Excavating – Snow or ice removing or grooming by portable device – Snow or ice surface groomer
Patent
1999-03-29
2000-07-11
Shackelford, H.
Excavating
Snow or ice removing or grooming by portable device
Snow or ice surface groomer
37242, 37305, 37364, 37462, E01H 400
Patent
active
060854456
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a piste-preparation device for preparing a half-pipe, the device comprising at least one tool which is adjustably mounted on a piste vehicle, and lateral members which are disposed laterally relative to the tool and can essentially be assigned to half-pipe side walls.
Channel- or trough-like pistes for snowboards are called half-pipes. For preparing such a half-pipe, a prior-art piste-preparation device comprises side blades laterally arranged on a tool. These side blades are shaped such that the side walls of the half-pipe can be constructed and prepared with a competition profile.
In the prior-art piste-preparation device of the above-mentioned type, as is for instance known from the journal "Internationale Seilbahn-Rundschau" May/1993, pages 42-44, however, it has been found to be a disadvantage that only a small amount of material can be displaced by the side blades and that such a displacement is mainly possible in the direction of travel alone. Furthermore, it is difficult or even impossible to prepare hard surfaces.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to improve a piste-preparation device of the above-mentioned type in such a manner that a half-pipe can also be prepared when the surface is hard and, at the same time, that an increased amount of material can be removed, in particular from the half-pipe side walls.
This object is achieved in the above-mentioned piste-preparation device in that each lateral member comprises a removal means designed with removal tools that are movable substantially in a direction transverse to the direction of travel of the piste vehicle for preparing a piste surface of the half-pipe. Large amounts of materials can be removed from the side walls of the half-pipe by the removal tools which are movable in a direction transverse to the direction of travel. Moreover, material can also be removed when the piste vehicle is at a standstill, for instance, to work the half-pipe at one place more intensively. The removal tools are designed such that they can also work on a hard piste surface.
EP 0 151 757 A2 discloses a snow blower having supply plows laterally disposed relative to said blower. These supply plows serve to enlarge the entry cross-section of the snow blower. A typical application of the snow blowers is their use in airfields where high removing and conveying speeds are of special importance. Each of the supply plows comprises a belt conveyor element whose plane is in parallel with the plow-share plane of a plow-share forming the supply plows. The belt conveyor element comprises a plurality of rib-like projections which are movable towards the blower wheel of the snow blower. The accumulation of snow in front of the shares is to be prevented by the belt conveyor elements in a simple and inexpensive manner.
EP 0 151 757 A2 is silent about the use of the snow blower in connection with half-pipes and also about a treatment of a piste surface, whereas according to the invention a piste surface of a half-pipe can also be prepared directly by removal tools of a removal means, apart from the displacement of material in a direction transverse to the direction of travel.
Advantageously, the tool which is adjustably mounted on the piste vehicle is a rotary snow plow having at least one shaft. The half-pipe channel can be excavated by such a rotary snow plow. The shaft of the rotary snow plow may, for instance, be provided with two opposite spiral-shaped snow plow means by which snow can be displaced towards the center of the piste-preparation device. To remove snow which has accumulated there in an easy manner, the piste-preparation device further comprises a blower means which is assigned to the rotary snow plow for displacing snow supplied by the rotary snow plow. A blower means of such a type which is known per se comprises a blower wheel assigned to the spiral-shaped snow plow means, by which the snow supplied by the spiral-shaped snow plow means is fed to an ejection chimney and is discharged through said chimney. Snow can
REFERENCES:
patent: 2223608 (1940-12-01), George
patent: 3652106 (1972-03-01), Waterman
patent: 4432672 (1984-02-01), Bruderle et al.
patent: 5067264 (1991-11-01), Beeley
patent: 5940995 (1999-08-01), Venhomaa
Internationale Seilbahn Rundschau Revue Internationale Des Telepheriques, No. 5, Sep. 1993, WIEN AT, pp. 42-44, XP002031450, "Pisten-Bully-Top-Treff 1993" see p. 43, col. 4, line 26--p. 44, col. 3, line 12; figures.
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