Detachable Tray Unloading for Low-Height Load Vehicles
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional dump trucks are unsuitable for constrained spaces due to their high height and require expensive, maintenance-intensive hydraulic systems, making them inefficient for handling heavy and voluminous loads in environments like closed mines.
Innovation Solution
A load carrying vehicle with a tray that has side and end walls, featuring pin members for attachment to a platform with pivotable hooks, allowing for releasable attachment and low-height operation, combined with an unloading apparatus using a rotator and clamp lifting system for efficient unloading in confined spaces.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If conventional dump trucks with high walls and hydraulic systems are used, then they can handle heavy and voluminous loads, but they require high height which makes them unsuitable for constrained spaces
Solution Approach 1:
The vehicle body is divided into a platform and a detachable tray component. The tray can be removed and replaced, allowing the vehicle to operate with a low-profile tray for constrained spaces while maintaining full load capacity when needed. This segmentation enables the vehicle to adapt between high-capacity and low-height operational modes.
Solution Approach 2:
The vehicle employs a dynamic configuration where the tray height can be changed by detaching and reattaching different tray components to the platform. This allows the vehicle to switch between a high wall configuration for maximum load capacity and a low profile configuration for constrained space operation, making the height parameter dynamic rather than fixed.
2Extent of automation
If hydraulic systems are used for pivoting trays, then loading and unloading can be automated, but the systems are expensive and require regular maintenance due to numerous moving parts
Solution Approach 1:
The complex hydraulic pivoting mechanism is completely removed from the vehicle system. Instead, the tray is designed to be manually detached and repositioned, eliminating all hydraulic components, hoses, pumps, and control systems associated with automatic tray pivoting. This extraction of the problematic subsystem resolves the contradiction by sacrificing some automation for dramatically reduced complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The tray is designed as a simple, replaceable component that can be manually positioned and secured without expensive mechanical systems. The focus shifts from maintaining complex hydraulic mechanisms to simply replacing or repositioning the tray, which is a simpler, more durable component with fewer failure points.
3Ease of operation
If upstanding mounts are used for side pivoting trays, then the tray can be tilted to sides for unloading, but the mounts are higher than the tray increasing overall vehicle height
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of using upstanding mounts that extend above the tray to enable tilting, the invention inverts the approach by using the platform's upper surface as the mounting base. The tray is attached directly to this surface and can be tilted forward or backward for unloading, eliminating the need for additional height-providing mounts while maintaining full unloading capability.
Data Source
AI summary
An unloading apparatus for unloading a load contained in a tray of a load carrying vehicle having a transporter adapted to releasably receive the tray, the unloading apparatus comprising a rotator having a support surface for parking of the load carrying vehicle according to the second aspect of the invention, and a plurality of frames arranged in a spaced apart relationship with respect to each other along the support surface, the frames being adapted to secure the tray to the rotator and lifting the tray from the transporter, and means for rotating the rotator about the longitudinal axis of the tray for unloading of the load. There is also provide a load carrying vehicle including a transporter and a tray releasably attached to the transporter as well as a system and method from loading load from a first location into the tray and unloading the load at a second location using the unloading apparatus.