Height-Offset Conveyor for High-Speed Container Apportioning
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing apparatuses for conveying and apportioning articles, such as containers, face limitations in capacity, often operating at less than 60,000 containers per hour, and struggle with safe apportioning at higher speeds due to limited movement speed of distributor elements.
Innovation Solution
The apparatus features a dual-track conveyor region with a height-offset conveyor portion, where the first conveyor track is arranged higher than the second, allowing undistributed articles to be excited to move to either track, thereby enabling safe apportioning even at high capacities. This design includes a distribution device that apportions articles between the two tracks and a control unit to ensure even distribution.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the conveying speed is increased to handle more articles per hour, then the productivity is improved, but the distributor element cannot keep up with the high speed and some articles cannot be distributed safely
Solution Approach 1:
The conveyor system is divided into multiple independent conveyor tracks (first conveyor track, second conveyor track, third conveyor track) that can operate simultaneously. The distribution device can direct articles to different tracks, and each track functions independently to convey articles to the output. This segmentation allows the system to handle higher capacities by distributing the load across multiple parallel pathways, resolving the contradiction between productivity and reliability at high speeds.
2Productivity
If a single conveyor track is used, then the device complexity is low, but the conveying capacity is limited to around 60,000 articles per hour
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple conveyor tracks are merged into a single integrated system with a common distribution device and shared control mechanism. The first, second, and third conveyor tracks are combined under one distribution device that can direct articles to any of the tracks. This merging approach increases conveying capacity beyond 60,000 articles per hour while keeping the overall device complexity manageable through unified control and coordination of the parallel tracks.
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
The solution enables the apparatus to handle significantly more than 60,000 articles per hour while ensuring safe apportioning, achieving high-performance container handling with enhanced capacity and efficiency.
Implementation Method 1
The height offset allows the undistributed articles to be guided away from their center of gravity and subsequently choose one of the two conveyor tracks, so to speak. The height offset can, for example, cause a slight tilting of the undistributed article towards the second conveyor track
Data Source
AI summary
The invention relates inter alia to an apparatus for conveying and apportioning articles, preferably containers. The apparatus has a single-track conveyor region and a dual-track conveyor region, the latter being arranged directly downstream from the single-track conveyor region and having a first conveyor track and a second conveyor track. The apparatus has a distribution device which is configured to apportion articles, conveyed from the single-track conveyor region, to the first conveyor track and the second conveyor track. The dual-track conveyor region has a height-offset conveyor portion in which the first conveyor track is arranged higher than the second conveyor track. Advantageously, in the height-offset conveyor portion, articles still undistributed can be excited to move to the first conveyor track or the second conveyor track.