Transport- and drying device for individually transported articles and method for drying individually transported articles |
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申请号 | US12931887 | 申请日 | 2011-02-14 | 公开(公告)号 | US08793901B2 | 公开(公告)日 | 2014-08-05 |
申请人 | Wolfgang Hahn; | 发明人 | Wolfgang Hahn; | ||||
摘要 | A transport- and drying line for individual articles, a grouped plurality of articles and/or a plurality of articles transported in a row and/or side by side, the articles at least partially showing humidity and/or liquid drops on their outer surface. The articles are each standing on a link conveyor in an airflow of drying air. A support plane is at least partially permeable for the drying air flow and flow conducting surfaces are arranged at the lower surface of the support plane for the drainage of the humid drying air carrying the liquid removed from the articles to be dried. A method for transporting and drying of individual articles, a grouped plurality of articles and/or a plurality of articles transported in a row and/or side by side whereby the articles at least partially show humidity and/or liquid drops on their outer surface. | ||||||
权利要求 | What is claimed is: |
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说明书全文 | This claims the benefit of German Patent Application DE 10 2010 000 548.7, filed Feb. 25, 2010 and hereby incorporated by reference herein The present invention relates a transport- and drying device for individually transported articles. The invention furthermore relates to a method for drying individually transported articles. After bottles or other liquid containers are filled with the respective liquid or beverage the containers are usually closed and further processed and handled. One of these subsequent handling stations can comprise a labeling device. The labeling device applies at least one label onto the outer surface area of each container, whereby the label is preferably stuck to the container. Humidity or liquid drops on the outer surface area of the container interfere with the sticking of the labels because they impair the adhesive properties of the sticking label or the glue used. Furthermore liquid drops beneath the label lead to permanent optical impairments, especially as the enclosed liquid volume can usually not be removed after the label is stuck to the container. Apart from applying labels the bottles or beverage containers can also be imprinted. Optionally the printing can be made directly on already applied labels to complete an existing print. Alternatively known direct printing methods can be used to directly print onto the outer surface area of the container. It is comprehensible that humidity hinders and/or interferes with all known printing methods leading to misprints or bad printing results. Therefore dry container surface areas are important to achieve good printing results. To avoid the described disadvantages the outer surface area of the containers or bottles are usually dried before labeling. To achieve the desired drying result in a short distance and time, blowing stations are used, whereby a warm airflow is applied onto the container to be dried. Depending on the temperature, the volume flow and the flow velocity of the air the containers can be dried as required in a very short transport distance. Different embodiments of blowing stations are known. The expert in this technical field also knows several possibilities that use a warm air flow to dry containers. U.S. Pat. No. 2,501,367 A shows a device for drying articles, whereby the articles are moved with the help of a conveyor chain along a flat lying shaft with a screw thread arranged on its outer surface, whereby the shaft is slowly rotating. The shaft has a tread pitch that is tuned to the outer diameter of the articles. This guarantees a suitable division and a regular rotation of the articles during their longitudinal transport, therefore a blow unit located opposite to the shaft ensures a uniform drying of the articles along their whole circumference. Such drying devices normally show very good drying results. But usually they require a lot of space and reduce the possible machine cycle times because they are relatively slow. Therefore they are not suited to be used with filling devices or other processing machinery that have much higher throughput speeds. Other known drying devices show deficiencies by not removing the humidity completely. The typical problems of known drying devices are shown in the representations of It is an object of the present invention to improve the drying effect for containers and bottles meanwhile ensuring a high transport and drying throughput. The present invention provides a transport- and drying device for individual articles, a grouped plurality of articles and/or a plurality of articles transported in a row and/or side by side, whereby the articles show at least partially humidity and/or liquid drops on their outer surface. The articles are each standing close to each other or even touching each other on a pushed or pulled link conveyor in an airflow of drying air coming from the lateral sides and/or from above. The link conveyor forms an almost planar, moving support plane for the articles that is at least partially permeable for the drying air flow, whereby the air together with the entrained humidity is drained downwards through the surface of the link conveyor. Furthermore below the link conveyor or at the lower side of the support plane conducting surfaces are placed to drain the humid air carrying the liquid of the articles to be dried. Such an arrangement ensures that almost the whole air channeled downwards is drained together with the contained humidity without any unwanted turbulences in the area of or in between the containers, especially in the range of the container bottom. According to one preferred embodiment the flow conducting surfaces are part of an enclosure or of a shielding housing for a part of the link conveyor, whereby this part is a part of the link conveyor returning below the support plane for the articles. This so called returning strand of the link conveyor or link chain or the like is at the same time shielded so that it is not exposed to any blown off water or humidity that is carried away by the air flow. Thereby the uptake of dripping water or water thrown upwards and/or residual moisture onto the conveying chain and the transmission to the transported containers can be avoided very efficiently. Preferably the link conveyor is arranged and guided in a way that it is spaced apart from the flow conducting surfaces or enclosure in a defined distance. The blown off air enriched with moisture can in this way flow through the mashes and gaps of the link conveyor and is then drained by the flow conducting surfaces in a suitable manner. The guidance in the required distance can for example be guaranteed by the use of suitable distance elements that are supported on the upper side of the enclosure or on the flow conducting surfaces. The distance elements can for instance be formed by suitable sliding rails, rail systems, guiding elements or the like that allow a sliding of the conveying chain with almost no frictional resistance. According to another embodiment of the invention the enclosure shows a roof shaped upper side, whereby the surfaces inclining downwards function as flow conducting surfaces and as support surfaces for the distance elements carrying the link conveyor as well. The roof shaped upper side of the enclosure preferably comprises at least one guide rail supported by the distance elements. Basically the roof shaped upper side of the enclosure can be sloped or inclined so that drainage of the air essentially occurs at the sloping side. Another symmetric embodiment shows a ridge or bend in the middle and flow conducting surfaces laterally sloping downwards thereby ensuring an almost regular distribution of the air flow to both sides of the conveyor chain. The support of the conveying chain on the inclining, curved and/or inclining flow conducting surfaces can be made by suitable distance elements, optionally with suitable sliding rails that form a support for the enclosure and at the same time ensure the necessary permeability for the airflow that is conducted downwards. The sliding rails are straight or meandering in longitudinal direction, whereby the sliding rails can optionally be interrupted at multiple and/or regular distances in transverse direction thereby not hindering the drainage of the humidity or the downwards flow of the air. The at least one sliding rail carries the conveying chain and at the same time forms the distance elements or is part of the distance elements. The invention furthermore comprises a method for transporting and drying of individual articles, a grouped plurality of articles and/or a plurality of articles transported in a row and/or side by side whereby the articles show at least partially humidity and/or liquid drops on their outer surface. The articles are each standing close to each other or even touching each other on a pushed or pulled link conveyor in an airflow of drying air coming from the lateral sides and/or from above. The link conveyor forms an almost planar, moving support plane for the articles that is at least partially permeable for the drying air flow, whereby the air together with the entrained humidity is drained downwards through the surface of the link conveyor. One embodiment of the method includes that the humid air carrying the liquid from the articles to be dried is specifically drained below the link conveyor by a roof shaped enclosure functioning as flow conducting surfaces for the returning strand of the link conveyor. Further features and advantages of the present invention shall now be described in greater detail according to the accompanying figures in the following detailed description. The dimensions of the individual elements to each other do not always correspond with the real dimensions since some forms are shown simplified and other forms are shown enlarged with respect to other elements for the sake of clarity. The schematic representation of The conveying chain 14 forming the link conveyor forms an almost planar, moving support plane for the bottles 12 standing on the upper side of the link conveyor. The bottles 12 get thereby blown with dry air 18 coming from the sides or from above. According to the invention the conveying chain 14 is at least partially permeable for the dry air 18; therefore the removed humidity is drained down below through the upper side of the link conveyor or conveying chain 14. Flow conducting surfaces 28 for draining the humid drying air 18 carrying the liquid of the bottles 12 to be dried are arranged below the conveying chain 14. As indicated in The distance elements as shown in As shown in the embodiment there is sufficient space between the conveying chain 14 and the flow conducting surfaces 28 as well as the enclosure 30. Therefore as shown by the flow pattern 44 represented in The representations of In this embodiment the conveying chain 14 again shows a sufficient distance to the flow conducting surfaces 28 as well as to the enclosure 30. This ensures the desired flow pattern 44 whereby the humidity is drained almost without any hindrance between the conveying chain 14, between the sliding bars or rails 46 and between the clamping units 48. At the same time the inner space of the enclosure 30 between the surfaces 32 and the vertical lateral sides 42 as well as the lower returning strand 24 of the conveying chain 14 guided within the enclosure 30 are shielded optimally from the flow pattern 44 carrying the drained humidity.
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