Patent Application
20130292914
The present invention is directed to an expandable core chuck suitable for engaging the interior surface of a cylindrical core or other article having an inwardly facing cylindrical surface.
Many products are manufactured from elongated sheet or stock material or wire that is shipped and stored in the form of a roll or coil. Continuous strips or webs of thin, flexible material or wire are commonly provided wound on cores to provide rolls of material. The rolls of material are subsequently unwound for production of items made from the materials. Examples of these materials are plastic film, metal foil, tissue, paper and wire.
During the manufacturing process, the cores carrying the material are commonly transported to various stations within the manufacturing facility. For instance, cores of fresh material are received and transferred to unwind stations. Cores that have material removed are transported to storage facilities, core cleaning stations, or other processing stations. Core chucks are inserted into the opposed ends of the cores thereby allowing the cores to be lifted for transport and processing without damaging the sheet material contained on the core or the core itself. Different types of product have cores which have different inner diameters. In current practice, the manufacturing plant has core chucks of a variety of diameters designed to match the inner diameter of the cores. Thus, there is a need for an universal core chuck that can be used with cores having varying inner diameters of the inwardly facing cylindrical surface of the core. While this invention is described for use with cores carrying rolls of sheet material or wire, it is not intended to be so narrowly construed as to be limited only to that specific use. The present invention can be utilized to mate with a wide variety of articles having an internal cylindrical surface.
A universal core chuck or arbor for securing the internal surface of a reel or other article may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,494,401. The '401 patent includes a thorough discussion of prior art attempts to solve the problems of sizing chucks to cores having different inner diameters. An arbor disclosed in that patent application has a cylindrical axially extending tube with longitudinal slots. Blades are positioned in the slots and are movable radially outwardly from the tube to a position at which their outer surfaces extend slightly beyond the outer surface of the tube. The blades have an inner surface defining axially spaced apart first cam grooves having inclined wrap surfaces. A cam member includes spaced apart cam followers that include inclined ramp surfaces aligned with the first cam grooves. The cam is reciprocal via a pneumatic actuator from a first position in which the respective blades are retracted to a second position in which the blades are extended slightly outwardly from the outer surface of the tube. The present invention improves upon this complex mechanical structure.
The present invention provides an expanding core chuck having a housing extending along an axis with a plurality of slots, preferably four, extending substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis of the housing. A camshaft having a plurality of lobes or cams is positioned in the housing and is rotatable with respect to the axis of the housing in clockwise and counterclockwise direction upon actuation by a pneumatic actuator. Each of the cams has a cam surface which extends at varying radial distances from the axis. Cam rollers or other actuators are attached to expansion plates such that, upon rotation of the cam shaft in one direction, the cam rollers will be actuated by the varying radial distance cam surfaces to move the expansion plates from a position within the housing to a position extending outwardly from the housing and into mating contact with the inner cylindrical surface of the core and, upon rotation in the opposite direction, move the expansion plates back within the housing.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a review of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and the accompanying drawings.
Referring to
Referring to
The expansion plates 38, support member 42 and cam rollers 34 are slidably engaged with a mounting member 40 and are movable relative thereto in a radial direction from a retracted position shown in
Upon insertion of the core chuck into the end of the core, the pneumatic cylinder 44 is actuated to rotate the camshaft 22 in a first direction, for example clockwise, to urge the cam rollers 34 outwardly as a result of the outwardly extending cam surfaces moving thereagainst to thereby push the expansion plates 36 outwardly such that the contact members 38 firmly engage the cylindrical interior surface of the core. The expandable core chuck 10 may be removed from the core by actuating the pneumatic cylinder 44 to rotate the camshaft 22 in the opposite direction, for example, counterclockwise, to move the reduced sized portions of the cam surfaces relative to the cam rollers so that the springs of the expansion plates return them to a position within the housing or outer shell 12.
This invention has been described in considerable detail with reference to its preferred embodiments. However, as indicated previously, the invention is susceptible to numerous modifications, variations, and substitutions without departure from the spirit and scope of the invention as described in the foregoing detailed description and as defined in the following appended claims.
