US3463410A - Coil handling apparatus - Google Patents

Description

Aug. 26, 1969 P. w. CARPENTER 3,463,410

COIL HANDLING APPARATUS Filed Dec. 21, 1967 INVENTOR.

MW- #iii United States Patent O1 ice U.S. Cl. 242-79 4 Claims ABSTRACT F THE DISCLOSURE A device for handling vheavy coils of metallic strip material on which the coils of strip material may be placed on one position, easily shifted to another position substantially normal thereto, and then unrolled therefrom with no intermediate handling to afford minimum handling before eventual use.

Background of the invention Sheet steel, copper or other metallic materials are increasingly available to the user in small and easily handled coils or spools of material that as a rule vary from thirty to fty inches wide. The coils of sheet material are rolled in a continuous length and they are commonly made to attain a diameter somewhat less than the width of the material, although they are in no way limited to such dimens1ons.

,Such metallic coils are relatively easy to handle in comparison to un-rolled sheet material, however they still are understandably heavy and cumbersome and thus they present a problem in handling and uncoiling for eventual use.

A common expedient in the past has been to insert a crane-mounted rotary mandrel into the axial opening of a coil of material whereby it may be lifted, moved, and then uncoiled according to the demands. Although this method is reasonably effective, it is slow and dangerous and it requires the constant skilled services of several trained operators to properly move a coil of material from its source of supply to a point of use.

Summary of the invention This invention is therefore directed to an apparatus of the type which is adapted to receive a heavy coil of material and move it into a position it may be readily uncoiled for use. Most important, a single, unskilled operator is suicient to effectively operate the device, and if desired,

it may be easily adapted for automatic operation.

Brief description of the drawing A better understanding of the device may be obtained by reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIGURE l is a perspective view of the device of my invention in a loading position;

FIGURE 2 is a schematic drawing of the device in a` loading position as it receives a roll of material from an inclined supply line; and

FIGURE 3 is a schematic drawing of the device as rotated 90 to an unrolling position for uncoiling the material strip.

Description of the preferred embodiments 3,463,410 Patented Aug. 26, 1969 2 of the drawing, or it may otherwise be lifted and placed directly on the roller bed 14.

Inasrnuch as the bed comprises a series of freely moving Vrollers 14, a coil of material supplied thereto may be easily moved over the upper plane of the rollers 14 against the vertical rollers 16 until stopped thereby. The rollers 16 similarly comprise a plurality of url-driven but freely rotating elongate rollers spaced apart and meeting the rollerbed 14 along an essentially arcuate line forming the base of a curved surface substantially normal to the plane surface formed by the rollers 14.

The L-shaped platform 12 is arcuately curved around its outer portion to provide a base for rotatable tracks 28 turning on means 32 and driven by the rotating mechanism 34 which is in turn actuated by the motor 36. A motor 36 "is preferably mounted on the base 10 and is actuated by means such as an automatic or manually operated controller not shown to rotate the platform an amount equal to about The elongate rollers 16 are positioned in an essentially arcuate relationship to provide a broken, curved surface 01 cradle in which the coil of material may be carried. A -force pulling on a loose end 42 of the material to unwind it from its coiled position will unwind the coil by freelyrotating it upon the elongate rollers and in the cradle. produced thereby. As the coil is unwound, it decreases in diameter and lowers itself onto an adjacent pair of rollers 16 having a lesser chordal dimension whereby it at all times effectively cradled between and contacted by at least a pair of spaced rollers.

The elongate rollers 16 may be positioned symmetrically with respect to the base 10, however it is frequently deemed of adavntage to include a single additional roll 20 located above the plane of the other rolls, when positioned horizontally, against which a coil of material on the platform may be drawn to give additional support thereto as the coil itself becomes smaller and lighter during the unwinding operation.

The rollers 16 may be manually rotated by means of a cranking means 48 on the outboard ends of one or more of the rollers. By turning the rollers thus a roll of material cradled thereon may be rotated sufficiently to permit attaching a clamping means to its loose end 42 whereby it may be subsequently unrolled by simply drawing thereon as desired.

Payolf from a coil is usually, but not necessarily, from the bottom of the coil over the edge of the highest roller and into a subsequent crimper or other tool. The roll is unwound from its bottom so that the mass of the coil is utilized to hold the coil down in its cradle of rollers 16.

The device is formed to include a slotted holder 44 for a material holding bracket 46 which is positioned above rollers 14 a distance somewhat greater than the width of a material roll being handled. Thus for a 40 inch roll, the bracket 46 might be positioned approximately 42 inches above the rollers 14, while for a 36 inch roll, the bracket 46 might be moved to a position appprolxima'tely 38 inches above the roller bed. The bracket 46 is accordingly movably bolted at 47 or otherwise secured to the slotted holder 44 so that it may be easily moved along the slots 45 to accommodate various sizes of material coils.

When rotated to a position of operation such as shown by FIGURE 3 of the drawing, the apparatus is moved slightly past a horizontal position in order that the roll of metallic strip on the rollers 16 will slide away from the rollers 14 and not be contacted thereby in the un-rolling process. More important is the fact that the bracket 46 establishes an edge of the material as an exact guide edge or reference point for the placing of subsequent crimpers or the like.

In operation, heavy coils of strip material advance on to the plane bed of the slightly inclined rollers 14 until stopped by the cradle or vertical surface provided by rollers 16 in the manner shown by FIGURE 2 of the drawing. Upon actuation of the motor 36, the apparatus is then rotated in the direction of the arrow of FIGURE 2 until the coil is effectively turned on its side and supported in the cradle provided by the rollers 16. The device is preferably rotated approximately 90 from its original position whereby the rolls 16 are slightly displaced from the horizontal sufficiently to cause a roll of strip thereon to lay against the bracket 46 and be thus spaced from the plane of the bed provided by the rollers 14. The coil of material strip is then rotated by a manual cranking means 48 on rollers 16 sutcient to slightly unwind the coil and permit securing a clamping means to its loose end 42. As the material strip of the coil is fed to subsequent crimpers or other processing apparatus, it is unwound from the coil without further handling by the rotation of the rollers 16 which comprise the cradle While this invention has been described with reference to the embodiment illustrated in the drawing, it is evident that various changes may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention. It is accordingly intended that all matter contained in the accompanying drawings or described in the above description shall be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

I claim:

1. Material handling apparatus comprising a base, an L-sha-ped platform means on said base mounted for rotation about a fixed horizontal axis parallel with respect thereto, a plane surfaced roller bed on said platform, means rotating said platform about it s horizontal axis,

coil unrolling means on said'V platform comprising a plurality of elongate rollers disposed about a curved surface normal to said roller bed, each of said elongate rollers having an inboard bearing mounted adjacent the intersection of the legs of said platform whereby a coil of sheet steel placed on said roller bed may be rotated with said platform so as to support the coil on the unrolling means when the platform is rotated about its axis.

2. Apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein the curved surface formed by said elongate rollers is asymmetric with respect to said base to assure support of the material coil thereby when the material is being withdrawn from the coil.

3. Apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein the surface formed by said elongate rollers is curved to define an arcuate cradle for the support of said material coil.

4. Apparatus as defined in claim 1 including means for rotating the elongate rollers to in turn rotate the coil of material supported thereon.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,967,683 7/1934 Ostrander 214-1 2,417,553 3/1947 Jensen 214--340 X 2,767,933 10/1956 Spears 214--130 X GERALD M. FORLENZA, Primary Examiner F. E. WERNER, Assistant Examiner

Images