AUTOMATED TRANSPORT AND STORAGE SYSTEM FOR AUTOMOBILE TIRES Russian patent published in 1994 - IPC

FIELD: tire making industry. SUBSTANCE: automated transport and storage system has racks with supports for tires, stacking cranes installed on horizontal guides to move in the horizontal plane and having tire grips fashioned as two-pin fork members, stacking mechanism, and transfer mechanism for removing tires from racks. Stacking mechanisms are affixed to racks. Transfer mechanisms are located at the opposite sides of the racks and provided with tire unstacking mechanism in the form of fork grips mounted on rotatable platforms of manipulators. Vertical endless conveyers are installed between jaws of the grips. Manipulators are mounted on movable cross beams for horizontal travel parallel and perpendicular to corridors between the racks. Located between stacking and tire transfer mechanisms are underlying conveyers having sockets for stacks of tires and capable of stepped displacement. Bearing members of the racks have the form of rack pins facing corridors between the racks to ensure that tires are suspended in several vertical and horizontal rows. The distance between adjacent vertical rows of pins, adjacent sockets of conveyers, and two pins of each grip member is equal to the space between the underlying conveyers. Pins of grip members have slots embracing the rack pins to facilitate suspension or removal of tire stacks. EFFECT: enhanced efficiency of the system in operation. 3 cl, 18 dwg