Timber drying and storage bin

Technical Field

The invention relates to a timber drying and storage bin comprising an exterior shell with a roof at the top side.

Background Art

Chopped timber is stored in cellars or attics, stacked alongside walls under a roof overhang, piled on the ground or stacked in heaps, or alternatively in specially built timber storages and sheds. Such methods have a number of disadvantages described below.

If wet timber is stacked alongside a wall in several rows under a roof overhang, there is no air circulation and the timber grows moldy. One row of timber is not stable and therefore it must be secured against falling.

A free stacked pile of timber covered with a sheet does not allow for air circulation and rain water may drip into the wood mass.

Storing of timber in cellars and attics does not guarantee air circulation and it is not recommended from the perspective of fire safety and the risk of infestation of the wooden structures by woodworms.

Stacking timber into heaps is labor-intensive and does not guarantee air circulation in the center of the heap, where the timber does not dry out. When timber is removed from the top of the heap; the top of the heap is not regularly covered and rain gets into the whole profile of the heap.

Building a permanent timber shed is costly. If the shed has closed walls, there is insufficient air circulation again and if the shed is full, the timber is prone to molding.

The goal of the invention is to create such a structure of a bin for storage and drying of fuel timber that would not only be rigid and self-contained with a roof against rain, but at the same time airy and well-ventilated as well as easy and inexpensive to manufacture.

Disclosure of Invention

The above goal is solved by a timber drying and storage bin, comprising of an exterior shell with a roof on top in accordance with the invention the principle of which is that the exterior shell is made of a self-contained wire mesh.

In an advantageous embodiment the exterior shell is equipped with at least one opening for filling/withdrawing timber, possibly fitted with a door.

In another advantageous embodiment the exterior shell has a circular ground plan and the roof comprises trapezoidal segments forming the shell of a truncated pyramid with the upper opening covered with a metal conical shell.

In a beneficial embodiment the joints are designed in such a way that at least two metal trapezoidal segments at adjacent sides are bent to the shape of a flat spiral with one thread while the mirror-image spirals of the adjacent segments are locked together to create the joint. .

In another beneficial embodiment the joints are designed in such a way that at least two metal trapezoidal segments at adjacent sides are bent to the shape of a flat spiral with one thread while the mirror-image spirals of the adjacent segments are mutually fixed by a metal strip inserted between the end-bends of the mirror- image spirals.

Brief Description of Drawings

A timber drying and storage bin based on the invention will be described in a more

detailed way with the use of a particular sample embodiment presented schematically in the attached drawings, where individual figures depict:

Fig. 1 - Timber drying and storage bin - side view

Fig. 2 - The storage bin shown in Fig. 1 - top view

Fig. 3 - Detail of the filling/withdrawing opening door

Fig. 4 - Unfinished roof before the connection of the last segment

Fig. 5 - Installation procedure of a joint of the roof segments

Fig. 6 - Procedure of making the joint for the connection of the last roof segment

Modes for Carrying Out the Invention

The timber drying and storage bin according to the embodiment of Fig. 1 comprises of a self supporting cylindrical exterior shell 1 of a wire mesh 3, covered by a metal roof 2_at the top.

The semi-finished product for the exterior shell 1 is a rectangular wire mesh 3 with the dimensions of 2000 x 6000 mm, made of steel of standard No. 10370, with the wire diameter of 5 mm and the mesh size of 100 x 100 mm. The mesh 3 is rolled and welded to make a self-contained cylindrical exterior shell 1 with the diameter of 1900 mm and height of 2000 mm.

The exterior shell 1 has two square filling/withdrawing openings 4, closed by a simple door 5 (see Fig. 3), made of the same wire mesh as the exterior shell 1.

At the bottom and top end, the exterior shell i is terminated by a horizontal wire for anchoring the storage bin to the ground and for anchoring the roof 2 to the shell I.

The roof 2 according to Fig. 2 is made of twelve trapezoidal segments 6 made of galvanized metal sheet with the thickness of 0.55 mm. The interconnected segments 6 create the shell of a truncated pyramid the upper opening of which is covered by a conical metal shell 7.

Except for the last segment 6, all the roof 2_segments 6 (see Fig. 4) are connected with a joint the design of which is shown in Fig. 5. At the adjacent sides the segments 6 are bent to create a flat spiral 8 with one thread, while the mirror- image spirals 8 of the adjacent segments 6 are interlocked after being slid into each other.

The last roof 2_segment 6 can not be connected to the remaining segments 6 by sliding, so the joint is slightly modified as shown in Fig. 6. The last trapezoidal segment 6 and the near sides of adjacent segments 6 are also bent to create a flat spiral 8 with one thread, but the mirror-image spirals 8 of the adjacent segments 6 are mutually fixed by a metal strip 9, inserted between the end bends of the mirror-image spirals 8.

After connecting of all the segments 6 the upper opening is covered with a riveted metal conical shell 7.

The finished roof 2 is fixed to the exterior shell I with the use of any common fixation method.

The timber drying and storage bin according to the proposed invention can be free-standing or can be anchored with the use of known anchoring elements.