Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor section – Spiral
Patent
1997-02-21
1998-12-08
Valenza, Joseph E.
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor section
Spiral
198812, 198792, B65G 2118
Patent
active
058457658
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a plant for temporary storage of items, preferably a freezer tunnel having an inlet and a discharge station, a conveyor for conveying the items from the inlet station through the storage area of the plant to the discharge station, and drive members for the conveyor both at the inlet station and at the discharge station, said conveyor looping around fixed turning rolls located opposite each other in the plant and around turning rolls that are displaceable in relation thereto as they are placed on at least one trolley, which can be slid freely merely as a result of the speeds of the drive members, wherein the drive members are designed to be able to be operated at mutually independent and mutually variable speeds.
The invention further relates to a method for the operation of such a plant and the use of the plant.
Plants in which items are stored temporarily, possibly while being subjected to simultaneous treatment, will often be part of a process line. Either the inlet station or the discharge station of such a process line will frequently have to be operated at a continuous and constant speed determined by the speed of operation of the other machines forming part of the process line.
A plant of the type mentioned in the introduction may be used as a buffer in such a process line. Thereby, machines on either side of the plant may continue at a constant speed while minor operational interruptions or stoppages are absorbed by the plant buffer, which is arranged with the possibility of displacing the trolley back and forth between the fixed turning rolls.
Particularly in freezer tunnels it is essential that the conveyor belt at the inlet station may be driven at a continuous fixed speed because an ice-cream extruder supplying the inlet station with products must operate at a constant speed for the sake of the ice-cream composition.
Packing machines situated in connection with the discharge station of the freezer tunnel may frequently be subject to larger or shorter stoppages. However, these machines are also able to operate at an increased operational speed compared to normal operation speed.
Upon stoppages in such packing machines, the frozen products were hitherto removed from the discharge station and returned for processing if this was possible, or it has been necessary to dispose of the frozen products. This disposal of the products has frequently been chosen because it is very time-consuming to stop an ice-cream extruder and subsequently restart it. This is because stopping and subsequently restarting an extruder takes a good deal of time and much ice-cream material before a balance occurs in the process line that permits the production of products with a satisfactory quality.
Plants for temporary storage of items have been proposed in the prior art. For example, this is described in the applicant's own international patent application No. PCT/DK94/00151. This as well as other known plants deal with the problem of controlling the storage size.
While advantageous solutions to this problem are disclosed by regulating the speeds of the drive members, it has so far been accepted in plants of the type mentioned in the introduction that items located in the discharge station have to be removed manually and in certain cases must be discarded. In particular, this is the case when the storage area in the plant is a processing area and when a prolonged stoppage in the discharge station may deteriorate or ruin the items. This is particularly a problem associated with the production of frozen confectionery products where the frozen products may only stay for a short while in the discharge station where there is an ordinary room temperature.
The present invention may be seen as a further development of the applicant's above-mentioned plant, and all the disclosures of the above-mentioned PCT application are hereby incorporated by reference.
It is the object of the invention to disclose a plant and a method of the type mentioned in the introduction wherein t
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International Publication No. WO 94/24026 to K. Gram for "Means for Temporary Storing of Subjects," dated 27 Oct. 1994.
Tran Khoi H.
Valenza Joseph E.
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