization because of poor positional accuracy; and also giving rise to potential difficulties when deformed tooling is to be inserted into a quenching unit.
It is already known, in particular from document EP-A-0 518 746 to use a thermostructural composite material instead of a metal to make the soleplates of heat treatment furnaces. A plurality of soleplates can be provided that are spaced apart from one another by spacers that are likewise made of thermostructural composite material. The composite material used is a carbon-carbon (C/C) composite material or a ceramic matrix composite (CMC) material having mechanical properties that enable them to act as structural elements and retaining those properties at high temperatures.
However, the loader device described in document EP-A-0 518 746 turns out to be unsuitable for achieving optimum loading as is often desired because of the relatively large number of parts to be treated. In addition, that known device is unsuitable for enabling the operations of loading and unloading the parts to be performed robotically.
The present invention seeks to remedy the above-mentioned drawbacks of prior art devices, and to this end it provides a loader device made of thermostructural composite material and comprising: a base; a loading pole secured to the base, projecting from the central portion of the base and extending over at least the full height of the loader device; a plurality of loading trays each provided with a central passage for passing the loading pole; and each loading tray carrying a plurality of spacers enabling successive trays to be assembled at predetermined intervals, each tray carrying the same number of spacers, with the spacers being aligned so that, once the trays have been assembled, the spacers make up load-carrying columns extending up the height of the loader device, and at least one of the spacers carried by each tray having a disposition and/or a size that is different from the other spacers carried by the same tray so as to enable the trays to be indexed while they are being assembled.
Because it is made of thermostructural composite material and because of the presence of means for indexing the trays, the loader device makes it possible to comply with the conditions of dimensional stability and precision that are required to enable the operations of loading and unloading the parts for treatment to be robotized.
Advantageously, each tray has part-positioning means for positioning parts in predetermined locations. In an embodiment, the loader device has first trays on which the part-positioning means occupy first positions relative to the spacers, and second trays on which the part-positioning means occupy second positions relative to the spacers, which second positions are different from the first positions. The first trays alternate with the second trays so that the part-positioning means are not all in vertical alignment. Each tray has spacer-receiving means suitable for receiving the ends of the spacers carried by a tray situated beneath it. On each tray, the disposition of at least one spacer relative to the axis of the pole is different from that of the other spacers, and at least one spacer is of a size that is different from that of the other spacers so that two identical trays cannot be mounted one immediately above the other and so that the trays can be assembled only in the required angular positions around the axis of the pole.
In another embodiment, the positioning means comprise at least some of the spacers. Each tray has spacer-receiving means suitable for receiving the ends of spacers carried by a tray situated beneath it. The disposition of at least one spacer on each tray relative to the axis of the pole is different from the disposition of the other spacers, and/or the size thereof is different from that of other spacers so that identical trays can be assembled together only in predetermined angular positions about the axis of the pole.
The spacers projecting from the space and the trays can be in the form of elements that are independent, or preferably in the form of elements that are secured to the base or to the tray that carries them.
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Martin Guy
Maumus Jean-Pierre
Vivier Jean-Roch
Chin-Shue Alvin
Purol Sarah
Societe Nationale D'Etude et de Construction de Moteurs D&a
Weingarten, Schurgin Gagnebin & Hayes LLP
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