US3322355A - Disintegrating machine - Google Patents

Description

y 30, 1967 J. G. BRYANT 3,322,355

DISINTEGRATING MACHINE Filed March 1, 1965 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 FIG. 1

INVENTOR. JAMES G. BRYANT DIS INTEGRATING MACHINE Filed March 1, 1965 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 FIG.

FIG.2.

INVENTOR JAMES 5. BRYANT A T TOR/VEVS United States Patent Oh 3,322,355 DISINTEGR TING MACHINE James G. Bryant, 1504 th Ave.,

Port Huron, Mich. 48060 Filed Mar. 1, 1965, Ser. No. 436,003

14 Claims. (Cl. 241-186) This invention relates to a distinguishing machine and more particularly to a hammermill especially adapted for grinding small glass articles such as hypodermic syringes, bottles, vials, etc.

In many hospitals it is standard practice to destroy all hypodermic syringes once they are used, so that they are rendered unsuitable for further use. The destruction of such hypodermic syringes and other glass articles, such as small bottles and vials, in a hammermill is an ideal solution to the problem. A hammermill designed for such use must meet several requirements. It must be compact in size, it must be capable of handling the loads to which it may be subjected, and it must be relatively inexpensive. The power required for grinding relatively small glass articles, such as hypodermic syringes, bottles, etc., in a hammermill is relatively small. This can be accomplished in a relatively small hammermill having a highspeed rotor. However, it is necessary to feed the materials to the rotor at a relatively slow, uniform rate if the use of a large motor capable of developing a high torque is to be avoided.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a disintegrating machine of compact size, economical construction and which is designed to feed material into the disintegrating chamber at a relatively slow rate even though the material is deposited into the machine as a batch.

A further object of the invention resides in the provision of a hammermill which includes a hopper at its upper end into which a batch of material to be ground may be deposited and a material-receiving chamber below the hopper, together With a vibrating mechanism for causing the batch of material to be ground to be fed at a relatively slow rate from the material-receiving chamber into the hammermill chamber.

Further objects and advantages of the disintegrating machine according to the present invention will be apparent from the following description and drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view, with portions broken away, of a disintegrating machine according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a vertical sectional view of the disintegrating machine.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view along the line 3--3 in FIG. 2.

The machine of the present invention generally comprises asheet metal housing 10 havingside walls 12, 13, front andback walls 14, 16 respectively, and atop wall 18. At the upper end ofhousing 10 there is provided adjacent the front end of top wall 18 ahopper 20 defined bywalls 22 which converge to an inlet opening 24 intop wall 18. Withinhousing 10 and spaced below thetop wall 18 there is provided ashelf member 26 which extends betweenside walls 12, 13 and inclines downwardly from thefront wall 14 of the housing. At itsrear end shelf 26 terminates forwardly of therear wall 16 to define an outlet opening 28.Shelf 26 defines at the upper end of housing 10 a material-receivingchamber 30 in which a batch of the material to be disintegrated accumulates. The angle of inclination ofshelf 26 is such that the material deposited inhopper 20 rests onshelf 26 but does not gravitate to the outlet opening 28 of its own accord. Thus, the inclination ofshelf 26 is no greater than what is commonly referred to as the angle of friction, namely,

ice

the angle of a plane relative to the horizontal greater than which particular material deposited on the plane would have a tendency to slide down the plane.

At the outlet opening 28 there is formed within housing 10 a dependingtapered chute 32 which discharges into ahammermill chamber 34.Chamber 34 is generally cylindrically shaped and includes aperipheral wall 36 which is imperforate around the top side thereof and which is perforate around the bottom side thereof, as at 38.Chamber 34 is narrower in cross-section thanhousing 10, one side thereof being defined byside wall 13 of the housing and the other side thereof being defined by anupright plate 40 which is bent as at 42 so as to extend over to and connect with theside wall 12, as at 44.

The lower portion 46 ofwall 40 extends the full length ofhousing 10 from front to back and cooperates with the horizontally extendingwall 48 to form adischarge chamber 50 in which asliding drawer 52 for the ground material is arranged.

Withinchamber 34 there is arranged arotor 54 of generally conventional design having a plurality ofhammers 56 pivotally supported around the periphery thereof.Rotor 54 is mounted on ashaft 58 journalled in pillow blocks. One of the pillow blocks, designated 60, is supported on anangle bracket 62 mounted onwall 40. The other pillow block, which is not illustrated, is similarly supported on the outer face ofside wall 13 ofhousing 10. Anelectric motor 64 mounted on acontrol box 66 has itsoutput shaft 68 axially aligned with thedrive shaft 58 ofrotor 54 and directly coupled thereto by means of acoupling 70. Acountershaft 72 is journalled inpillow blocks 74 mounted on thetop wall 48 of thedischarge chamber 50. Shaft 72 has apulley 76 keyed thereto. Pulley 76 is connected by abelt 78 with a smaller pulley to therotor shaft 58. Aweight 84 is eccentricall'y mounted onpulley 76 by means of ascrew 86.

The whole housing assembly is mounted on abottom plate 88 provided with a plurality ofrubber pads 90 for supporting the machine on a floor surface.

In operation, the material to he disintegrated and ground is dumped as a batch intohopper 20, and from the hopper it is deposited upon theinclined shelf 26, as shown in FIG. 2. As indicated previously, the inclination ofshelf 26 is such that the material will not gravitate down to the outlet opening 28 of its own accord. However, when themotor 64 is operating the belt drive from pulley causes theunbalanced pulley wheel 76 to rotate and thereby causes the whole machine to vibrate. The vibration is transmitted toshelf 26 and causes the batch of material deposited thereon throughhopper 20 to gravitate slowly toward outlet opening 28. Thus, even thoughmotor 64 may be of a high speed, low torque rating, it is capable of drivingrotor 54 while the material is being discharged intochamber 34 because the batch of material to be ground is fed at a relatively slow rate to the rotor.

The feeding rate of the material onshelf 26 depends to a large extent upon the frequency of vibration. This can be varied to produce the best feeding rate in relation to the size and speed ofrotor 54 by controlling the relative sizes ofpulleys 80 and 76. In the arrangement shown, for example, the rate of vibration is substantially less than the speed of rotation ofrotor 54. Thus the present arrangement enables the rate of vibration and the rate of rotation of the hammermill rotor to be varied as desired.

Thus it will be seen that I have provided a machine for disintegrating or grinding hypodermic needles, vials, bottles, and other small glass articles which is compact in size and economical in construction. The machine as disclosed herein eliminates the need for the provision of a separate motor-driven vibrator for feeding the material 3 m2) at a relatively slow rate to the disintegrating chamber. Nevertheless material to be ground can be fed into the machine as a batch without danger of stalling the rotor. Therubber pads 90 absorb the vibration of the whole machine and prevent such vibration from being transmitted to the floor surface on which themachine 13 mounted. The use of a countershaft for supporting the unbalanced rotor enables the use of a relatively small diameter hammermill rotor with a high speed, low torque motor while obtaining a frequency of vibration desirable for feeding of materials substantially lower than the speed of the drivemotor.

I claim:

1. A machine for disintegrating or grinding materials comprising a housing having a hopper at its upper end, the lower end of said hopper being defined by a shelf inclined slightly downward in a direction away from the upper end of said hopper and defining an outlet opening adjacent the lower end thereof, means forming a hammermill chamber into which a batch of material on said shelf is adapted to gravitate through said outlet opening, a hammermill rotor journalled for rotation in said chamber, a motor for driving said rotor and a vibrator mounted on the housing and driven by said motor for vibrating said housing whereby to cause material on said shelf to gravitate to said outlet opening and discharge into said rotor chamber at a slow uniform rate.

2. A machine for disintegrating or grinding materials comprising a housing having an inlet opening adjacent its upper end, means forming a material-receiving chamber into which material is adapted to be deposited as a batch through said inlet opening, said material-receiving chamber having a bottom wall which inclines downwardly in a direction away from said inlet opening at an angle no greater than the angle of friction of the material whereby material deposited on said bottom wall through said inlet opening will tend to remain thereon, said bottom wall terminating at its lower end in an outlet opening, means forming a hammermill chamber into which material is adapted to gravitate through said outlet opening, a hammermill rotor journalled for rotation in said chamher, a motor for driving said rotor and a vibrator mounted on the housing and driven by said motor for vibrating said housing whereby to cause material on said shelf to gravitate to said outlet opening and discharge into said rotor chamber at a slow uniform rate.

3. A machine for disintegrating or grinding materials comprising a housing having an inlet opening adjacent its upper end, means forming a material-receiving chamber into which material is adapted to be deposited as a batch through said inlet opening, said material-receiving chamher having a bottom wall which inclines downwardly in a direction away from said inlet opening at an angle no greater than the angle of friction of the material whereby material deposited on said bottom wall through said inlet opening will tend to remain thereon, said bottom wall terminating at its lower end in an outlet opening means forming a disintegrating chamber into which material is adapted to be discharged through said outlet opening, a disintegrating means in said chamber, a motor having a drive shaft operatively connected with said disintegrating means in said chamber and a vibrator on said housing operatively connected with said motor drive shaft for vibrating said housing whereby to cause material on said bottom wall to gravitate to said outlet opening and discharge into said disintegrating chamber at a slow uniform rate.

4. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 3, wherein said vibrator comprises an unbalanced rotor.

5. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 3,

wherein said vibrator comprises an unbalanced rotor journalled for rotation about an axis spaced from the axis of said drive shaft and means interconnecting the drive shaft with the unbalanced rotor for driving the unbalanced rotor at a speed different from that of the drive shaft.

6. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 5, wherein said last-mentioned means drives the unbalanced rotor at a speed less than the speed of the drive shaft.

7. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 5, wherein said last-mentioned means comprises a countershaft on which the unbalanced rotor is mounted and pulley and belt means interconnecting the drive shaft and the countershaft.

8. A machine for disintegrating or grinding materials comprising a housing having an inlet opening adjacent its upper end, means forming a material-receiving chamber into which material is adapted to be deposited as a batch through said inlet opening, said material-receiving chamber having a bottom wall which inclines downwardly in a direction away from said inlet opening at an angle no greater than the angle of friction of the material whereby material deposited on said bottom wall through said inlet opening will tend to remain thereon, said bottom wall terminating at its lower end in an outlet opening, means forming a hammermill chamber into which the batch material deposited on said bottom wall is adapted to gravitate through said outlet opening, a shaft journalled on said housing and supporting a hammermill rotor for rotation within said hammermill chamber, a motor having an output shaft coupled with the hammermill rotor shaft, a vibrator mounted on said housing, means interconnecting said vibrator with one of said shafts for vibrating said housing whereby to cause material on said bottom wall to gravitate to said outlet opening and discharge into said hammermill roto-r chamber at a slow uniform rate.

9. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 8, wherein said vibrator comprises an unbalanced rotor.

10. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 8, wherein said vibrator comprises an unbalanced rotor journalled for rotation about an axis spaced from the axis of said drive shaft and means interconnecting the drive shaft with the unbalanced rotor for driving the unbalanced rotor at a speed different from that of the hammermill rotor.

11. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 8, wherein said vibrator comprises an unbalanced rotor journalled for rotation on said housing about an axis spaced from the axis of rotation of said one shaft and including sheave and belt means interconnecting said unbalanced rotor and said one shaft for rotating the unbalanced rotor at a speed less than the speed of rotation of the hammermill rotor.

12. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 11, wherein the hammermill rotor shaft and the motor shaft are axially aligned and directly coupled.

13. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 8, wherein the housing includes a pair of side walls, said bottom wall being connected to said side walls, said vibrator comprising an unbalanced rotor and including support means connected with said side walls and on which said unbalanced rotor is journalled.

14. A disintegrating machine as called for inclaim 13, including a plurality of resilient pads for mounting said housing on a floor surface.

References Cited FOREIGN PATENTS 6,417 4/1891 Great Britain.

WILLIAM W. DYER, IR., Primary Examiner.

Claims (1)

1. A MACHINE FOR DISINTEGRATING OR GRINDING MATERIALS COMPRISING A HOUSING HAVING A HOPPER AT ITS UPPER END, THE LOWER END OF SAID HOPPER BEING DEFINED BY A SHELF INCLINED SLIGHTLY DOWNWARD IN A DIRECTION AWAY FROM THE UPPER END OF SAID HOPPER AND DEFINING AN OUTLET OPENING ADJACENT THE LOWER END THEREOF, MEANS FORMING A HAMMERMILL CHAMBER INTO WHICH A BATCH OF MATERIAL ON SAID SHELF IS ADAPTED TO GRAVITATE THROUGH SAID OUTLET OPENING, A HAMMERMILL ROTOR JOURNALLED FOR ROTATION IN SAID CHAMBER, A MOTOR FOR DRIVING SAID ROTOR AND A VIBRATOR MOUNTED ON THE HOUSING AND DRIVEN BY SAID MOTOR FOR VIBRATING SAID HOUSING WHEREBY TO CAUSE MATERIAL ON SAID SHELF TO GRAVITATE TO SAID OUTLET OPENING AND DISCHARGE INTO SAID ROTOR CHAMBER AT A SLOW UNIFORM RATE.

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