Machine and process for production of three-dimensional stirrups

Abstract

Machines and processes for production of three-dimensional stirrups (1a) with two converging legs (4,5), from rods, wire or other material of any cross-section. A planar stirrup (9) with parallel legs is either produced with the aid of a bending head (19) by making two bending operations, or is furnished in prepared, precut form and is restrained, for example by a grip or jaw (26). Afterwards, utilizing a stirrup-leg adjustment mechanism (25) located immediately following this bending head (19), which mechanism (25) includes an arm (16) that may move in reciprocation with the aid of a suitable mechanism (18) and has a hook (17) at its end, the free leg (5) of the planar stirrup (9) is trapped by the hook (17). This trapped free leg (5) is moved towards the opposite leg (4) as arm (16) reciprocates, covering an appropriate distance. Finally, the third dimension is generated by bending simultaneously at locations (12, 13) with a suitable bending mechanism (22) that is located after the stirrup-leg adjustment mechanism (25).

Description

[0001]This application claims foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 to prior Greek (GR) National Application No. 20060100262 filed on May 4, 2006, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]1. Field of the Invention[0003]The invention refers to a machine and process for production of three-dimensional stirrups 1a from rods, wire, or other material of any cross-section. Such three-dimensional stirrups may, for example, be employed for joining construction elements of reinforced concrete that are either fabricated on-site at construction sites, or are prefabricated.[0004]2. Description of Related Art[0005]With reference to FIGS. 9-10 labeled as prior art, three-dimensional stirrups 1a of the type depicted in FIGS. 9-10 were typically produced according to the following techniques:[0006](a) Manual formation with the aid of hand-operated or semiautomatic tools. In this regard, it may be understood that U.S. Pat. No. 919,206 t...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The present invention provides innovative machines and processes for automated production of three-dimensional stirrups from rods, wires, or other suitable materials. The invention allows for the creation of a planar stirrup with parallel legs, which can then be bent out of the plane to create the final three-dimensional stirrup. This process requires only two bending operations, resulting in shorter production time, reduced cost, and improved quality and precision of the stirrup shape. The invention also provides greater economization of energy during production and allows for easy placement of stirrups in special cases."

Problems solved by technology

The first technique (a) discussed above has a high cost of production since it requires the manual involvement of laborers, it is time-consuming, and productivity is low.

Since the shape of the in-question product does not have absolute precision as to its geometric characteristics this creates difficulties in its placement in the metallic cases.

Here the disadvantage is that the bends in the third dimension must fall precisely on the two opposing locations 12,13 of the planar shape 3a, something which is not feasible with precision, because of the torsions that the material has and the qualitative alterations that are present within the same spool from which it originates.

The result is that the thus-produced product creates difficulty in its further application.

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