Carousel Baskets for Annular Anchoring Structure Management
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing tire production plants face inefficiencies due to the need for wide spaces to store and manage annular anchoring structures for current and future production cycles, leading to increased plant downtime and bulkiness.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus utilizing a battery of carousels with baskets that rotate between a work region and a loading region, allowing simultaneous loading and unloading of annular anchoring structures, reducing plant downtime and space requirements by enabling continuous production without stopping for storage updates.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If wide spaces are used to store and manage annular anchoring structures for current and future production cycles, then storage capacity and flexibility are improved, but plant bulkiness and space requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The storage system is divided into multiple carousels, each carousel contains multiple baskets, and each basket can hold multiple annular anchoring structures. This hierarchical segmentation allows efficient space utilization while maintaining storage capacity for different production cycles.
Solution Approach 2:
The carousels are rotatable, allowing dynamic repositioning of baskets between work region and storage region. This dynamic configuration enables flexible access to anchoring structures for current production while keeping future production structures compactly stored, eliminating the need for wide fixed storage spaces.
2Adaptability or versatility
If large storage areas are allocated for annular anchoring structures, then production flexibility is improved, but plant downtime increases due to space constraints and manual management
Solution Approach 1:
While one basket is being used in the work region, other baskets on the same carousel or on other carousels can be loaded with annular anchoring structures for future production cycles. This continuous operation eliminates idle time and maintains production flexibility without requiring large storage areas.
Solution Approach 2:
Annular anchoring structures for future production cycles are pre-loaded into baskets in the storage region while current production is ongoing. This preliminary action ensures that when current structures are depleted, replacement structures are already ready, preventing plant downtime.
3Productivity
If multiple storage zones and transport devices are used to manage annular anchoring structures, then production continuity is improved, but device complexity and bulkiness increase
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple carousels with multiple baskets each are combined into an integrated battery of carousels system. This merging provides multi-level redundancy and continuity - if one basket is empty, another on the same carousel or on a different carousel can be used - while avoiding the complexity of separate storage zones and multiple transport devices.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
In a process for building tyres for vehicle wheels, each carousel (22a, 22b) of a battery (22) of carousels (22a, 22b) disposed close to each other carries two baskets (35a, 35b) adapted to receive a plurality of annular anchoring structures (6), a building drum (11) is associated with a processing station (14) and such drum is provided for receiving pairs of annular anchoring structures (6) during processing of a tyre being formed. The feeding of the annular anchoring structures (6) at the processing station (14) comprises: loading the annular anchoring structures (6) in baskets (35) disposed in a loading region (45) facing away from the processing station (14); rotating the carousels (22a, 22b) in order to simultaneously bring the loaded baskets (35a, 35b) from the loading region (45) to a work region (44) facing the processing station (14) and in order to bring empty baskets (35a, 35b) from the work region (44) to the loading region (45); picking up, by a handling device (M), the annular anchoring structures (6) from the baskets (35a, 35b) disposed in the work region (44) and releasing them in the processing station (14).