Suspended storage apparatus

Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor section – Unit load conveying surface means moved about an endless or...

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Details

1986781, 198680, 188290, 211121, B65G 1716

Patent

active

057880573

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention concerns a pendulant product storage installation, in particular for food products, and more particularly for bars of chocolate or the like, these products being placed on shelves arranged horizontally on pendulant product carriers horizontally suspended on two chains mounted on a frame and moving parallel to each other in a closed circuit comprising a feed section going from a station for loading the products on the shelves, to a product receiving station arranged for unloading the shelves, and a return section in which the shelves are brought back empty from the receiving station to the loading station, in which each pendulant product carrier is associated with at least one dampening device arranged for limiting the amplitude of its oscillating movement and for rapidly dampening this movement, this dampening device comprising at least one braking disc and means for cooperating with at least one surface of this disc for exercising friction on this surface, the disc and said means being attached respectively to one of the chains and to the pendulant product carrier and having a relative movement when the pendulant product carrier is subjected to oscillations.
Numerous pendulant storage installations are already known, in particular that disclosed in the European Patent application published under number 0 538 742 A1. In food product production lines, for example of bars of chocolate, biscuits, chocolate covered products and other products which are fragile and delicate to handle, it is often necessary to be able to have a temporary storage installation available for these products, given that production is carried out continuously while packaging is carried out in batches and the packaging units of a same line are periodically subjected to halts required for maintenance, repair or the placing of packing material.
These storage installations must comply with relatively burdensome specifications. They must allow large storage capacity and assure efficient and careful transport of the products from a loading station to a receiving station, while providing maximum security for the conveyed products, great flexibility of use and variable storage potential as a function of the instant demand.
One of the problems presented by these installations is space requirement. It is easy to understand that the user wishes to have available the greatest possible storage capacity for the minimum amount of space. This space requirement problem is in part connected to the problem of the pendulant product carriers swinging, in particular in installations in which the forward movement is carried out step by step. In the zones of rectilinear movement the pendulant product carriers are usually only subjected to vertical acceleration and deceleration which does not risk damaging the products. On the other hand, in zones of curvilinear movement, the pendulant product carriers are subjected to swinging movement and risk colliding with each other if the space separating two neighbouring columns along which these pendulant product carriers move is not greater than a determined threshold. A collision of this type risks causing a disorderly movement of the products in the pendulant product carrier, or even damaging or ejecting them. In order to avoid this risk, the columns must be sufficiently separated from each other which results in a not inconsiderable increase in the space requirement of the installation, in particular when the latter comprises a large number of columns.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,168,874 discloses a conveyor installation suspended platform mechanical oscillation dampening device. It will be noted that this device comprises mechanical friction discs, which makes it difficult to adjust and does not enable a systematic return of the platform to a vertical position to be guaranteed. For the pendulant product carriers it is necessary both that the dampening of the oscillations takes place very rapidly and that at the end of this dampening they regain their zero position, that is to say a vertical position wit

REFERENCES:
patent: 3168874 (1965-02-01), Atanasoff
patent: 4168776 (1979-09-01), Hoeboer
patent: 4316535 (1982-02-01), Brems et al.
patent: 4679666 (1987-07-01), Brems
patent: 4908905 (1990-03-01), Kanno et al.

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