Patent ID: 7422042

Claim:
A log centering apparatus, comprising: a pair of preliminary rotating axles rotatably supported by bearing boxes mounted on a frame of said log centering apparatus and disposed on either end face of a log, said preliminary rotating axles move horizontally by the operation of an actuator mechanism, and at least one of the axles is rotated by operation of a drive source; a rotation angle detector mounted in the drive source, wherein the rotation angle detector detects an angle of rotation of the rotating axles; a plurality of beam reflection scanners mounted on a support frame of said log centering apparatus and disposed at a plurality of positions along a horizontal axis of the log, wherein a detection direction of the beam reflection scanners is oriented toward the axis of the preliminary axles; a plurality of contact-swinging detection members mounted on the support frame of said log centering apparatus and disposed at a plurality of positions along the horizontal axis of the log, each contact-swinging detection member comprising a base portion pivotally supported by a support axle positioned near the periphery of the log supplied to the preliminary axis location, and a tip portion to which a detection element is attached such that the detections elements are arranged along the axis of the log virtually without any gaps therebetween and are adapted to be in contact with the periphery of the log; a plurality of swing angle detectors mounted on the support frame of said log centering apparatus, wherein the swing angle detectors individually detect the amount of swinging of each detection member; and a centering computation mechanism for calculating optimum yield axis suitable for the peeling of the log based on a detection signal supplied from the rotation angle detectors and contour data supplied from the beam reflection scanners, and for calculating a maximum radius of rotation of the log that corresponds to the optimum yield axis based on contour data supplied from the swing angle detectors in addition to the detection signal from the rotation angle detector and the contour data from the beam reflection scanners.