Heat Treatment Installation with Rotating Chamber Array
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current heat treatment installations for industrial products face challenges in efficiently transferring products between chambers with different thermal characteristics, leading to handling difficulties, defects, and inefficiencies in temperature control, which disrupt the sequencing of treatment operations, increase energy waste, and reduce productivity.
Innovation Solution
A heat treatment installation with stationary support and multiple chambers distributed around an axis, utilizing a motorized pivot and hydraulic cylinder for relative movement between the base and chambers, allowing for sequential treatment without manual intervention, optimizing the spatial organization and automation of the process.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If products are transferred between multiple fixed treatment chambers, then different thermal characteristics can be applied to products, but handling operations increase complexity and disrupt automation
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies the dynamics principle by making the chamber configuration changeable through mechanical movement. Instead of fixed chambers requiring manual product transfer, the chambers are mounted on a movable platform that can reposition itself. The platform can rotate to bring different chambers into position over the product, allowing the system to adapt between different thermal treatment configurations without manual intervention.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges multiple treatment chambers onto a single movable platform that shares common support structures and positioning mechanisms. This consolidation reduces the number of separate handling operations needed between chambers, as the entire chamber assembly can be repositioned as one unit rather than requiring individual product transfers between isolated chambers.
2Adaptability or versatility
If products are manually handled between chambers, then spatial organization can be adapted to chamber volume, but product defects increase and productivity decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The movable platform performs self-service by automatically repositioning itself to bring different chambers into the working position. The platform incorporates its own driving mechanisms and positioning systems, eliminating the need for external manual handling operations. This automation maintains consistent spatial organization of products while enabling rapid sequencing of treatment operations.
3Reliability
If fixed chambers are used for different treatments, then treatment specificity is maintained, but energy is wasted during temperature changes between phases
Solution Approach 1:
The dynamic repositioning of chambers allows the system to maintain treatment specificity while reducing energy loss. When the platform moves between chambers, the chambers themselves remain thermally stable because they are isolated during movement. This eliminates the need to cool or heat chambers between treatments, as the same chamber can be reused for consecutive treatment phases without manual intervention.
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
This solution minimizes product handling, ensures rapid and controlled temperature changes, reduces the risk of degradation, and achieves significant energy savings by automating the movement of chambers, thereby enhancing the quality and productivity of the heat treatment process.
Implementation Method 1
a hydraulic cylinder for causing the relative movement of the base and of the set of chambers
Implementation Method 2
a motorized pivot for causing the set of chambers to pivot about the axis
Data Source
AI summary
A heat treatment installation is provided for production of industrial products. The heat treatment installation has several chambers with different thermal characteristics, including: a base (18) to accept the products (22) that are to be treated, a set of several chambers (3,4; 28,29,30) distributed about an axis (7), and mechanical means (6,10) to provide the relative movement of the base (18) and of the chambers (3,4; 28,29,30) and the coupling between a chamber and the base.