US 5,395,061 A · Mobile tire shredder

Abstract

A motor truck for use in collecting and processing solid waste material such as scrap tires. The truck includes a chassis including a cab; a body structure positioned on the chassis behind the cab and defining a storage chamber; a shredder mounted on top of the body structure forwardly of the storage chamber; a compactor positioned within the body structure beneath the shredder and forwardly of the storage chamber; and a conveyor system for conveying tires from a curbside location upwardly for discharge downwardly into the open upper end of the shredder. The shredded tires are discharged downwardly into the body structure rearwardly of the compactor, whereafter the compactor is actuated to stroke rearwardly and compress the tire shreds into the storage chamber. After the truck has visited a series of retail tire outlets and the storage chamber is full of tire shreds, the truck returns to a recycling center where a door at the rear of the storage chamber is opened and the compactor is utilized as an ejector to eject the tire shreds from the storage chamber. At the recycling center the tire shreds are processed to form a rubber crumb material and the rubber crumb material is combined with scrap plastic to form a rubber/plastic resin compound in pellet form.

Claims16

Dependent claims

A mobile tire shredding apparatus comprising:

a motor truck including a chassis;
a body structure immovably mounted on the chassis and defining a storage chamber extending from the front wall of the body structure to an open rear end of the body structure;
a shredder mounted on the body structure in overlying relation to the storage chamber and including a bottom discharge discharging downwardly into the storage chamber and a shredder box having an open top;
a door closing the open rear end of the body structure and defining the rear end of the storage chamber;
a compactor positioned in the storage chamber;
power means operative to move the compactor within the storage chamber from a forward position to a rearward position proximate the open rear end of the body structure;
and
a conveyor assembly mounted on the truck and including conveyor means defining a conveyor path extending from a loading location proximate the support surface of the truck to a discharge location proximate the open top of the shredder box and a plurality of spaced tire engaging members carried by the conveyor means so that successive tires may be engaged with successive tire engaging members at the loading location to move the tires successively up the conveyor path for successive discharge into the open top of the shredder box, successive shredding by the shredder, and successive discharge downwardly into the storage chamber.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Mobile tire shredder

Life of this patent

Mobile tire shredder

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims16