Nippon Sheet Glass Company, Limited

Atsushi Okai

Kazuo Yamada

Masuhide Kajii

Yasuhiro Fuchigami

A conveyor apparatus for feeding a sheet material such as a sheet of glass in a heating furnace includes an array of feed rolls for feeding the sheet material in a feeding direction, the feed rolls having respective axes extending in a direction transverse to the feeding direction. A motor is disposed on a side of the array of feed rolls. An array of drive support rollers is disposed on the side of the array of feed rolls and operatively connected to the motor for rotation thereby. Each of the drive support rollers commonly supports adjacent two of the feed rolls for rotating the adjacent two feed rolls.

Conveyor apparatus for horizontally feeding sheet material

There is disclosed an improved apparatus for locally heating selected portions of glass sheets conveyed through a tunnel type furnace on a roller conveyor. The apparatus comprises two localized heaters positioned within the furnace, supporting members for supporting the localized heaters, at least one portion of each of the supporting members extending into the furnace, and a drive mechanism positioned externally of the furnace and adapted to reciprocatingly moving the localized heaters in a direction transversely to the direction of conveyance of the glass sheets in a substantially synchronized relation to movement of the conveyed glass sheets so that the selected portions of the glass sheets are locally heated by the localized heaters and can thereafter be bent, at a bending station, to a much smaller radius of curvature than the rest of the glass sheet.

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Osaka, Japan

Atsushi Okai