Patent GB-1075818-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to continuous transport installations
IPC: B66B9/10
Filed: 1965-04-09
Abstract: 1,075,818. Transport systems. G. BOULADON, and P. ZUPPIGER. April 9, 1965 [April 9, 1964], No. 15130/65. Headings B7J and B7L. A continuous transport installation comprises at least one loading and unloading station, e.g. 1, 2, Fig. 10, and transport apparatus serving the station, the apparatus including a succession of transport units each having a main wall 10, Fig. 13, a ceiling 13, Fig. 12, and a platform 11, and guide and drive means, similar to those described in Specification 1,034,969, imposing to the units a continuous movement along a closed loop circuit, e.g. Figs. 1 or 2 (not shown), and causing the units successively to pass through the station, the latter including a boarding stage 1, Fig. 10, and a landing stage 2 laterally spaced from the stage 1 and the guide and drive means (including, inter alia, guides 20, 21 and cam rails 22, 23, Fig. 13, and drive wheels 30, 31 driven by a motor 33) being adapted to bring the units in close and aligned formation towards one end of the landing stage 2, to cause the platforms 11 to disappear successively under the landing stage 2, to move the units through a semicircle to return the units in a substantially opposite direction, and cause their platforms 11 to reappear successively from under the boarding stage 1, Figs. 12 and 13 in alignment with that stage from which they move away in close and aligned formation. Each transport unit, Figs. 14 and 19 (not shown) comprises the main wall (10) which has vertical grooves receiving vertical bars (12a), (12b) rigid with one end of the platform 11 and vertical bars (14a), (14b) rigid with one end of the ceiling (13). The platform (11) and ceiling (13) at their ends opposite the wall (10) have upwardly and downwardly extending wall portions (15) and (16) respectively each half of the depth of the main wall (10). The latter has an upper vertical roller (17), engaging the rail 20 which passes in a semicircle from the landing stage to the boarding stage, and a lower horizontal roller (18), Fig. 11 (not shown) engaging in the rail (21) which also passes in a semicircle from the landing stage to the boarding stage. As each unit arrives at the landing stage, the platform is moved vertically downwardly, by a roller 25 thereon engaging the cam rail 23, then through a semicircle and finally vertically again through the agency of an upward portion of the rail 23. Similarly a roller 24 on the ceiling 13 engages a cam rail 22 to raise the ceiling and then lower it again at the boarding station. Thus as each unit passes from the loading stage to the boarding stage the wall portions 15, 16 are moved vertically apart as shown in Fig. 13 to open the unit to facilitate free access of passengers from the landing stage or to the boarding stage and. thereafter are moved towards each other at the end of the boarding stage to close the unit. The normally open ends of the rectangular units may be closed by doors each comprising two panels one slidable in the other and opened and closed and controlled during the movement of the unit around the semicircular path by fingers on the panels engaging upper and lower pairs of cam rails (43), (45), as described with reference to Fig. 11 (not shown). Moreover the units are locked in their closed positions by means operated by nut and screw mechanisms on the platform bottoms of which the screw has a pinion engageable by either one of two fixed racks as described with reference to Figs. 19 to 21 (not shown). The doors, if provided, are lockable by means of a hook, on the end of a pivotable lever, on the ceiling 13, the hook engaging a hole in the top of a door panel and the lever being operable by engaging a cam rail carried by an upper cam rail 43, all as described with reference to Figs. 19 and 22 (not shown). The transport units are raised up or lowered down the vertical sections of the circuit by chain conveyers for accelerating or decelerating the units in a manner similar to that described in Specification 1,020,529 and with reference to Figs. 17 and 18 (not shown). Various circuits are described with reference to Figs. 3 to 9 (not shown) and in all cases the transport units are moved slowly at the landing and boarding stages, are accelerated or decelerated at curved and inclined portions and moved at high speed along horizontal or vertical portions (Fig. 1). In the cases of the embodiments of Figs. 4 to 6 (not shown), where several pairs of boarding and landing stages are provided at each station and thus there is more than one closed loop circuit, parts of the main horizontal sections of the circuits are common to one another. The units may be coupled together in the manner described or envisaged in Specification 1,034,968. The unit wall opposed to the main wall 10 may be constructed and operable in the manner described with reference to Figs. 23 to 28 (not shown).