Holton Machinery

Luvata Oy

Martin James Smith

Brian Maddock

Franklin George Strong

Duncan Parkinson

A spiral winder is disclosed adapted to implement a new method for spirally winding a product of indefinite length, such as pipe, into a coil for packaging and/or transport to an end user. The spiral winder consists primarily of a rotor assembly () supporting a caster () such that product fed along the rotary axis to the caster () as the rotor () rotates is guided to the outlet from the caster to be deposited onto a pallet in the form of a planar spiral. By vertically indexing the pallet and reversing a radial motion of the caster outlet layers of planar spirals can be produced as a self supporting coil without the necessity of any internal mandrel or external retaining drum. By careful control of the stresses in the product as it passes to and from the caster () fragile product such as thin walled heat exchanger pipe can be coiled rapidly.

Spiral winder and a method of spirally winding

A continuous extrusion machine has a chassis () supporting a wheel () for rotation by a motor. An endless groove () extends around the periphery of the wheel (). A shoe () is mounted in the chassis () and has an enveloping surface shaped to closely envelop an arc of the wheel () periphery so that the groove () co-operates with the shoe () to form a passage. An abutment is mounted on the shoe () to extend into the passage at a downstream end. Tooling is mounted in the shoe () including a die such that a material such as aluminum or copper bar fed into the groove () is extruded through the die as a consequence of the energy transfer via friction from the rotating wheel (). A gap () exists between the enveloping surface and the wheel (). The gap () is used to provide the orifice of a sonic gap () sensor whereby the size of the gap () can be accurately and directly measured. The gap () size sensed is used to control the position of the shoe () in two directions mutually perpendicular to the rotary axis of the wheel () by adjusting support structures which support the shoe (). The size and shape of the gap () can thus be safely adjusted while the machine is extruding allowing the size and shape of the gap () to be adjusted for optimum performance.

Continuous extrusion using dynamic shoe positioning

A continuous extrusion machine has a chassis ( ) supporting a wheel ( ) for rotation by a motor. An endless groove ( ) extends around the periphery of the wheel ( ). A shoe ( ) is mounted in the chassis ( ) and has an enveloping surface shaped to closely envelop an arc of the wheel ( ) periphery so that the groove ( ) co-operates with the shoe ( ) to form a passage. An abutment is mounted on the shoe ( ) to extend into the passage at a downstream end. Tooling is mounted in the shoe ( ) including a die such that a material such as aluminium or copper bar fed into the groove ( ) is extruded through the die as a consequence of the energy transfer via friction from the rotating wheel ( ). A gap ( ) exists between the enveloping surface and the wheel ( ). The gap ( ) is used to provide the orifice of a sonic gap ( ) sensor whereby the size of the gap ( ) can be accurately and directly measured. The gap ( ) size sensed is used to control the position of the shoe ( ) in two directions mutually perpendicular to the rotary axis of the wheel ( ) by adjusting support structures which support the shoe ( ). The size and shape of the gap ( ) can thus be safely adjusted while the machine is extruding allowing the size and shape of the gap ( ) to be adjusted for optimum performance.

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Dorset, United Kingdom

Martin James Smith