Elevating Guide Rails for Aisle Crossing in Carriage Conveyance Systems
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional carriage-type conveyance systems with slopes on crossing aisle floor members require extra labor and compromise safety when navigating handcarts or similar equipment over guide rails, especially at floor surface aisle crossings.
Innovation Solution
A carriage-type conveyance system featuring elevating guide rails and drive devices that lower to a flush level with the floor surface at aisle crossings, allowing safe and effortless movement of handcarts, with a pit formed in the floor and covered by a floor member, and employing cam rails and cam follower rollers for vertical movement and support.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If slopes are formed on both ends of the crossing aisle floor member to eliminate level differences, then the guide rails can be connected across the aisle, but extra labor is required to move handcarts on the crossing aisle and safety is lowered
Solution Approach 1:
The guide rails are made movable between a raised level (connecting the conveyance path) and a lowered level (flush with the floor surface). This dynamic adjustment allows the system to switch between two states: when raised, the rails maintain the conveyance path continuity; when lowered, the rails disappear into the floor, creating a flat crossing aisle for safe and easy handcart movement.
2Ease of manufacture
If slopes are formed on the crossing aisle floor member, then level differences are eliminated, but the construction complexity and labor increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of constructing permanent slopes into the floor, the invention uses a dynamic system where guide rails can be raised or lowered. This eliminates the need for complex slope construction while achieving the same functional result of level difference elimination when the rails are in the lowered position.
Solution Approach 2:
The vertical position parameter of the guide rails is changed between two discrete levels (raised and lowered). This parameter change allows the same physical structure to serve dual purposes: maintaining conveyance path integrity when raised and providing a flat crossing surface when lowered, without requiring complex slope constructions.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables smooth and safe passage of conveyance carriages through aisle crossings without extra labor, ensures the carriage remains on the path, and reduces the depth of the pit required, thereby simplifying construction and enhancing safety.
Implementation Method 1
employing cam rails and cam follower rollers for vertical movement and support
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention makes it easy to employ a floor surface aisle crossing a conveyance path in a conveyance system using a conveyance carriage 1 which travels on guide rails 7a and 7b laid on a floor surface 6 along the conveyance path, wherein at an aisle crossing section 14 in the conveyance path that the aisle on the floor surface crosses, a pit 15 is provided by digging down into the floor surface 6, and inside this pit 15, elevating guide rails 16a and 16b movable vertically parallel between a raised level at which the elevating guide rails connect the guide rails 7a and 7b before and after the pit 15 and a lowered level at which the upper surfaces of the elevating guide rails become flush with the floor surface 6 are disposed, and over the pit 15, a floor member 18 is laid so as to be flush with or substantially flush with the floor surface 8 while leaving elevating apertures for the elevating guide rails 16a and 16b.