MILL PARTICULARLY FOR CRUSHING BODIES MADE OF RECYCLABLE METALLIC MATERIALS AND THE LIKE

Technical field

The present invention relates to a mill particularly for crushing bodies made of recyclable metallic materials and the like. Background art

Mills for crushing metallic bodies, such as scrap of motor vehicles and the like, are currently known which have a box-like shell provided internally with a trough for accommodating a roller-type rotor equipped with crushing hammers.

The upper part of the shell is provided with covers that are suitable to cover the trough inside which the rotor operates, so as to contain the crushed fragments inside the mill.

At least one of the covers is provided with an entry compartment for the bodies to be crushed.

The trough has, below the rotor, a grille for discharging the crushed material, to which the rotor is adjacent so as to form, between them, a gap through which the bodies to be crushed are entrained to crush them by way of the beating and shredding action of the hammers. In general, in the footing of the mill there are grooves for discharging the crushed material expelled from the trough through the grille and there is a compartment for expelling from the mill the parts that cannot be crushed.

Mills of this type have various adjustment fixtures, mainly for the trough, which must be preset as a function of the bodies to be crushed. The preparation of these fixtures currently requires:

- opening the mill,

- lifting the rotor, which often remains engaged and supported by one of the covers, in a position that lies above the trough,

- equipping the mill with the appropriate components on the part of personnel that substantially enters the mill, working inside the

trough.

Likewise, the replacement of internal plating of the mill, intended to protect its structure internally from the bodies to be crushed, such as the plating of the grille or the lateral plating of the trough, require the same procedure.

Therefore, this type of mill has the drawback of requiring the operators assigned to setting them up and maintaining them to work directly in the open mill, which is a tight space often made dangerous by toxic and/or flammable and possibly volatile substances that have percolated therein from bodies introduced to crush them, such as drums of paints or oils, engines, et cetera.

Cleaning the trough that accommodates the rotor is equally awkward, since it too requires the action of an operator who substantially works inside the mill. Further, the replacement of fixtures or the maintenance of the trough of currently known mills is onerous not only due to the described safety reasons but because the mill is kept motionless, and therefore unproductive, for the entire time required for maintenance and/or re-setup.

In the field of mills for crushing recyclable metallic materials, the need is therefore felt to have available mills that have a structure that allows to set them up more simply and rapidly than currently known mills. Disclosure of the Invention

The aim of the present invention is to meet the above-mentioned requirement, by providing a mill that allows a simpler and easier setup thereof than currently known mills.

Within this aim, an object of the invention is to provide a mill that allows to perform setup and maintenance activities more safely for operators with respect to currently known mills.

Another object of the invention is to provide a mill that is simple and can be manufactured with currently known technological means.

Another object of the invention is to provide a mill that is easy to use and can be manufactured with relatively low costs.

This aim and these and other objects, which will become better apparent hereinafter, are achieved by a mill, particularly for crushing bodies made of recyclable metallic materials and the like, which comprises a box- like shell provided internally with a trough for accommodating a roller-type rotor with crushing hammers, and with internally plated covers, which can be closed to cover said trough, said trough having at least one grille for discharging the crushed material, said rotor being arranged adjacent to said at least one grille in order to form a gap between them, said rotor being adapted to entrain bodies to be crushed through said gap in order to crush them by means of the beating and shredding action of said hammers, characterized in that it comprises a cradle-like structure which is provided with said trough for accommodating said rotor, said shell having a seat for accommodating said cradle-like structure, said cradle-like structure being reinsertable in said seat and reextractable from it in order to facilitate operations for setting up and maintaining said mill. Brief description of the drawings

Further characteristics and advantages of the invention will become better apparent from the following detailed description of a preferred but not exclusive embodiment of the mill according to the invention, illustrated by way of non-limiting example in the accompanying drawings, wherein:

Figure 1 is a schematic perspective view of the mill according to the invention; Figure 2 is a sectional view of a mill according to the invention, taken along a longitudinal plane;

Figure 3 is an exploded perspective view of the mill according to the invention;

Figure 4 is a partially exploded perspective view of a detail of the mill according to the invention.

Ways of carrying out the Invention

It is noted that anything found to be already known during the patenting process is understood not to be claimed and to be the subject of a disclaimer. With reference to the figures, the reference numeral 10 generally designates a mill, particularly for crushing bodies made of recyclable metallic materials and the like, comprising a box-like shell 1 1 which is provided internally with a trough 12 for accommodating a roller-type rotor 13 with crushing hammers 14, and with internally plated covers 15 and 16, which can be closed in order to cover the trough 12.

The trough 12 has at least one grille 17 for discharging the crushed material, advantageously a plurality of adjacent grilles 17.

The rotor 13 is adjacent to the grilles 17 in order to form between them a gap 18; it is further adapted to entrain bodies to be crushed through the gap 18 in order to crush them by means of the beating and shredding action of the hammers 14.

A special particularity of the mill 10 according to the invention is that it comprises a cradle-like structure 19, which is provided with the trough 12 for accommodating the rotor 13, the shell 11 having a seat 20 for accommodating the cradle-like structure 19.

The cradle-like structure 19 can be reinserted in the seat 20 and can be extracted again from it, in order to facilitate operations for fine-tuning and maintaining the mill.

Advantageously, the mill 10 comprises means for locking the cradle- like structure 19 in the seat 20, which preferably comprise wedges 21 that can be inserted between the cradle-like structure 19 and the seat 20 in order to lock the former in the latter.

Such locking means further comprise conveniently plates 22a and 22b for retaining the cradle-like structure 19 in the seat 20, the cradle-like structure 19 having shoulders 23a and 23b, which are arranged laterally with

respect to the trough 12 and against which the plates 22a and 22b can rest. The covers 15 and 16, when closed, conveniently abut against the plates 22a and 22b, interleaved between the shoulders 23a and 23b and the covers 15 and 16, in order to lock the cradle-like structure 19 in the seat 20. Advantageously, at least one first plate 22a of the plates 22a and 22b has a portion that cantilevers out from a corresponding first shoulder 23 a, toward the inside of the trough 12, such portion being shaped complementarily with respect to the lateral profile of the rotor 13, substantially so as to form a comb 24. The comb 24 has teeth 25 whose protruding ends conveniently skim perimetrically the rotor 13 when it is accommodated within the trough 12, the hammers 14 skimming the gap between the teeth 25, when the rotor 13 accommodated in the trough 12 rotates, in order to crush the bodies introduced in the mill, at least by crushing and shredding action on the part of the hammers 14, which upon rotation of the rotor 13 entrain such bodies between the teeth 25.

Seats 26 for accommodating elements for reinforcing the teeth 25 are provided advantageously at least on the first shoulder 23a.

Conveniently, such reinforcement elements are metallic parallelepipeds 27, which cantilever inside the trough 12 so as to match the teeth 25, said teeth 25 resting against the portion of the metallic parallelepiped 27 that cantilever within the trough 12.

The seats 26 are conveniently compartments 28 shaped like a parallelepiped, which are shaped complementarily with respect to the metallic parallelepipeds 27 in order to accommodate them and, at the region where the first plate 22a rests against the first shoulder 23 a, have an opening

29 for inserting the metallic parallelepipeds 27.

Locking inserts 27a are conveniently provided and can be inserted in the compartments 28 laterally with respect to the metallic parallelepipeds 27 in order to align them correctly with the teeth 25.

Advantageously, the opening 29 can be closed by the first plate 22a, which rests against the at least one first shoulder 23a, so as to cover the compartments 28, in order to retain the metallic parallelepipeds 27 within the compartments 28. Further, the cradle-like structure 19 conveniently has engagement means, for example hooks 30 for extracting it from the seat 20.

At least one first cover 15 of the covers 15 and 16 has means for engaging the rotor 13, conveniently brackets 31 provided with flanges which can be connected for example by way of pins to corresponding supporting brackets 32 connected to the rotor 13, in order to extract the rotor 13 from the trough 12, simultaneously with the opening of the first cover 15.

In practice it has been found that the invention achieves the proposed aim and objects, providing a mill that allows simpler and faster setup of currently known mills, since by extracting the cradle the operator is facilitated in working thereat by not being hindered by the other parts of the mill.

Further, a mill according to the invention allows to perform setup and maintenance activities more safely for operators with respect to currently known mills, since the extracted cradle can be washed and secured, particularly if it is soiled by toxic or flammable substances, such as solvents, oils or paints, introduced in the mill with their containers.

Further, a mill according to the invention allows to improve the productivity of such mill, since it can operate while a replacement cradle is set up for a subsequent process or placed in maintenance.

The minimal downtime of the mill for a new setup or for maintaining the crushing trough is in fact only the time required by the operations for extracting the cradle in use and inserting the replacement cradle, which is already set up, with a considerable advantage in terms of productivity as well as flexibility in production.

The invention thus conceived is susceptible of numerous modifications and variations, all of which are within the scope of the appended claims; all the details may further be replaced with other technically equivalent elements. In practice, the materials used, as well as the contingent shapes and dimensions, may be any according to requirements and to the state of the art.

The disclosures in Italian Patent Application No. PD2007A00031 1 from which this application claims priority are incorporated herein by reference.

Where technical features mentioned in any claim are followed by reference signs, those reference signs have been included for the sole purpose of increasing the intelligibility of the claims and accordingly such reference signs do not have any limiting effect on the interpretation of each element identified by way of example by such reference signs.