Patent ID: 7025583

Claim:
A compacting device for compacting a granular material, comprising: a vertically movable base plate; a mold adapted to receive the granular material, the mold being positionable on the base plate; a plurality of baffle bars disposed below the base plate, the baffle bars being stops for downward movement of the base plate; a pressing plate disposed above the base plate, the pressing plate being adapted to subject an upper surface of the granular material in the mold to a permanent pressing force during compaction; an oscillatory mass-spring system including: a vibrating table disposed below the base plate, said vibrating table having a mass substantially defining a predominant mass of the mass-spring system, said vibrating table being excitable to produce vertical oscillating movement having a compaction frequency range, whereby said vibrating table impacts the base plate from below, and a system spring having a spring constant, the system spring being set hard at least for the downwardly directed movement of the vibratory table, the system spring storing and delivering a kinetic energy of the mass-spring system wherein at least one natural frequency of the mass-spring system is adjustable by a corresponding combination of system mass and spring constant of the system spring, the at least one natural frequency being in the range of the compaction frequency; an exciter device having at least one exciter actuator, the at least one exciter actuator periodically generating an exciter force having an exciter energy for exciting the vibrating table; and a regulator regulating the oscillating movement by controlling the exciter energy transferred by the exciter device into the mass-spring system independently of the compaction frequency.