CUTTER-MIXER-FEEDER WAGON FOR FODDER AND GRASS OR STRAW SILAGE, PROVIDED WITH PROFILED PLATE TO CONVEY THE MATERIAL TO BE PROCESSED

Abstract: The invention is a cutter-mixer-feeder wagon for fodder and grass or straw silage, comprising at least one rotary screw feeder (7), housed inside a compartment (75) with curved section obtained on the bottom (76) of the container (2) itself and provided with at least one pair of spirals (9, 10), on which peripheral cutters (13) are fixed, one of said spirals being wound clockwise (10) and the other anticlockwise (9), starting from the ends of the screw feeder and such as to convey the processed material towards the area where said right and left spirals converge. Said wagon is provided with profiled plates (30, 31, 32) that convey the material to be processed into the wagon and are positioned on each longitudinal wall (25, 26) of the wagon itself, near the compartments in which the screw feeders (7) are housed, and shaped in such a way as to reduce the space between the screw feeder and the longitudinal wall of the wagon, said conveying plate closing the space between the screw feeder (7) and the side wall of the wagon, so as to convey the material along the longitudinal axis of the screw feeder, towards the unloading door for the processed material.

Description: CUTTER-MIXER-FEEDER WAGON FOR FODDER AND GRASS OR STRAW SILAGE, PROVIDED WITH PROFILED PLATE TO CONVEY THE MATERIAL TO BE PROCESSED The invention is a profiled plate to be used to convey the cut material, cooperating with the screw feeders provided in wagons particularly suitable for cutting and mixing long-fibre products, like fodder or grass or straw silage, made up in bales or in their natural state The wagons of the known kind are generally made up of a container inside which there are one or more rotary screw feeders that are positioned in the lower part of the container, but can also be positioned in its upper part Said wagons of the known kind are particularly suitable for cutting and mixing short-fibre products and have great difficulty cutting long-fibre products such as fodder or grass or straw silage, especially if the quantities involved are considerable In fact, during the cutting and mixing of long-fibre products the screw feeders tend to clog up, since the material gets entangled around them and hinders or even stops their rotation It is clear that in such conditions the screw feeders absorb much more power than in the optimal cutting conditions, that is, when they are not clogged up It is in order to eliminate the drawbacks described above that the the perfected cutter-mixer-feeder wagon object of the Italian patent application N VI91A/108 has been carried out, said invention is provided with two rotary screw feeders with opposing spirals, positioned on the bottom of the wagon, and in the area where said spirals converge each of them is equipped with a diaphgram that is orthogonal to the longitudinal axis of the screw feeder itself and consists of two truncated cone-shaped surfaces united in correspondence with their greater base and converging towards the ends of each screw feeder The Italian patent application N VI93A/028 presented by the same inventor concerns a screw feeder with opposing spirals that converge on a discoidal element, half of which is formed by a right semispiral and the other half of which by a left semispiral Each semispiral is provided with a discharge opening to facilitate the unloading of the material The screw feeders carried out according to the patent applications described above considerably improve the cutting and mixing of the product, but they are not the best solution to avoid the clogging of the product to be processed inside the wagon, yet Further, they do not ensure a sufficiently regular cutting of the product with constant power absorption It is to further improve the performance level in cutting, mixing and feeding the product that the wagon provided with screw feeders with perfected profile has been implemented, the main aim of this invention is to facilitate the movement of the product that is being cut inside the wagon, in such a way as to quicken the transport of the material through the screw feeders and to obtain an effective mixing, which would result in the production of an homogeneous material as regards both quality and size A further goal is to improve the cutting of the product and to unload the product after it has been processed without leaving any residue inside the wagon Another aim is to accomplish a homogeneous rotation of the screw feeders with reduced absorption of power in comparison with the screw feeders mounted on wagons having the same capacity The aims described above have been achieved through the implementation of a cutter-mixer-feeder wagon for fodder and grass or straw silage, which, according to the main claim, comprises - a container provided with at least one opening for the introduction of the material to be processed and with at least one door for the unloading of the processed material, - at least one rotary screw feeder, positioned inside a compartment with curved section obtained on the bottom of the container itself, provided with at least one pair of spirals on which peripheral cutters are fixed, one of said spirals being wound clockwise and the other anticlockwise, starting from the ends of the screw feeder and such as to convey the processed material near the unloading door of the wagon, said wagon is characterized in that it is provided with a profiled conveying plate positioned on each longitudinal wall of the wagon and near the screw feeder compartments, shaped in such a way as to reduce the space between the screw feeder and the longitudinal wall of the wagon To advantage, according to the invention the profiled plate is positioned, as already explained, near the screw feeder compartments, thus reducing the space between the screw feeder and the wall of the wagon and therefore forcing the material to be processed to move quickly, according to the thrust of the screw feeder, from the side wall of the wagon towards the screw feeder and the centre of the wagon itself or, more precisely, towards the confluence point of the right and left spirals of each screw feeder According to a favourite application of the invention in question, the profiled plate is applied to the wagon frame and can be fixed or removable According to other applications, the profiled plate can be shaped directly on the wagon body As regards the favourite application of the invention, the wagon, beside being provided with the profiled plate described above, is carried out so that each one of said spirals belonging to each screw feeder is provided, on its end facing the other spiral, with two or more discharge openings obtained on its profile, each one of said discharge openings being carried out by removing a portion of the spiral and being formed by a radial segment and by aπ arc-shaped part substantially orthogonal to each other, while said right and left spirals are interrupted at about 180° from each other and are substantially aligned on an ideal axis that intersects the longitudinal axis of each screw feeder According to the favourite application that is going to be described, in order to optimize the performance of the screw feeder object of the invention, each screw feeder interacts with two groups of counterblades positioned along the central line that separates the two compartments in which the screw feeders are housed Each group of counterblades is spaced both in correspondence with the part facing the vertical walls of the wagon and with the central part toward the unloading door, where there are the discharge openings obtained on the profile of the screw feeders In this way, the pressure of the material against the vertical walls of the wagon decreases, and therefore the power necessary to make the screw feeders rotate decreases, too Further, in the central part of the screw feeder and in correspondence with the unloading door, where there are also the discharge openings obtained on the screw feeder profile, the material can move freely upwards and mix in the best way, without being constrained on a fixed course by the rotary screw feeder, since said area of the screw feeder itself is not provided with counterblades To advantage, the two screw feeders optimize the cutting of the material with the counterblades, if the pitches of the coils are aligned so that counterblades and cutters work on one and the other side of each screw feeder at the same time, on a cutting plane that can be considered substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the machine In this case, in fact, the thrust of the blade of a screw feeder against the counterblade while it is cutting the material tends to move the counterblade itself away, thus limiting the effectiveness of said counterblade In the case of aligned pitches the same thrust, with opposite direction, is exerted on the same area of the counterblade by the cutter of the adjacent screw feeder and therefore said thrusts annul each other, thus ensuring, as already explained, the maximum cutting performance Further characteristics and details of the invention will be better highlighted in the description of a practical application among many of the wagon, illustrated in the attached drawings, wherein - Fig 1 shows the inside of the wagon provided with the screw feeders with profiled plate object of the invention, - Fig 2 is a section of the wagon represented in Fig 1 , - Fig 3 is an axonometπc view of the inside of a wagon with the screw feeders provided with the profiled plate object of the invention, - Fig 4 is a view of a screw feeder provided with the profiled plate object of the invention, - Fig 5 is an axonometπc view of the inside of the wagon provided with the screw feeders, wherein the central counterblades have a particular shape, - Fig 6 is a side view of the distribution of the groups of counterblades represented in Fig 3 With reference to the mentioned drawings, the wagon provided with the screw feeders with profiled plate object of the invention is indicated as a whole by 1 , and comprises a container 2, mounted on wheels 4, which in its upper part is provided with a loading door 3 for the material to be processed The container 2 is preferably made of sheet and in correspondence with its bottom 5 it is provided with a pair of screw feeders 7, each one of which, as shown in Fig 4, is formed by a central tubular core 8 on which two opposing spirals 9 and 10, one right and one left, are wound Each screw feeder is housed inside a compartment 75 with curved section, obtained on the bottom 76 of the container 2 The spiral 9 is wound anticlockwise, while the spiral 10 is wound clockwise, so that, starting from the two ends of the central core 8, they converge on the part of the screw feeder facing the unloading door Further, the edge of said spirals 9 and 10 is provided with a plurality of cutters 13 that are fixed protruding from the edge itself In each screw feeder 7, as shown in Fig 4, the area where the two left and right spirals 9 and 10 converge corresponds to the unloading area The left and right spirals, 9 and 10 respectively, are interrupted at about 180° from each other, until they touch an ideal plane that intersects the longitudinal axis of the screw feeders in a substantially perpendicular way The left spiral 9, in correspondence with its last coil, is provided with three discharge openings obtained on its profile and indicated by 91 , 92 and 93, respectively Analogously, always in correspondence with the last coil, the right spiral 10 is provided with three discharge openings obtained on its profile and indicated by 101 , 102 and 103, respectively On each of the two right and left spirals the three discharge openings are spaced at 120° from one another Each discharge opening is formed by a radial segment and by an arc-shaped part that intersect in a substantially orthogonal direction Fig 4 shows that, in correspondence with the area where the spirals 9 and 10 converge, driving blades 50 are provided, in order to facilitate the movement of the product towards the upper part of the wagon, in the direction indicated by the arrow 73 in Fig 6 Further, said blades also improve the unloading of the processed material through the unloading door 100 According to a favourite embodiment of the wagon provided with the profiled plates object of the invention, as shown in Fig 5 and 6, the two groups of counterblades 20 and 21 are positioned inside the wagon, along the line 35 that separates the compartments in which the screw feeders are housed Each group of counterblades is spaced from the vertical walls of the wagon 1 , 23 and 24, respectively Further, said counterblades 20 and 21 stop near the discharge openings provided on the profile of the screw feeders Obviously, where the counterblades are not provided, the part of the screw feeder provided with discharge openings does not interact with said counterblades In this way, the material to be cut and mixed that previously moved among the screw feeder coils converging according to the direction indicated by the arrows 71 and 72 in Fig 6 in this case can move without being constrained Fig 6 also shows that, owing to the presence of the discharge openings on the last coil of each spiral belonging to the screw feeder and to the absence of the counterblades, the material is naturally pushed upwards, in the direction indicated by the arrows 73 The material then falls down in correspondence with the walls 23 and 24 of the wagon, according to the direction 230, 240, indicated in Fig 6 The effective cutting of the material is obtained through the rotation of the screw feeders 7 in opposite directions, as indicated by the arrows 80 and 81 in Fig 2, combined with the fact that the pitches of the screw feeder coils are the same, with aligned profiles, so that the counterblades and the cutters 13 of the screw feeders interact on a plane that is substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the wagon The rotation of the screw feeders 7 is such as to convey the material to be processed in correspondence of the longitudinal axis the wagon According to the invention, the effective cutting and mixing process inside the wagon provided with the screw feeders object of the invention can be obtained by equipping the wagon with groups of counterblades interrupted, as already explained, in correspondence with the unloading area and in correspondence with the vertical walls of the wagon, and by providing the inside of the wagon with profiled conveying plates, as shown in Fig 1 and 2 More precisely, said figures show that the inside container 2 of the wagon, in correspondence with its longitudinal walls and near the compartments where the screw feeders are housed, is provided with profiled conveying plates that are naturally divided on the unloading door side 100 and are indicated by 30 and 31 , while on the other side there is a single, continuous profiled conveying plate 32 As it can be better observed in Fig 2, the profiled conveying plates, which in the case of Fig 2 have convex profile with the convex side facing the screw feeders, close the space between each screw feeder 7 and the side walls of the wagon 25 and 26, respectively, so that the material to be processed is forcedly conveyed along the course indicated by the arrows 71 and 72 in Fig. 6. Beside the forced conveyance of the material in the direction indicated by the arrows 71 and 72, it has also been possible to observe a quickening of the transfer of material, so that all the cutting and mixing process inside the wagon is improved as regards both quickness and quality.

Claims: CLAIMS 1 ) Cutter-mixer-feeder wagon for fodder and grass or straw silage, comprising - a container (2) provided with at least one opening (3) for the introduction of the material to be processed and with at least one door (100) for the unloading of the processed material, - at least one rotary screw feeder (7), housed inside a compartment (75) with curved section obtained on the bottom (76) of the container (2) itself, each one provided with at least one pair of spirals (9, 10), on which peripheral cutters (13) are fixed, one of said spirals being wound clockwise (10) and the other anticlockwise (9), starting from the ends of the screw feeder and such as to convey the processed material towards the area where said right and left spirals converge, said wagon is characterized in that it is provided with profiled plates (30, 31 , 32) that convey the material to be processed inside the wagon, positioned on each longitudinal wall (25, 26) of the wagon, near the compartments in which the screw feeder (7) are housed, and shaped in such a way as to reduce the space between the screw feeder and the longitudinal wall of the wagon, said conveying plate closing the space between the screw feeder (7) and the side wall of the wagon, in such a way as to convey the material along the longitudinal axis of the screw feeders, towards the unloading door of the processed material 2) Wagon according to claim 1 ), characterized in that said profiled plates (30 ,31 , 32) are obtained by directly shaping the body of the wagon 3) Wagon according to claim 1 ) or 2), characterized in that the shape of the profiled plate is partially convex, with the convex side facing the screw feeder 4) Wagon according to any of the previous claims, characterized in that each of said spirals (9, 10) is provided, on its end facing the other spiral, with two or more discharge openings (91 , 92, 93, 101 , 102, 103) obtained on its profile, each one of said discharge openings being carried out by removing a portion of the spiral and being formed by a substantially radial segment and by an arc-shaped part that are substantially orthogonal to each other, while said right and left spirals are interrupted at about 180° from each other until they touch an ideal plane that intersects the longitudinal axis of the screw feeders. 5) Wagon according to claim 1 ), characterized in that the discharge openings (91 , 92, 93; 101 , 102, 103) provided on each spiral (9, 10) of the screw feeder are obtained on the last coil of each spiral and develop on an angle having a maximum amplitude of 360°. 6) Wagon according to claim 1 ) or 2), characterized in that the end of each spiral facing the other spiral is provided with at least one driving blade (50) consisting of a blade fixed to the screw feeder and arranged with longitudinal direction substantially parallel to the screw feeder itself. 7) Wagon according to any of the previous claims, characterized in that it is provided with two groups of counterblades (20, 21 ), each group being positioned along the line (35) that separates the compartments in which the screw feeders are housed and being formed by cutting edges that interact with the cutters (13) of one of the screw feeders on one side and of the other screw feeder on the other side, each group of counterblades being spaced with respect to the vertical walls of the wagon on one side and being interrupted before the beginning of the discharge openings obtained on the profile of the screw feeders on the other side. 8) Wagon according to any of the previous claims, characterized in that said screw feeders (7) rotate in opposite directions (80, 81 ), in such a way as to convey the material to be processed in correspondence with the longitudinal axis of the frame. 9) Wagon according to any of the previous claims, characterized in that the two screw feeders (7) have coils with the same pitch and with aligned profiles, so that the counterblades (20, 21 ) and the cutters (13) of each screw feeder interact on a plane that is substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the wagon.

Inventors: LOPPOLI GIUSEPPE, LOPPOLI, GIUSEPPE
Applicants: LOPPOLI GIUSEPPE, SEKO SPA, LOPPOLI, GIUSEPPE, SEKO S.P.A.
Application year: 1996
Main classification: A01K5
IPC codes: A01F29, A01K5, B01F7, B01F13, B01F15