Textiles: manufacturing – Textile product fabrication or treatment – Fiber entangling and interlocking
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-12
2001-10-09
Vanatta, Amy B. (Department: 3765)
Textiles: manufacturing
Textile product fabrication or treatment
Fiber entangling and interlocking
C028S121000, C028S122000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06298529
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 to French patent application FR 00 06 265 filed on May 17, 2000, the entire contents of which is incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the formation and conditioning of felts of fibrous insulating products, in particular those products based on mineral fibers.
2. Discussion of the Background
Conventionally, a blanket of fibrous products based on mineral fibers is produced, after various steps, at the outlet of a forming device in which the blanket has been compressed and heated in order to cause the curing of a binder encasing the fibers. The blanket obtained continuously in this way is conveyed on a transporting device and usually has a considerable width which may amount to several meters, for example 3.6 m. In order to use the blanket, it is necessary to cut defined lengths and widths smaller than the manufacturing width in order to obtain felts, the dimensions of which are, for example, 31 cm in width and 1.2 m in length.
Consequently, in a known way, the blanket at the outlet of the forming device is cut longitudinally and along its center line in order to produce two blankets of equal width which are driven, so as to branch off, by means of two separate conveyor belts. These blankets will be referred to hereinafter as half-width blankets.
A half-width fiber blanket, in turn, is sawn longitudinally into a plurality of strips, for example four, of equal width corresponding to the desired width of the felt to be provided. These four strips remain driven parallel to one another and undergo a crosscutting operation, to produce felts of a desired length, by means of guillotines located vertically in line with each traveling strip.
For the purpose of conditioning the felts, each of the four strips which consists of the formed felts is deflected and conveyed by a conveyor towards a compression and packaging machine. This machine comprises a reception device placed directly below the end of the conveyor so as to receive the insulating felts. After a predetermined number of felts have been stacked, the stack is transferred into a conditioning chamber in order to undergo compression in the direction of the stack. A film surrounds the stack. The film is subsequently glued or welded on itself, so as to encircle the stack, and compression can then be released.
Four conveying lines and four compression and packaging machines of the type described above are therefore necessary for the four conveyors conveying the four felt strips of the first half-width blanket, and as many machines are therefore used for the second half-width blanket.
The formation and conditioning of insulating felts consequently requires the use of a large number of transporting and conveying devices and of cutting, compression and packaging machines. In some manufacturing works, however, it is difficult to provide sufficient space to accommodate these conveying lines and these machines. Moreover, the labor remains high since two persons are usually employed in supervising and maintaining the cutting and conditioning machines. Finally, these machines which are expensive to purchase, increase the cost price of an installation as a whole.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, one object of the invention is to manufacture and condition insulating felts, without requiring considerable conveying, cutting, compression and packaging means, consequently reducing labor demand.
According to the invention, a method for the formation and conditioning of insulating felts of fibrous products includes transporting an insulating blanket continuously on a transporting device, longitudinally sawing of the insulating blanket into a plurality of parallel fiber strips, driving the fiber strips via at least one branching-off and convergence device towards at least one reception conveyor, superposing the fibers one on top of another so as to form at least one longitudinal stack of mineral strips, compressing the at least one longitudinal stack by a compression device, and cross-cutting in the compressed state the at least one longitudinal stack to form the insulating felts.
According to one characteristic, the parallel fiber strips on the transporting device are deflected from a traveling plane in rising and/or falling angular directions which converge towards an axis which is perpendicular to the traveling plane and level, such that the vertically spaced strips arrive in coplanar form.
According to another characteristic, the coplanar fiber strips are deposited by gravity onto the reception conveyor, so as to be superposed in alignment in order to form the longitudinal stack.
Before the step of cross-cutting the compressed stack (i.e. to obtain the felts), the stack is packaged around its longitudinal and lateral faces.
Preferably, during the compression of the stack, the compression device drives onto the stack at least one packaging film intended for covering the said longitudinal and lateral faces of the stack.
Advantageously, two packaging films are used in order to be applied against the longitudinal faces, then turned down against the lateral faces after the compression of the stack and connected to one another by a mutual fastening mechanism.
When the fiber blanket at the outlet of the forming device is cut into two blankets of identical width, there is a provision for the fiber strips obtained from the two blankets to be branched off according to two branching-off and convergence devices, in order to deliver two respective stacks onto two respective reception conveyors. The two reception conveyors are positioned so as to converge at a downstream end towards a third reception conveyor, in order to ensure that the two strip stacks are superposed in a third final stack intended to be processed by the compression device.
It is sometimes expedient, before the step of longitudinally sawing the blanket into a plurality of strips, to cover upper and lower faces of the blanket with a functional covering and, simultaneously with or just downstream of this covering step to split the blanket in into according to its thickness.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, the device configured to implement the method is characterized in that the branching-off and convergence device includes individual conveyor belts for each of the fiber strips, the conveyor belts having a departure point at the junction of the transporting device and in alignment with the fiber strips and an arrival point aligned along a vertical axis and above the reception conveyor.
Preferably, guide flanges are provided on each side of and at the upstream end of the reception conveyor, in order to ensure the alignment of the stack.
According to one characteristic, the compression device includes two converging tracks, the pressing surfaces of which are provided with packaging films deposited on the longitudinal faces of the stack simultaneously during stack compression.
According to another characteristic, a cutting device is arranged downstream of the compression device and cross-cuts the compressed, packaged stack.
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Aube Jean-Yves
Bichot Bernard
Louis Bernard
Oblon & Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt P.C.
Saint-Gobain Isover
Vanatta Amy B.
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