Floor mounted walking beam system for advancing a vehicle
AssigneeDEC International, Inc.
InventorDavid Brethorst
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system for intermittently advancing floor-supported vehicles through a food product processing system employs beam members mounted adjacent the floor which are reciprocably movable back and forth, preferably in response to extension and retraction of the rod of a cylinder. Engagement members, preferably in the form of upstanding trip dogs provided on the beams, engage the underside of the vehicles for drawing the vehicles through the cabinets of the processing system. A system is provided for transferring the vehicles from one walking beam assembly to another.
Claims10
A floor-mounted walking beam system for incrementally advancing one or more floor-supported vehicles, comprising:
- an upstream beam section and a downstream beam section;
- reciprocating means for reciprocably moving the beam sections in a first direction and a second direction;
- wherein said beam sections are arranged such that the extent of movement of one of the beam sections in one direction overlaps the extent of movement of an adjacent beam section in the other direction;
- and
- engagement means interposed between the beam sections and the vehicles for engaging the vehicles during movement of the beam sections in one direction for advancing the vehicles, said engagement means being movable to an inoperative nonengaging position during movement of the beam sections in the other direction for preventing movement of the vehicles, said engagement means being located on the overlapping area of the extent of movement of said beam sections;
- wherein the reciprocating means provides independent reciprocable movement of the upstream and downstream beam sections for selectively placing the extent of movement of the beam sections in overlapping relation with each other, to provide transfer of the vehicles from the upstream beam section to the downstream beam section.
A processing arrangement for a food product in which a plurality of floor-supported vehicles each carry the product, comprising:
- a plurality of processing chambers arranged substantially along a common longitudinal axis and being disposed adjacent each other with the outlet of one chamber being located adjacent the inlet of the chamber downstream therefrom, wherein a separate processing operation is performed on the product in each chamber;
- and
- an advancement system for incrementally advancing the plurality of vehicles through the processing chambers, comprising:
- longitudinally movable beam means mounted adjacent the floor of the processing chambers;
- reciprocating means for reciprocably moving said beam means in a first direction and in a second direction;
- and
- engagement means interposed between the beam means and the vehicles for engaging the beam means with the vehicles during movement of the beam means in the first direction for incrementally advancing the vehicles, the engagement means being movable to a non-engaging position during movement of the beam means in said second direction for preventing movement of the vehicles in said second direction;
- wherein the beam means includes an arrangement for moving vehicles from one chamber downstream therefrom and comprises an upstream moveable beam section and a downstream movable beam section, each section being constructed so as to allow overlapping orientation with the extent of movement of the other beam section, and wherein the reciprocating means provides independent reciprocable movement of each beam section in overlapping relation with the extent of movement of the other beam section, for accommodating transfer of a vehicle from one processing chamber of the adjacent downstream processing chamber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.