Moulded Elevator Bucket Venting Apertures
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Solution Overview
Problem
Elevator buckets in conveyor systems face issues with trapped air and water pooling, leading to reduced material capacity and increased energy costs, particularly when handling wet materials, due to the difficulty in forming elongate apertures in robust materials like steel and aluminum.
Innovation Solution
The design and manufacturing process involves forming elevator buckets with elongate orifices during the moulding process using relief aperture features in the mould, such as pegs, recesses, and ridges, which allow for the creation of vent apertures that inhibit blockage and improve airflow, rather than relying on costly and time-consuming drilling methods.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If elongate apertures are formed by drilling in robust materials like steel and aluminum, then the buckets can vent trapped air, but the manufacturing process becomes costly and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The mold cavity includes pre-formed aperture features that create elongate apertures during the molding process itself, eliminating the need for subsequent drilling operations. This preliminary action integrates the venting feature creation into the primary manufacturing step, resolving the contradiction between achieving reliable venting and maintaining ease of manufacture
Solution Approach 2:
The invention combines the bucket molding process with the aperture formation process into a single operation. The mold cavity and aperture features work together to simultaneously produce the bucket body and the venting apertures, merging two previously separate manufacturing steps into one efficient process
2Ease of manufacture
If standard forms and sizes of buckets are used, then manufacturing is cost-effective, but specific design requirements for particular situations cannot be met
Solution Approach 1:
The mold cavity design allows a single mold to produce buckets with various aperture patterns and configurations by simply changing or repositioning the aperture features. This universal mold design maintains cost-effective manufacturing while enabling design customization for different application requirements
Solution Approach 2:
The aperture features can be selectively positioned and configured in different locations and patterns on the bucket bottom according to specific application needs. This allows local customization of venting characteristics while maintaining the overall standard bucket form and manufacturing process
Data Source
AI summary
Some elevator buckets 1, 11, 21, 31, 41 have aperture orifices 2, 3, 4, 12, 22; 42, 43, 44, 52. Traditionally, these aperture orifices are formed by drilling a solid bucket wall but by provided aperture features 12′, 13′, 52′ in a moulded bucket with some already moulded aperture orifices then some markers or pre-cursors for aperture orifices are provided and provision of elevator buckets is more efficient with aperture orifices.