System and process for sorting and conveying articles

A system for sorting and conveying articles consisting of discarded tires and debris of various sizes from one site to at least one delivery site comprising:

• an article receiving station for receiving a bulk supply of articles and dispensing the articles;
• an article singularizing, orienting and separating station for receiving articles from the article receiving station, and singularizing, orienting, separating and conveying the articles;
• an article sorting station for receiving articles from the article singularizing, orienting and separating station and sorting the articles based upon a predetermined physical characteristic, ejecting those articles which have a physical characteristic outside of a predetermined range;
• an article accumulation station for receiving articles from the article singularizing, orienting and separating station for accumulating the articles into groups of articles based upon a physical characteristic of the articles;
• and,
• an article group accumulation station for receiving groups of articles from the article accumulation station and accumulating groups of articles prior to the discharge of the groups of articles from the system to the at least one delivery site.

A process for sorting and conveying articles consisting of discarded tires and debris of various sizes from one site to at least one delivery site comprising:

• receiving a bulk supply of articles at one site;
• singularizing, orienting and separating the articles from the bulk supply;
• conveying the articles in a single line separated from adjacent articles away from the one site toward the delivery site;
• measuring a predetermined physical characteristic of each article being conveyed;
• ejecting those articles having a measured physical characteristic outside of a predetermined range;
• accumulating the remaining articles into groups of articles based upon the measured physical characteristic of the articles making up a group of articles such that the sum of the physical characteristics of the articles of a group is within a predetermined range;
• accumulating a plurality of groups of articles;
• and,
• discharging a selected article group from the accumulated groups of articles to the at least one delivery site.