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US 12,583,990 B2Granted
Footwear component manufacturing system
AssigneeNIKE, Inc.
InventorsPaul Irving Archer, Hossein Allen Baghdadi, Jay Constantinou, Gregory Paul Dufour, Sami Mohamad Fakhouri, Floyd Whitney Miles, Joseph Thomas Muth, Bradley C. Tutmark
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system including an injector, a press, and a robotic conveyance is used to form a physically foamed article of footwear component from a single-phase solution of a polymeric composition and a supercritical fluid. The parameters and features of the system are configured for the formation of the footwear component in an automated manner with enhanced throughput by the system.
Claims8
A physical foaming injection molding system for a footwear component, the system comprising:
- a press;
- a temperature conditioning rack, wherein the temperature conditioning rack is adapted to condition a temperature of a mold maintained at the temperature conditioning rack;
- an unloader comprising a frame, an unloader plate comprising a top surface upon which the mold can be removably positioned, and a pair of unloader arms, wherein the unloader arms move in a first direction in agreement and move in a second direction in disagreement;
- and
- a robot comprising an end effector adapted to reversible engage with the mold;
- wherein the robot is positioned relative to the temperature conditioning rack, the press, and the unloader to manipulate the end effector at the temperature conditioning rack, the press, and the unloader to reversible engage with and reposition the mold.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.