Patent Application
20110067780
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1.) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for depositing a granular substance into a storage receptacle. More particularly, this invention relates to a belt-driven apparatus which quickly and efficiently loads sand into sandbags.
2.) Description of Related Art
Sandbags have a wide variety of uses which include providing reinforcement in flood situations, and protection or fortification in various military applications. In flooding situations, emphasis is often placed upon filling sandbags rapidly and deploying them where needed. Typically, in the past, the filling of sandbags has been accomplished by one individual holding a sandbag open, while another individual shovels amounts of sand into the sandbag. Anyone who has undertaken to fill sandbags in this manner will appreciate that a number of problems exist with this method. First, the person doing the shoveling must be very careful to ensure that all or most of the sand in each shovelful makes it into the sandbag. This normally requires the shoveler to slow down briefly, immediately prior to providing the sand into the sandbag. Oftentimes, the shoveler will place the tip of the shovel blade into the sandbag to ensure that all or most of the sand makes it into the bag. This too slows down the sandbag filling process. A second problem which can occur is that an individual holding the sandbag can have their fingers hit or nicked with the blade of the shovel, if the shoveler is not careful. Needless to say, this can give rise to serious injury.
A sandbag is typically used in emergency situations, such as during flooding conditions. Because of the lack of everyday use of sandbags, it is not normal to store already filled sandbags. Instead, if an emergency situation arises, then a load of sand is typically dumped proximate the area where the sandbags are needed. Empty bags are then filled on site.
During an emergency situation filling the bags quickly and easily is of utmost importance.
Various apparatus have been proposed for automatically filling sandbags. However, these are typically in the form of large machinery or devices for mounting on a truck. Due to the complexity of the machinery, they can be quite expensive. For an item that would normally be used very infrequently, it is difficult for individuals, municipalities or other governmental bodies to justify the expense. Also, such devices would necessarily need continued maintenance even when not in use. This further burdens purchasers for a device that would hopefully never be used.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems discussed above in a novel and simple manner.
The apparatus described here includes an improved device for filling sandbags, or any other granular material. The method may be a less expensive, portable, more flexible and rapid way of moving the material from a stationary pile to height at which the sand will flow by gravity into bags, containers, or other storage receptacles.
In the apparatus, a flexible belt material or conveyor belt may be stretched between two roller bearings, one of the roller bearings at a lower height and the other roller bearing at an upper height, the upper height clearing the entrance of the a storage receptacle. The lower bearing is rotated by contact with a rotating drive wheel. The drive wheel is supported at another point on its periphery by a second, supporting bearing. The position of this supporting bearing may be adjustable to accommodate wheels of different diameter.
When the drive wheel rotates, its frictional contact with the lower bearing and conveyor belt causes the lower bearing to rotate with the same linear speed. This in turn causes the flexible belt material or conveyor belt to advance between the two roller bearings. When the granular material is placed on the flexible belt material at the lower bearing, the granular material is transported by the flexible belt material to the height of the upper bearing, above the storage receptacle. When the granular material reaches the furthest extent of the flexible belt material on the upper roller bearing, the granular material falls into the storage receptacle positioned below the upper roller bearing. In one embodiment, the granular material may be sand, and the storage receptacle may be a sand bag.
In one embodiment, the power wheel may be a bicycle whose system of pedals, chain drive and gears provides a mechanical advantage in lifting sand to fill bags over the traditional method of using a shovel. This embodiment allows the use of the leg muscles, the most powerful in the body, to be used to transport the sand rather than the arm muscles as would be the case in the traditional method. The result is that more bags can be filled before the operator becomes too fatigued to continue.
Another embodiment involves the wheel of a locomotion device such as a motor vehicle to power the lower bearing and conveyer belt. The motor vehicle may be a scooter, a motorcycle, a car or a truck. This embodiment may provide more lifting power than the bicycle, but may be more expensive, heavier and less portable.
The invention allows adjustment of the spacing of the two roller bearings which support the drive wheel to accommodate wide range of locomotion device. These two bearings are the aforementioned lower roller bearing and second support bearing. The apparatus may also include an adjustable height for the upper bearing, to accommodate different sizes of storage receptacles, or sand bags. As the upper roller bearing of the conveyer is raised to change the discharge height, the spacing of the lower support bearings can be changed so that the drive wheel remains securely centered between the roller bearings.
The granular material may be sand, gravel, road salt, animal feed, fertilizer, or any other granular material that is frequently loaded into bags for transport. The granular material may be loaded onto the flexible belt material at the height of the lower roller bearing by shovel, or by means of an auger mounted to the axle of the lower roller bearing. The auger may penetrate into a stationary stockpile of the granular material, thus loading the conveyor belt automatically as the apparatus operates.
By allowing use of a wide range of power sources, the conveyer can be more easily deployed to fill sand bags in various emergency situations where it is necessary to fill sandbags to prevent flood damage. This also allows easier transport of the conveyer system than if the power source was an integral part of the apparatus. By the use of a bicycle and a lightweight conveyer, the process of filling sandbags can accomplished at the point of deployment of the sandbag dikes even if local conditions prohibit access by motor vehicles.
These and other features and advantages are described in, or are apparent from, the following detailed description.
Various exemplary details are described with reference to the accompanying drawings, which however, should not be taken to limit the invention to the specific embodiments shown but are for explanation and understanding only.
The axle of the lower roller bearing 130 may be coupled to a first axle lock 140 which locks the position of the lower roller bearing 130 relative to a second support bearing 190. The position of the second support bearing 190 can be adjusted relative to the position of the lower roller bearing 130 in order to accommodate drive wheels 150 of different diameter.
Drive wheel 150 may be the rear wheel of virtually any means of locomotion, such as a bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, motorbike, car or truck. The drive wheel may therefore be powered by an internal combustion engine or by an operator pedaling, for example, a bicycle. The axle of the drive wheel 150 may be locked in place by an additional axle lock, or alternatively, the front wheel of the means of locomotion may be placed in a stand, holder or axle lock that keeps the front wheel fixed. By fixing the front axle, and placing the rear wheel between the lower roller bearing 130 and the second support bearing 190, the position of the means of locomotion is fixed. For simplicity, the front wheel and these additional optional axle locks are not shown in
As mentioned previously, the motive power for the apparatus 100 is a drive wheel 150, which contacts the surface of the flexible belt material 110 where it wraps around the lower roller bearing 130. The drive wheel 150 is caused to rotate by operating the locomotion device, either pedaling a bicycle or operating the motor vehicle, for example. The rotational motion of the drive wheel 150 is translated to linear motion of the flexible belt material 110 or conveyer belt by friction between the drive wheel 150 and belt 110. This friction causes the flexible belt material 110 to move with about the same linear velocity as the drive wheel 150, such that a length of the flexible belt material 110 travels from the lower roller bearing 130 to the upper roller bearing 120 and back. The transit of the flexible belt material 110 forms an angle with the ground, so that a granular material 105 deposited on the flexible belt material 110 at the lower roller bearing 130 is transported to the height of the upper roller bearing 120, which as previously mentioned, is above the upper lip of a storage receptacle 180. When the granular material reaches the maximum height of the upper roller bearing 120, it falls from the flexible belt material or conveyor belt into the open receptacle below by the force of gravity.
The apparatus 100 may have several adjustment features which allow it to accommodate a choice of different components. The height or elevation of the upper roller bearing 120 may be selected to accommodate storage receptacles of different sizes. This height may be adjusted by moving the position of the upper roller bearing 120 in the axle lock 170. The axle lock 170 may be provided with a series of cross-wise slots or détente positions which accommodate the axle of the upper roller bearing 120 at various heights or elevations, as illustrated in
In another embodiment of axle lock 140 or 170, axle locks 140 and 170 are provided with a set of dowel pins which function as a set of fixed axles, and the bearing of the axle which remains with the roller portion is simply installed over the dowel and rotates around the dowel. While this embodiment may be simple to implement, the adjustment increments it allows may be relatively course, because the adjacent dowels must be spaced by at least the radius of the wheel and bearing, in order for the rotating wheel to clear the adjacent dowel.
Yet another embodiment of the axle lock 140 and 170 is shown in
Inspection of
Returning to the design of the overall apparatus 100, apparatus 100 may also include a second support bearing 190 whose position may be adjusted by means of another axle lock 140. Similarly to axle lock 170, axle lock 140 may have a series of slots or détente positions into which the axle of second support bearing 190 may be positioned. Thus, the position of the second support bearing 190 with respect to the lower roller bearing 130 may be adjusted. This adjustment may be convenient for accommodating various sizes and diameters of drive wheels, and to hold the drive wheel 150 in a pre-defined position. In any case, the supports 130 and 190 are preferably separated by a distance less than the diameter of the drive wheel 150.
Although only a single axle lock 140 or 170 is shown in
The lower roller bearing 130 may have a screw-like auger 122 coupled to its axle shaft or otherwise disposed on its axle, which functions to automatically load the granular material 105 onto the flexible belt material 110 at the location of the lower roller bearing 130. When the apparatus 100 is positioned such that the auger penetrates into the reservoir of the granular material 105, the granular material 105 is transported via the helical flighting of the auger along the axis of rotation and onto the flexible belt. Alternatively, the granular material 105 may be loaded by hand or shovel onto the lower roller bearing 130.
To operate the portable apparatus 100, portable apparatus 100 may be assembled at the location of a reservoir of the granular material 105. Positioning lower roller bearing 130 such that the auger 122 penetrates the reservoir of granular material, the flexible belt material may be stretched between the lower roller bearing 130 and the upper roller bearing 120, and the upper roller bearing 120 positioned in the axle lock 170 at the desired height, taking care that this height sufficiently clears the top edge of the storage receptacle 180. The lower roller bearing 130 may also be positioned in axle lock 140. The second support bearing 190 is positioned a distance away from lower roller bearing 130 which is less than the diameter of the intended drive wheel 150. Drive wheel 150 may then be placed against the flexible belt material 110 and power applied to the drive wheel 150. Rotation of the auger 122 on the lower roller bearing 130 then automatically loads the granular material 105 onto the flexible belt material 110, which in turns carries it up the incline to the upper roller bearing 120 where it is released into the receptacle 180 by the force of gravity.
In the second exemplary embodiment 200, the motive power is the rear wheel 250 of a bicycle. Because the rear wheel 250 is held in position by the second support bearing 290 and the lower support bearing 230, and of course by gravity, the bicycle tends to maintain its position without additional supporting structures. However, to make the system more stable and easier to operate, additional axle supports may be provided for the front axle 252 and the rear axle 254, which maintain their positions with respect to the rest of the apparatus 200.
It should be understood that axle lock 240 and 270 may be provided with a set of cross-wise slots, détente positions or dowels which maintain the locations of the second support bearing 290 and the upper roller bearing 220 with respect to the lower roller bearing 230. The function and design of these slots, détente positions or dowels may be similar to those of the slots, détente positions and dowels of axle lock 140 and 170. A suitable design of such slots, dowels or détente positions was shown in
The second exemplary embodiment 200 may be particularly convenient for the filling of sandbags on location in a disaster area such as a flood zone, because the apparatus is easily disassembled and transported to the location of the next reservoir of sand and bags. For example, large loads of sand may be delivered by dump truck, which may only be able to approach to a minimum distance the disaster site. Thereafter, the sand must be handled in quantities which normal individuals or light automobiles can carry. This means that sandbags may be filled in locations which are still some distance from where the filled bags are ultimately needed, and there may be a plurality of such locations. An apparatus which is easily disassembled and reassembled therefore has distinct advantages over more permanent devices. Furthermore, the apparatus clearly makes it easier to fill large numbers of such sandbags without the operators becoming exhausted by the effort.
Furthermore, use of a bicycle as the motive force may be advantageous, as the whole apparatus may be transported to the location where it is needed, without using a heavy cargo truck for transport. Roadways to and from disaster areas are often closed to such large heavy vehicles, because of deep water or damaged roadways and bridges. The bicycle also requires no fuel source such as gasoline, which may also be in short supply during a natural disaster. Instead, the bicycle makes use of human leg muscles for power, which are among the strongest muscles in the human body, and typically those which are best conditioned for use over an extended period of time. Thus, the embodiment shown in
While various details have been described in conjunction with the exemplary implementations outlined above, various alternatives, modifications, variations, improvements, and/or substantial equivalents, whether known or that are or may be presently unforeseen, may become apparent upon reviewing the foregoing disclosure. For example, while embodiments have been described which refer to the filling of sand bags with sand, it should be understood that the apparatus may be used to fill any of a number of receptacles with any of a number of granular materials. In addition, although powering means have been disclosed to include bicycles and motor vehicles, it should be understood that these embodiments are exemplary only, and that any of a number of wheel-based transport devices may be used. Furthermore, while the embodiments described above relate to a portable apparatus, it should be understood that the device may also be permanently located in a particular position. Accordingly, the exemplary implementations set forth above, are intended to be illustrative, not limiting.
