Web carrying apparatus

Abstract: A web roll carrying apparatus to enable easy and safe handling of a web roll (28). On a carrying truck (1) is mounted a web roll receiver (2) which faces the peripheral surface of the web roll (28) and which is vertically movable and rotatable around a bearing (3) through a parallelogrammatic link device (5). Further a fluid pressure cylinder (6) is mounted on one side of the parallelogrammatic link device (5), by which the web roll reciever (2) can be tilted between a level position and a vertical position.

Description: The present invention relates to an apparatus for carrying a web roll which is a roll of sheet of synthetic resin film, paper, film laminate paper, etc. wound on a winding shaft. In the conventional manufacture or process (printing, etc.) of sheet such as synthetic resin film, paper, film laminate paper, and so forth, sheet winding by a winding machine, transport of a wound sheet (web roll) to other apparatus, and loading of the web roll to an unwinding machine are repetitively performed. All these operations are manually carried out. The web roll is in most cases handled with the winding shaft set horizontally on the winding machine or on the unwinding machine, and is carried on a pallet with the winding shaft vertically erected during transport, because the web roll which is heavy is liable to such trouble as sheet deformation (compression) or damage of the surface thereof in contact with the pallet when located on the pallet with the winding shaft set horizontally. According to conventional practices, web roll handling is carried out manually as described above. The web roll, being very heavy, requires hard work in handling, which can be hazardous. Attention is also drawn to FR-A-2685911, which discloses a web roll carrying apparatus, comprising: a web roll receiver which faces the peripheral surface of the web roll to be carried, which is mounted on a carrying truck and which is movable vertically and rotatively; and a tilting mechanism for tilting said web roll between a level position and a vertical position. In view of the above-described disadvantage, it is an object of the present invention to provide a web roll carrying apparatus which enables easy and safe handling of a web roll. The present invention provides a web roll carrying apparatus, comprising: a web roll receiver which faces the peripheral surface of the web roll to be carried, which is mounted on a carrying truck and which is movable vertically and rotatively, and a tilting mechanism for tilting said web roll between a level position and a vertical position; characterized in that said tilting mechanism is a parallelogrammatic link device having a first fluid pressure cylinder on one side and is constituted by connecting said carrying truck to said web roll receiver, and in that a second fluid pressure cylinder for lifting said web roll receiver is mounted between one side of said parallelogrammatic link device and said carrying truck. The web roll receiver is suitably extendible to correspond to the width of the web roll. Preferably a pair of rotating shafts is provided parallely, and a receiving plate is fixedly installed on the end portion of the said rotating shafts facing the end face of the web roll, so that the web roll can be set in a vertical position. Furthermore, a contact sensor may be mounted within the plane facing the peripheral surface of the web roll on the web roll receiver. Using the web roll carrying apparatus of the present invention enables the receiving of a web roll on the web roll receiver, the upward and downward (vertical) movement of the web roll in a level state by and through the web roll receiver, and the changing of a supporting position between the level position and the vertical position. It is also possible to carry the web roll on a carrying truck to a desired place. As explained above, the web roll carrying apparatus comprises the web roll receiver which can move vertically and rotate and the tilting mechanism for changing the supporting position of the web roll receiver between the level position and the vertical position, so that a heavy web roll may be handled easily and safely by the web roll carrying apparatus of the present invention. The invention will be further described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 is a plan view of an embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 2 is a front view of Fig. 1; Fig. 3 is a partly cross sectional view of a carrying truck of the present embodiment; Fig. 4 is a front view of an embodiment of the present invention showing the web roll receiver turned and raised; Fig. 5 is a front view of an embodiment of the present invention showing the web roll receiver inclined to the vertical position from the level position of Fig. 4; Fig. 6 is a schematic plan view of the web roll receiver of the present embodiment; and Fig. 7 is a schematic sectional view of the web roll receiver of Fig. 6. A web roll carrying apparatus of the present invention will hereinafter be described in accordance with the preferred embodiment. As shown in Fig. 1, a web roll receiver 2 is mounted on a carrying truck 1 in such a manner that it can turn in a direction of the arrow A through a bearing 3. The bearing 3 is vertically movably supported on the carrying truck 1 through a parallelogrammatic link device 5. The parallelogrammatic link device 5 is composed of a hydraulic cylinder 6 on one side of the parallelogram; brackets 7,8,8 are attached on the carrying truck 1. The base end of the hydraulic cylinder 6 is rotatably connected to the bracket 7, and the forward end of a U-shaped short link 10 connected to a piston shaft 9 of the hydraulic cylinder 6 is rotatably connected to an arm 11 protruding to the side of the bearing 3; and furthermore the base ends of long link pieces 12, 12 are rotatably connected to the brackets 8,8 and the forward ends of the link pieces 12, 12 are also rotatably connected to both sides of the lower part of the bearing 3. A connecting pin 13 is mounted on the intermediate sections of the long link pieces 12, 12. Another hydraulic cylinder 14 is obliquely mounted between the connecting pin 13 and the carrying truck 1. The hydraulic cylinder 14 is used for moving the web roll receiver 2 up and down as indicated by the arrow B (Fig. 2). Fig. 3 shows a part (the frame section) of the carrying truck 1. In Figs. 1, 2 and 3, numeral 15 denotes a wheel and numeral 16 represents a hydraulic unit. The parallelogrammatic link device 5 is for tilting the web roll receiver 2 between the level position as shown in Fig. 4 and the vertical position as shown in Fig. 5. In this case, before the tilting between the level position and the vertical position, the web roll receiver 2 has been turned through 90 degrees from the position shown in Fig. 1 to the position shown in Fig. 4. That is, the total length of the hydraulic cylinder 6 and the short link piece 10 will become equal to the length of the long link piece 12 when the piston shaft 9 of the hydraulic cylinder 6 is in a contracted position, so that the parallelogram relationship may be formed at each link point and the web roll can be moved parallely in a level position any time when the web roll receiver 2 is moved up and down by and through the hydraulic cylinder 14. When the piston shaft 9 of the hydraulic cylinder 6 is extruded, the aforesaid parallelogram relationship is broken, and the web roll receiver 2 turns to the vertical position as indicated by the arrow C (Fig. 4) on the center of the connection part between the long link piece 12 and the bearing 3. The web roll receiver 2, as shown in Fig. 6, is extendible in a longitudinal direction. A box-like sliding body 18 is inserted on the forward end side (on the right side in Fig. 6) of the box-like receiver body 17 with the shaft supported on the bearing 3 mounted on the undersurface. A screw shaft 19 mounted along the longitudinal direction at the center of the receiver body 17 is threadedly engaged with a nut 20 mounted on the sliding body 18, and a receiving member 22 with its upper surface 21 depressed in the form of a valley is mounted on upper side of the receiver body 17 and nearby the forward end side of the receiver body 17. On the base end of the screw shaft 19 is secured a handle 23. When the screw shaft 19 is turned by the handle 23, the sliding body 18 moves in the direction of the arrow D (Fig. 6), thereby extending or contracting the web roll receiver 2. Rotating shafts 24,24 are inserted along both sides of the receiver body 17 and the sliding body 18 which constitute the web roll receiver 2. The rotating shaft 24 is an extensible shaft comprising a rod body and a tubular body which are connected by splines with each other so that the rotating shaft 24 can operate in accordance with the movement of the sliding body 18. On the base end (the handle 23 side) of the rotating shaft 24 is secured a rotating lever 25; and on the forward end of the rotating shaft is secured a receiving plate 26. A contact sensor 27 is mounted on the upper surface 21 of the receiving member 22. The contact sensor 27 includes a pressure switch, etc. which faces the peripheral surface of the web roll, and it is mounted on the surface 21 in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction as shown in Fig. 7. The operation of the present embodiment will hereinafter be explained. First, the carrying apparatus in the state shown in Fig. 1 is moved downwards of a web roll 28 on a winding machine, where the web roll receiver 2 faces the web roll 28. Next, the web roll receiver 2 is raised by and through the hydraulic cylinder 14. An output signal of the contact sensor 27 is fed to the driving circuit of the hydraulic cylinder 14 so that the upward movement of the web roll receiver 2 will stop when the upper surface 21 of the receiving member 22 of the web roll receiver 2 contacts the peripheral surface of the web roll 28, thus ensuring safe operation. The upper surface 21 of the receiving member 22 of the web roll receiver 2 is depressed into the form of a valley and the web roll receiver 2 is rotatable as indicated by the arrow A (Fig. 1), thereby automatically maintaining the web roll 28 in parallel to the web roll receiver 2. Subsequently, with the web roll 28 loaded on the web roll receiver 2, a winding shaft 29 of the winding machine is released from the web roll 28, and then the web roll 28 is carried to a desired place, for example to the side of a carrying pallet, by moving the carrying apparatus. After the carrying apparatus is moved to the other place, the web roll receiver 2 is turned through 90 degrees in the direction of the arrow A (Fig. 1) to the position as shown in Fig. 4. Then the handle 23 is turned to adjust the length of the web roll receiver 2 to the width of the web roll 28, and also the turning lever 25 is operated to move the receiving plate 26 into contact with the end face of the web roll 28. Next, the piston shaft 9 of the hydraulic cylinder 6 is extended to tilt the web roll 28 from the level position shown in Fig. 4 to the vertical position shown in Fig. 5 and then is supported by the receiving plate 26. The lower end face (the face supported by the receiving plate 26) of the web roll 28 in the vertical position is nearly as high as the upper surface of the carrying pallet, so that the web roll 28 may be unloaded onto the pallet by turning the receiving plate 26 outward of the web roll 28 by the lever 25. The web roll 28 can be handled without impairing the web roll sheet by unloading the web roll 28 onto the pallet as described above and carrying the web roll 28 on the pallet. Furthermore, even in the case of a loosely wound web roll, a multi-layered sheet portion can be prevented from telescoping. The web roll vertically supported on the pallet can be loaded onto the unwinding machine by reversing the procedure described above. It is also possible to carry the web roll without using the pallet; the web roll 28 as loaded on the web roll receiver 2 can be carried on the carrying truck 1 to a desired place such as an unwinding machine.

Claims: A web roll carrying apparatus, comprising: a web roll receiver (2) which faces the peripheral surface of the web roll (28) to be carried, which is mounted on a carrying truck (1) and which is movable vertically and rotatively, and a tilting mechanism for tilting said web roll between a level position and a vertical position; characterized in that said tilting mechanism is a parallelogrammatic link device (5) having a first fluid pressure cylinder (6) on one side and is constituted by connecting said carrying truck (1) to said web roll receiver (2), and in that a second fluid pressure cylinder (14) for lifting said web roll receiver (2) is mounted between one side of said parallelogrammatic link device (5) and said carrying truck (1). A web roll carrying apparatus as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that said web roll receiver (2) is extendible in a longitudinal direction. A web roll carrying apparatus as claimed in claim 1 or 2, characterized in that said web roll receiver (2) has a pair of parallel rotating shafts (24), and a receiving plate (26) mounted on the end portion of said rotating shafts and facing the end face of said web roll (28). A web roll carrying apparatus as claimed in any of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that said web roll receiver (2) has a contact sensor (27) within a plane facing the peripheral surface of said web roll (28).

Inventors: NAKAJIMA KIYOJI, NAKAJIMA, KIYOJI
Applicants: HIMECS CORP
Application year: 1995
Main classification: B65H19
IPC codes: B62B3, B65H19, B66C23