This application claims priority to and the benefit of the filing date of International Application No. PCT/EP2007/007600, filed Aug. 30, 2007, which application claims priority to and the benefit of the filing date of German Application No. 10 2006 040881.0, filed Aug. 31, 2006, both of which are hereby incorporated by reference into the specification of this application.
The invention relates to an apparatus for the milling and/or drilling cutting of materials, in particular for the removal of rock, minerals or coal, with a tool drum which is mounted on a drum carrier rotatably about a drum axis, in which a plurality of tool shafts, which carry cutting tools at their ends projecting from the tool drum, are mounted so as to be capable of being driven in rotation, at least two of the tool shafts being drivable by a common gear drive which has power take-off gearwheels, arranged fixedly in terms of rotation on the tool shafts, and a common drive element which cooperates with the driving gearwheels, the drive element and the tool drum being rotatable in relation to one another. The invention also relates, furthermore, to a method for the milling or removal of materials, such as, in particular, rock, coal or the like, and to the use of such an apparatus and also to the use of the method.
For the removal of hard materials, such as rock, ore and other extraction products in underground or overground mining, but also for the milling cutting of asphalt or concrete components in roadbuilding or building construction and the like, a multiplicity of milling systems are known which are provided with rotary-driven drums or disks, to which milling tools, such as, for example, straight shank chisels are attached in a uniform distribution. As regards disk shearer loaders used in underground mining, rock or coal is broken down by means of shearing disks which in the full cut the material to be extracted, so that about half of all the cutting tools arranged on the circumference of the drum are simultaneously in engagement with the working face. On account of the relatively long contact times between the cutting tools and the material to be broken down, the wear even of cutting tools provided with hard metal tips is high especially where hard materials to be broken down are concerned. Moreover, because of the multiplicity of individual cutting tools which are in engagement simultaneously with the material to be broken down, the pressure force remaining for each tool is relatively low, and therefore a relatively high advancing force has to be exerted on the apparatus in the direction of advance or working direction in order to break down hard materials.
In order to increase the extraction performance of apparatuses particularly for the removal of hard rock, the inventors developed apparatuses which operate by impact overlap in order to achieve a high releasing pulse for the removal of the minerals, hard rock or concrete. In the case of apparatuses operating by impact overlap, the mounting of the individual elements of the apparatus and also noise pollution sometimes present considerable problems.
Furthermore, the inventors developed the apparatus known from the previously published WO2006/079536 A1, on which the preamble of claim 1 is based and in which, even in the cutting of hard materials, long service lives of the tools can be achieved by means of reduced pressure forces. The operating principle of the apparatus known from WO2006/079536 A1 is based on arranging a plurality of tool spindles in a spindle drum or tool drum eccentrically around a drum axis in such a way that the spindle axes of the tool spindles lie parallel or, at most, at a slight inclination to the axis of rotation of the tool drum. All the tool spindles are mounted in the tool drum in such a way that the cutting tools are located, distributed on the circumference, in front of the end face of the tool drum. In operational use, a rotation of the tool drum is overlapped with a rotation of each tool spindle. What can be achieved by the overlapping of the rotational movements of the tool drum and of the tool spindles is that only relatively few cutting tools are simultaneously in operative engagement with the material to be milled or to be removed, thus resulting in a high releasing force for each individual cutting tool. In operational use, the known cutting apparatus is moved transversely with respect to the axis of rotation of the tool drum and therefore also transversely with respect to the axis of rotation of each individual tool shaft. By means of the known apparatus, excellent service lives of the tools, even in the case of hard materials and a high removal performance, are achieved. However, in the removal of the materials on closed surfaces, but also in the drilling open of core drillholes or the like, entry by virtue of a feed movement of the apparatus into the material to be removed sometimes presents problems and is sometimes impossible. Furthermore, the breakdown of materials on a large surface requires a considerable diameter of the tool drum, thus resulting in a comparatively high overall weight of the apparatus.
The object of the invention is to provide an apparatus which is capable of economically removing even rock or other materials having high strengths, with a high removal performance and with a large removal surface. The apparatus is to ensure high operating reliability, is to be capable of being used in the most diverse possible fields of use and is to avoid the disadvantages of the known apparatus which have been indicated.
To achieve these objects, an apparatus having the features of claim 1 is proposed. According to the invention, there is provision for the shaft axes of the tool shafts to stand transversely to the drum axis. In contrast to the apparatus known from WO2006/079536 A1, therefore, an arrangement of the tool shafts corotating with the tool drum is selected in which the shaft axes of the individual tool shafts no longer stand essentially parallel, but transversely, to the drum axis of the tool drum. On account of the significantly changed orientation of the shaft axes of the tool shafts, the cutting tools are in this case no longer on the end face of the tool drum, but, instead, milling or removal takes place radially outside the circumference of the tool drum. The varied orientation of the tool shafts gives rise to a fundamentally different overlapping of the rotational movement of the tool drum and of the rotation of the tool shaft. Nevertheless, even in the apparatus according to the invention, a very short, compact and pulse-like engagement of the individual cutting tools in the rock to be broken down can be achieved, and therefore the advantages of the known apparatus, in particular a very high releasing force, even with a reduced available pressure force of the tool drum, are preserved.
According to an advantageous refinement, the shaft axes of the tool shafts may stand perpendicularly to the drum axis. Alternatively to this, the shaft axes of the tool shafts may also stand angled to the drum axis, the angle of the angling amounting to at least 45° and preferably being greater than about 80°. Basically, it would also be possible that the shaft axes of one or some of the tool shafts stand perpendicularly to the drum axis and, at the same time, the shaft axes of other tool shafts stand identically or differently angled to the drum axis. In the apparatus according to another aspect of the invention, in operational use, a working movement of the apparatus takes place parallel to the drum axis, and/or that a feed movement of the apparatus by the amount of the cutting depth for the next removal operation takes place perpendicularly to the drum axis. In the solution according to the invention, in this case, preferably all the cutting tools lie radially outside the tool drum, in particular radially outside the circumference of the tool drum, and, in operational use, the material is removed in a sickle-shaped manner outside the circumference of the tool drum. On account of the rotational movement of the drum and of the arrangement of the shaft axes of the tool shafts, in operational use the cutting tools rotate transversely to the drum axis, and the material is removed outside a circumference of the drum. Owing to the overlap of the rotational movements which deviates from the prior art and to the fact that the cutting tools lie further outward, while the tool drum size remains the same, even shorter tool engagement times can be achieved than in the system previously published. Contact between each individual cutting tool and the material to be removed may advantageously take place particularly when the instantaneous direction of movement of the cutting tool coincides with the direction of movement of the tool drum.
According to an advantageous refinement, the tool drum and at least some of the tool shafts may have a common rotary drive. In this refinement, as a result of a rotation of the tool drum, the tool shafts also acted upon by the common rotary drive can be set in rotation automatically. According to a design variant, the rotary drive could have a drive shaft, which is connected fixedly in terms of rotation to the tool drum, is mounted in the drum carrier and can be driven by means of a drive device, and one or at least one driving gearwheel as a drive element, which is fastened fixedly in terms of rotation to the drum carrier and which meshes with the power take-off gearwheels on the respective tool shafts. A corresponding apparatus can have a particularly compact set-up, while very high forces and torques are transmitted and, at the same time, there is a fixed ratio of the rotational speeds between the tool drum or the drive shaft and the driven tool shafts. In order to transmit the drive forces reliably, the driving gearwheel and the associated power take-off gearwheels may form an angular gear which consists of toothed bevel wheels and is constructed in the manner of an epicyclic gear and in which the driving gearwheel or driving gearwheels in each case form the sun wheel and the power take-off gearwheels comoved with the tool drum form the planet wheels. In an alternative refinement, the driving gearwheel may consist of a toothed contrate wheel with which cylindrical gearwheels mesh as associated power take-off gearwheels. When the contrate gear with planet wheels is used, in operational use the forces exerted on the respective mountings are reduced considerably, since no axial forces are transmitted via the contrate gear.
In order to achieve a favorable release behavior in the case of a common rotary drive for the tool drum and for the tool shafts, the gear preferably has a step-up ratio of between about 3:1 and 9:1, in particular of about 6:1 and 8:1, between the drive shaft and the tool shafts. Where particularly hard cutting tools, such as, for example, diamond tools or ceramics, are concerned, the step-up ratio may even amount, for example, to 12:1 and higher. So that high pressure forces can easily be absorbed, according to an advantageous refinement the tool drum may be supported on both sides of the tool shafts on a drum carrier, a journal or a bearing for holding the tool drum on two sides being formed preferably on that side of the tool drum which lies opposite the drive device. In the case of smaller tool drums or softer materials to be broken down, however, it can be sufficient even to hold the tool drum on one side.
In an alternative refinement, the tool drum may have a drum drive which is decoupled from a gear drive for the drive element. In this refinement, in which work is then carried out correspondingly by means of two separate rotary drives, the rotational speed ratio between the rotational speed of the tool drum, at which the tool shafts corotate transversely with respect to their shaft axes, and the rotational speed of the respective tool shafts may be set virtually as desired. For setting, it is particularly advantageous if the drum drive and/or the gear drive consist/consists of variable drives. For many applications, the drum drive and the gear drive may be arranged or may be coupleable on the same side of the tool drum. For this purpose, the tool drum may be provided, in particular, with an axially projecting shaft receptacle in which a gear drive shaft connected fixedly in terms of rotation to the driving gearwheel and projecting on both sides out of a reception bore of the shaft receptacle is supported or mounted rotatably. The gear drive shaft can then be supported, in particular, by means of a bearing in the reception bore and by means of a second bearing in a bearing cover screwed to the tool drum. A corresponding refinement is advantageous particularly when the shaft axes stand angled to the drum axis, and the driving gearwheel and the power take-off gearwheels are designed as bevel wheels of an angular gear having planet wheels. However, the shaft axes could also stand perpendicularly to one another. The shaft receptacle can then expediently be coupled to the drum drive and the gear drive shaft can be coupled to the gear drive.
In an alternative refinement with two separate rotary drives for the drum drive and for the gear drive, the drum drive may be arranged or coupleable on one side of the tool drum and the gear drive may be arranged or coupleable, offset axially, on the opposite side of the tool drum. According to an advantageous refinement, the tool drum may be provided on the opposite side with an axially projecting annular extension with a shaft receptacle, in which a gear drive shaft connected fixedly in terms of rotation to the driving gearwheel and projecting on both sides out of a reception bore of the shaft receptacle is supported rotatably, the tool drum having on the other side a bearing extension on which the drum drive can be arranged or can be coupled. The gear drive shaft may expediently be mounted rotatably by means of a first bearing in the shaft receptacle of the annular extension and by means of a second bearing in the bearing extension, while the bearing extension may preferably consist of a bearing flange screwed to the tool drum. The bearing extension may be provided, in particular, with a toothing or a gearwheel, in order to drive-connect the drum drive and tool drum to one another in a simple way via gearwheels or toothed belts.
According to a further advantageous alternative refinement, the tool drum may be connected fixedly in terms of rotation to the power take-off side of a first hub gear and the driving gearwheel may be connected fixedly in terms of rotation to the power take-off side of a second hub gear, the two hub gears being arranged in a central receptacle. A refinement of this type has a particularly compact build and can therefore easily be moved along a large working face by means of pivoting arms or the like. The hub gears may, in particular, be designed as push-in gears with gear stages preferably arranged, encapsulated, in gear cases, the fastening flanges of the two hub gears being fastenable or fastened to the drum carrier. The drive of the hub gears could also take place, in particular, via toothed belts.
In all the refinements with separate rotary drives, the driving gearwheel and the power take-off gearwheels may once again be designed particularly advantageously as bevel wheels of an angular gear with planet wheels or, alternatively, a contrate wheel could form the driving gearwheel, while the power take-off gearwheels are designed as cylindrical gearwheels meshing with this. So that the apparatus has a particularly compact build, the power take-off gearwheels of all the tool shafts may be in toothed engagement with a single common driving gearwheel. Particularly in this refinement, the tool shafts may then also be arranged, distributed uniformly over the circumference, in the tool drum. Alternatively, however, the tool shafts could also be arranged, distributed non-uniformly and/or in groups, in the tool drum, and/or a separate driving gearwheel could be provided for each group.
It is advantageous, further, if each cutting tool arranged on a tool shaft is arranged, in relation to the arrangement of a cutting tool of a tool shaft lying in front of or behind it in the drum circumferential direction, so as to be offset by an angular amount and/or at a distance from the drive shaft or drum axis. The cutting tools are in this case preferably formed on or fastened to tool carriers which are connected releasably to the tool shafts. Alternatively, however, they could also be anchored directly to the ends of the tool shafts. In order to make it easier to exchange the tool shafts, these may be received in bearing bushes rotatably by means of bearings, and so as to be sealed off by means of shaft seals, and what is achieved in a relatively simple way by this is that the tool shafts can be inserted and locked exchangeably in a cartridge-like manner by means of the bearing bushes in drum chambers provided on the tool drum.
Depending on the material to be broken down and on the intended use of the apparatus according to the invention, various types of tools may be employed. In the removal of materials, such as rock, coal or minerals, in underground or overground mining, the cutting tools of the tool shafts can be a roller chisels or straight shank chisels which, for the undercutting removal of the material in a plurality of layers, are arranged on outwardly tapering tool carriers or ends of the tool shafts. The tool carriers or ends of the tool shafts may taper conically, arcuately or in a stepped manner. It is advantageous if the cutting tools on each tool shaft are arranged in cutting rows on pitch circles with different diameters, the distance between two cutting rows preferably being selected in such a way that all the cutting rows remove sickle-shaped cutting surfaces of approximately identical size. In this refinement, what can be achieved is that the service life of each individual cutting tool on the tool head of a tool shaft is approximately identical, so that an exchange of the cutting tools can take place at fixed maintenance intervals. Instead of undercutting tools, milling rollers may also be used. An apparatus operating with milling rollers as cutting tools may be used, in particular, in roadbuilding for the removal of coverings, in building construction for the renovation of floors and walls or in civil engineering for the drawing off, for example, of trenches and may be mounted, for example, on the boom of an excavator or the like. The milling rollers may be designed cylindrically or taper conically toward the cut material.
A plurality of cutting tools are preferably formed on each tool shaft. It is advantageous if the cutting tools of tool shafts succeeding one another in the circumferential direction of the tool drum are arranged so as to be phase-offset with respect to one another, so that a cutting tool of a following tool shaft strikes into the material to be cut or to be removed at a point different from that of the cutting tool of the preceding tool shaft. In most embodiments, it is sufficient to mount the tool shafts within the tool drum. In the case of particularly hard material, however, it may be advantageous if the tool shafts are supported rotatably at their radially outer end by means of a yoke with a journal which, in turn, is fastened to the tool drum, so that an additional mounting or support of the tool shafts takes place in each case at or near those ends of the tool shafts which carry the cutting tools.
For using the apparatus according to the invention in underground mining for the extraction of coal, it may be particularly advantageous if the tool drum is provided between adjacent tool shafts with radially extending scrapers or shovels, by means of which the material preferably released at the working face by means of undercutting cutting tools is loaded into a conveyor or the like of the extraction device.
The apparatus according to the invention is suitable particularly for use in a method for the milling or removal of rock, in which the rotational speed of the tool shafts, the rotational speed of the tool drum, the advancing speed of the apparatus parallel to the drum axis and/or the angular position of the cutting tools, arranged on the individual tool shafts, in relation to the angular position of the cutting tools of the tool shafts lying in front of or behind them in the circumferential direction are set such that a cutting tool of a following tool shaft does not strike at the rock or the like at the same striking point as a cutting tool of a preceding tool shaft. By the parameters being varied, namely the rotational speed of the tool drum forming a planet carrier, the rotational speed of the drive shaft, as a planet wheel shaft, carrying the driving gearwheel, the advancing speed of the apparatus and the cutting line spacing of the cutting tools, the path curve of the individual tool cutters of the cutting tools can be determined, and, consequently, the grain size and surface structure of the cut or removed material can be influenced reliably.
It is also advantageous if the rotary drive takes place by means of variable drives, so that different rotational speeds can be set continuously, even without an interruption in the cutting work. A corresponding design of the apparatus makes it possible that the respective drive-specific requirements can be adapted to the geometry of the surface to be cut and to the properties of the material to be cut or to be removed.
These and other objects, aspects, features and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading of the Detailed Description of embodiments set forth below taken together with the drawings which will be described in the next section.
The invention may take physical form in certain parts and arrangement of parts, a preferred embodiment of which will be described in detail and illustrated in the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof and wherein:
Referring now to the drawings wherein the showings are for the purpose of illustrating preferred and alternative embodiments of the invention only and not for the purpose of limiting same,
Reference symbol 10 in
In the cutting apparatus 10, only the gearwheel 3B on the drive shaft 3 is in engagement with an external drive. During a rotation of the drive shaft 3, the tool drum 4 connected fixedly in terms of rotation to this rotates, with the result that the tool shafts 5 arranged in the radial passages 12 likewise rotate about the drum axis H. By means of an angular gear, designated as a whole by reference symbol 20, a rotation of the individual tool shafts 5 is then derived from the rotational movement of the tool drum 4 and overlaps this. The angular gear 20 is arranged, protected against soiling, in the gear receptacle 14 of the tool drum 4. The annular gear 20, designed as an epicyclic gear, has a driving gearwheel 8 which is fastened fixedly in terms of rotation to a circumferential flange 47 of the drum carrier 1 and is consequently stationary in operational use and with which in each case meshes a power take-off gearwheel 7 which is connected fixedly in terms of rotation to the shaft end of the tool shafts 5 which project into the gear receptacle 14. The driving gearwheel 8, designed as a bevel gearwheel, is preferably screwed to the circumferential flange 47 by means of the connecting screw 18. Since the drum carrier 1 is connected to a machine boom or the like, the driving gearwheel 8 is stationary in relation to the tool drum 4, and, when the tool drum 4 rotates, the power take-off gearwheels 7 rotate as planet wheels around the driving gearwheel 8. The tool drum 4 in this respect forms the planet carrier. The step-up ratio between the driving gearwheel 8 and the power take-off gearwheels 7 may amount to 3:1 to 12:1 and above, depending on the size and configuration of the apparatus 10, a step-up ratio of about 6:1 to 8:1 affording particularly great advantages.
In the apparatus 10, the shaft axes W and the drum axis H stand perpendicularly to one another and the angular gear 20 is designed correspondingly. As a result of the rotation of the individual tool carriers 15 with the cutting tools 16, arranged so as to be offset spirally, and as a result of the additional rotation of the tool drum 4, during the cutting of material outside the circumference 4″ of the tool drum 4 in each case only an extremely short contact time of the individual cutting tool 16 or chisel tips with the material to be removed or to be released, such as, for example, rock, is achieved. On account of this short contact time, the wear of the individual cutting tool 16 is very low. Depending on the gear and on the drive used, for example, the tool drum 4 may rotate at 60 rev/min, and the rotational speed of each tool shaft 5 amounts, for example, to 400 rev/min. In order to protect the angular gear 20 and the tapered roller bearings 2, 6 used, in each case shaft sealing rings 17 are arranged at the radial exit of the radial passages 12 to the circumference 4″ of the tool drum 4, and the gear reception space 14 is closed by means of an annular disk 19 having a shaft sealing ring 13 at the inner orifice of the annular disk 19.
The set-up and working operation of the apparatus 160 according to the invention, shown in
In the exemplary embodiments described above, the tool drum was in each case supported only on one side on a drum carrier.
In the exemplary embodiment of the apparatus 360 in
The apparatus 410 shown in
The apparatus according to the invention can be moved rectilinearly in the working direction and then be moved back in the opposite direction after a feed movement in the feed direction has taken place.
The preceding description suggests to a person skilled in the art numerous modifications which will come within the scope of protection of the appended claims. It will be appreciated that, in virtually all the exemplary embodiments, instead of tool shafts standing perpendicularly, tool shafts standing at an angle could also be used, and vice-versa. Instead of an angular gear, in each case a contrate gear could also be used, which would have the advantage that, when rock is being broken down, no forces would be introduced parallel to the axis of the tool shafts into the drive shaft. In the gear receptacle, in each case an angular gear with a plurality of output shafts could also be placed, or the tool shafts could be driven via cardan shafts or the like. The apparatus may be employed in the most diverse possible fields and, depending on the intended use, with virtually all known tools. The preferred fields of use are, in particular, mining for the extraction of ores or coal, roadbuilding for removal of coverings, open cast mining, tunnel building for the driving of tunnels, pit construction, civil engineering in the drawing of, for example, trenches, or building construction for the renovation of floors and walls.
Further, while considerable emphasis has been placed on the preferred embodiments of the invention illustrated and described herein, it will be appreciated that other embodiments, and equivalences thereof, can be made and that many changes can be made in the preferred embodiments without departing from the principles of the invention. Furthermore, the embodiments described above can be combined to form yet other embodiments of the invention of this application. Accordingly, it is to be distinctly understood that the foregoing descriptive matter is to be interpreted merely as illustrative of the invention and not as a limitation.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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10 2006 040 881 | Aug 2006 | DE | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/EP2007/007600 | 8/30/2007 | WO | 00 | 2/20/2009 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO2008/025555 | 3/6/2008 | WO | A |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20100001574 A1 | Jan 2010 | US |