Unit and method for fragmenting a bagged solid mass

A fragmentation method comprising:

• employing a fragmentation unit comprising:
• a frame (10) including a vertical rear flank (12) and two lateral flanks (13) that are parallel and perpendicular to the rear flank (12), said flanks (12, 13) defining an internal volume in which a region (11) extends for receiving a bag (5) with a parallelepipedal shape with contents of which are to be fragmented, said bag (5) being provided in order to rest on an openwork support (6) installed in said region (11), the region being accessible via an opening (14) formed in a front portion of the frame (10), said region (11), which is parallelepipedal in shape, being open towards a top, being separated from the rear (12) and lateral (13) flanks and being delimited by the ground and by four virtual planar vertical faces, namely a front face (11a), a rear face (11b), both being parallel to the rear flank (12) of the frame, and two lateral faces (11c), said region being divided into a front area (11d) and into a rear area (11e) of equal dimensions by a vertical geometric plane (AA′) parallel to the rear flank (12) of the frame (10),
• a pressing assembly comprising at least two vertical pressure plates (15), which are opposed, parallel to the lateral flanks (13) of the frame and mounted in the internal volume that defines the frame, each plate (15) having a height, a length defined in accordance with a direction perpendicular to the rear flank and extending between a first rear edge (154) and a front edge (151) opposite to said first rear edge, said front edge (151) facing the front opening (14), each pressure plate (15) having a vertical planar pressing face (150) having a second rear edge (150a) opposite to the front edge (151) of the pressure plate and said pressure plates (15) being movably mounted so as to move towards or away from each other and in a manner which is movable in respect of height,
• wherein the second rear edge (150a) of the pressing face (150) of each pressure plate (15) is situated behind a geometric plane (DD′) containing the virtual planar rear face (11b), wherein the front edge (151) of each pressure plate (15) is tangential to a vertical geometric plane (BB′) parallel to the plane (AA′) and dividing the front area (11d) of the region (11) into two sub-areas, namely a rear sub-area comprised between the planes (AA′) and (BB′) and a front sub-area comprised between the plane (BB′) and the virtual front face (11a) of the region (11),
• wherein the fragmentation unit (1) comprises a lifting assembly (2) provided to raise the bag and release the bag from the openwork support (6) on which the bag rests, said lifting assembly comprising a head (20) provided with a rotary spindle (21) to which transport straps (55) of the bag (5) are attached with interposed lanyards (26), said spindle (21) being actuatable in rotation by a motor means, in order to cause the bag (5) to pivot by a quarter of a turn, said transport straps converging towards a center that is towards the spindle (21), and
• wherein the lifting assembly (2) comprising the head (20) provided with the rotary spindle (21) is disposed vertically to a receiving region (11) for the bag, centered with respect to the receiving region, a vertical central geometric axis of said receiving region and a geometric axis of rotation of the spindle (21) coinciding,
• the method further comprising:
• I) placing the pressure plates (15) at the mid-height of the bag and bringing them towards each other until they make contact with the bag (5) and establish a point of origin for displacements of the pressure plates (15) towards each other,
• II) bringing the pressure plates (15) to an upper part of the bag (5) with a view to starting a fragmentation cycle,
• III) starting a fragmentation cycle by pressing the bag (5),
• IV) after the cycle of fragmentation by pressing, lowering the pressure plates (15) towards a bottom by a predefined displacement step,
• V) repeating steps III and IV until a lower area of the bag is reached.