US 4,540,426 AGranted

Apparatus for bending and tempering thermoplastic sheet material

AssigneeSaint-Gobain Vitrage

InventorsAureliano Bocelli, Carlo Colombini

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Abstract

An apparatus for bending or bending and tempering of thermoplastic sheets such as glass sheets heated to their softening temperature by passing the glass sheets over a bed of straight or curved supporting rollers placed along a profile with an upward concavity. The apparatus comprises a pivoting assembly which transfers the glass sheets from a supporting bed of rollers with one slope to a conveyor with a different slope. The last supporting roller of the bed of supporting rollers constitutes the first support roller of the conveyor. The apparatus permits the transfer of glass sheets from a transport system with one slope to another transport system with a different slope without damaging either the glass sheets themselves or any coatings that may have been applied to the glass sheets.

Claims15

Dependent claims

In an apparatus for bending or bending and tempering of thermoplastic sheets in which the sheets pass through a shaping bed comprising a plurality of support elements and a plurality of holding means such as rollers or curved rods placed along a curved profile having an upward concavity, means for transfering the sheets from said apparatus to a conveyor having a different slope comprising:

pivoting holding means associated with the last support element of said shaping bed, said pivoting holding means being mounted in a frame which pivots around an axis which coincides with the axis of rotation of said last support element so as to move the holding means from a position in which it is aligned with the curved profile of the shaping bed to one where it is aligned with the slope of the conveyor, and
means for applying to said frame a restoring force having a tendency to bring said pivoting holding means mounted in said frame back into such a position that said pivoting means is aligned with the curved profile of the shaping bed.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.