Curved conveyor with guide for preventing radial belt migration
AssigneeThermodrive LLC
InventorJames Honeycutt
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A curved conveyor comprises a toothed, endless belt and a slider bed that supports a portion of the belt. The slider bed can include at least one guide in the form of a rail extending along the slider bed in the direction of belt travel. Each of the belt teeth are discontinuous and have at least one gap sized to receive the at least one guide; thus, the at least one guide prevents inward radial migration of the belt during movement of the belt. The conveyor can further comprise a center guide wheel or a guide post to prevent belt radial migration.
Claims15
A curved conveyor comprising an endless, substantially untensioned belt having a continuous surface, an inside edge and an outside edge, the outside edge being longer than the inside edge to accommodate moving the belt on the radius of a curve, a drive pulley mounted for rotation, one of the belt and drive pulley having teeth and the other of the belt and drive pulley having sheaves, with at least one tooth in driving engagement with a sheave as the belt wraps around the pulley causing a span of the belt to move in the curve, a slider bed on which the span of the belt slides as it moves in the curve, and at least one guide extending from the slider bed between the slider bed and the belt and engaging the belt in the curve to resist radial migration of the belt inwardly of the curve.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.