US 4,022,335 AGranted

Spreading-unloading rotary sweep apparatus of the hole-forming sleeve type

AssigneeClayton & Lambert Manufacturing Co.

InventorCharles F. Lambert, Jr.

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Abstract

A reversible rotary sweep has a single railless trough-less contemporaneously reversible 16" OD horizontal long auger and a depending holeformer composed of a 191/2" OD depending short auger and a surrounding 21" ID concentric sleeve. In unloading, a substantial portion of the unloading stream of silage normally flows radially inward along opposite sides of a vertical "unloading plane", extending tangentially to the unloading side of the auger. The upper end portion of the depending sleeve presents a silage overflow edge, which extends slightly below the horizontal bottom tangential plane of the long auger. Horizontally, the overflow edge is long enough to extend from the inner side edge of the unloading stream through the unloading plane to the outer side edge of the stream. As a consequence, the discharging silage, on both sides of said unloading plane, is free to cascade into the sleeve in a free-flowing substantially unobstructed condition. In the preferred embodiment, this is accomplished by making the diameter of the sleeve correspondingly larger than the diameter of the long auger. The diameter of the depending auger is likewise increased to provide a peripheral speed greater than that of the long auger and thus insure the removal of unloading silage as fast as it is received. These increases in diameter not only promote smooth and efficient unloading and demote jamming and bridging but also simplify the auger drive mechanism because both augers can be driven at the same rotational speed. In other embodiments of this invention, a free unloading flow can be obtained by offsetting the long auger rearwardly, relative to the forward or advancing movement of the unloading sweep and auger. Operational improvement is further promoted, during unloading, by terminating the flighting of the long auger adjacent the overflow edge and, during filling, by extending the non-overflow portion of the sleeve upwardly to reduce the blowing of incoming silage back into the hole.

A spreading/unloading rotary sweep apparatus of the hole-forming sleeve type for use in filling and unloading a given silage storage tank or silo containing a vertically movable nonrotatable supporting assembly, which has a vertical center axis, comprising:

A. a rotary sweep mounted on said assembly for vertical raising and lowering movement therewith along said vertical center axis during respective silo filling and unloading operations, said sweep having
1. opposite outer spreading and unloading sides, and
2. on one side of said center axis, a single fully-exposed long sweep auger of the radius type with corresponding opposite silage spreading and unloading sides;
B. drive means for reversibly rotating the sweep slowly about said vertical center axis of the assembly and said single sweep auger rapidly about its own long horizontal axis,
1. said drive means being operative to rotate both the sweep and said single sweep auger
a. in one direction with their corresponding silage spreading sides facing in the advancing direction during filling and
b. in the opposite direction with their corresponding silage unloading sides facing in the advancing direction during unloading, the unloading stream normally flowing radially inward along opposite sides of a vertical "unloading" plane extending tangentially to the unloading side of the auger, and
2. said single sweep auger rotating in each direction with its lower half moving forwardly toward its advancing side;
and
C. a vertically short open-ended cylindrical discharge sleeve connected to depend from the sweep in concentric relationship to said vertical center axis for vertical and rotary movements as a unit therewith,
1. said sleeve having cylindrical outer and inner peripheral and bore walls respectively,
2. said cylindrical peripheral wall, being operative during the silage filling operation, to form an upwardly rising discharge hole,
3. said cylindrical bore wall, being operative during the silage unloading operation, to receive and direct the unloading silage downwardly through said discharge hole, and
4. the upper end portion of said discharge sleeve having, on its long auger side, a silage overflow edge
a. which is vertically spaced below a horizontal plane tangential to the bottom side of the long auger, and
b. which extends from the inner side edge of the discharge stream horizontally through said vertical unloading plane to the outer side edge of said stream so that the whole width of the unloading silage stream cascades over said overflow edge into the sleeve in a free-flowing substantially unobstructed condition.

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Abstract

Claims10