US 4,993,119 AGranted

Fiber opening, mixing, and flow regulating apparatus and method

OwnerJames H. Robersoninventor

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

An improved fiber opening, mixing, and flow regulating apparatus and method are disclosed. The apparatus includes a textile fiber feeder (F) which opens, mixes, and regulates the flow of fibers from a ball (B) inside the feeder. A primary opening element is provided by a stationary spiked apron feed (I), and a secondary fiber opening element provided by a movable spiked apron (S). A gap (G) is defined between the opposing pins of the primary and secondary opening elements (I,S) which regulates the flow of fibers delivered by the feeder. By moving secondary opening element (S) in either linear or rotational motions, gap (G) may be modulated and the flow of fibers regulated. A controller (E) may be provided to receive a speed signal (54) representing the operational speed of a textile process downstream of fiber feeder (F) and a fiber quantity signal (16) may also be processed by controller (E) as well as various and other signals. A drive signal (18) controls the movement of secondary opening element (S) and the position may be fed back to the controller (E) by signal (52).

Claims32

Dependent claims

A textile feeder apparatus for processing textile fibers of the type which opens and mixes textile fibers in a reserve chamber and regulates the flow of fibers from said feeder, said apparatus comprising:

a reserve chamber means for containing fibers under process;
a first fiber opening means having working elements for impaling and tearing loose some of the fibers contained in said reserve chamber and carrying said impaled fibers forward in the process thereby partially opening said impaled fibers;
a second fiber opening means having working elements for stripping a portion of said impaled fibers from the working elements of said first fiber opening means and returning said stripped fibers to said reserve chamber means for additional processing thereby increasing the degree of opening of said stripped fibers;
a working gap defined between said first and second fiber opening means;
a sensor means for sensing a function of a quantity of fibers flowing from said feeder and generating a fiber quantity signal;
control means responsive to said fiber quantity signal for producing a driving signal;
and
an actuation means responsive to said driving signal for moving at least one of said first and second fiber opening means relative to the other thereby modulating said gap and regulating the amount of fibers flowing out of said feeder by governing the proportion of fibers stripped from said first opening means and returned to said reserve chamber for additional opening and mixing by said second fiber opening means.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.