Battery electrode continuous casting shoe, machine and method
AssigneeWirtz Manufacturing Company, Inc.
InventorsRoel Mendoza, Aleksandar Mrdenovic, Michael Romeo, John O. Wirtz
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A shoe for dispensing a molten metal such as lead into a mold cavity of a rotating dmm to continuously cast a web of a plurality of serially connected grids or battery composite electrodes of a carbon fiber material with a cast metal conductor. The shoe may have at least one elongate orifice slot in a face confronting the drum, a molten metal supply passage communicating with the Norifice slot and an excess molten metal return slot opening into the confronting face downstream of the supply slot relative generally to the direction of rotation of the dmm.
Claims26
For a battery grid or electrode continuous casting machine with a rotary drum with a mold cavity therein, a casting shoe comprising:
- a body with a face configured to confront the rotary drum and extending generally axially over at least the axial extent of the mold cavity of the rotary drum;
- at least one orifice slot with an elongate opening into the confronting face of the body;
- at least one longitudinally elongate molten metal supply passage opening into the orifice slot along at least substantially the extent of the elongate opening of the orifice slot into the confronting face and extending upstream of the elongate opening into the confronting face relative to the direction of flow of molten metal through the elongate opening;
- and
- an excess molten metal return passage separate from the supply passage and opening into the confronting face downstream of the elongate opening into the confronting face of the orifice slot relative to the direction of rotation of the rotary drum.
For a battery electrode continuous casting machine with a rotary drum with at least one mold cavity therein for casting a metal strip attached to a strip of carbon fiber material, a casting shoe comprising:
- a shoe body with a face configured to confront the rotary drum and extending generally axially over at least the axial extent of the at least one mold cavity of the rotary drum;
- at least one orifice slot in the body and opening into the confronting face of the body with the opening being elongate generally parallel to an axis of rotation of the rotary drum and the orifice slot configured to supply molten metal into the at least one mold cavity and into engagement with a portion of the strip of carbon fiber material;
- at least one elongate molten metal supply passage opening into the orifice slot and extending longitudinally upstream of the confronting face and the opening of the orifice slot relative to a direction of rotation of the rotary drum past the orifice slot;
- and
- at least one longitudinally elongate excess molten metal return passage separate from the orifice slot and the supply passage and opening into the confronting face downstream of the opening of the orifice slot into the confronting face relative to the direction of rotation of the rotary drum past the orifice slot.
A process of making a composite battery electrode comprising, providing a longitudinally elongate strip of an electrically conductive carbon fiber material;
- continuous casting an electrically conductive metal ribbon along and attached to a longitudinally elongate edge of the strip of carbon fiber material;
- and
- severing the strip of carbon fiber material with the attached ribbon into a plurality of electrodes each with a portion of the strip of carbon fiber material with a portion of the ribbon attached thereto.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.