Concave cover plates for improving operational performance in a combine harvester
AssigneeThunderstruck Sales & Marketing Ltd
InventorRobert Ruwoldt
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Concave cover plates for a rotary processing system of a combine harvester have strategically placed holes therein design to concentrate grain output from the concave grates of the rotary processing system at a circumferential mid-region of the concave grates to promote even loading of a set of oscillating sieves in an underlying cleaning mechanism of the combine harvester. A set of such plates are installed in a series of progressively increasing openness in the circumferential direction of the concave grates in a rearward direction through the processing system, for more grain-on-grain threshing and more centralized output at a front intake end than at spots further rearward therefrom.
Claims20
A cover device for installation on a concave grate of a combine harvester to alter operating characteristics of said concave grate, said cover device comprising:
- an elongated cover plate having a length dimension arranged to lie in a circumferential directionality of the concave grate when installed thereon, and a lesser width dimension arranged to lie in an axial directionality of the concave grate when installed thereon;
- a set of holes in said elongated cover plate that penetrate therethrough in a thickness dimension the cover plate that is of orthogonal relationship to said length and width dimensions and is lesser than both said length and width dimensions;
- wherein:
- each hole of said set is fully surrounded on all sides thereof by intact solid areas of said cover plate;
- a length of each hole in a direction matching said length dimension of the cover plate exceeds a width of each hole in a direction matching said width dimension of the cover plate;
- on any widthwise reference axis that lies parallel to the width dimension of the cover plate and spans across any one or more holes of said set, said any one or more holes of the set spanned by said widthwise reference axis occupy at least 30% of the width dimension.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.