TRANSPORT AND PROCESSING ROLLER FOR A HARVESTER

Abstract

A conveying and conditioning roller for a harvesting machine is provided on the surface thereof with teeth in the form of toothed strips which extend over the longitudinal extent of the roller and in each case have a leading tooth flank and a trailing tooth flank as well as a tooth edge. The roller is provided with wear protection zones continuously or in partial regions, the wear resistance thereof being greater than that of the material of the base body of the roller. The base body has a tooth structure determining the shape of the teeth and tooth wear protection zones are formed on the trailing tooth flanks by a high energy radiation process, substantially maintaining the geometry of the tooth structure, roller wear protection zones being formed together thereby on the rollers, as well as a method for producing such a roller wear protection zone.

Claims

1-15. (canceled)

16. A conveying and conditioning roller for a harvesting machine, the roller comprising: a base body having a surface formed with teeth being toothed strips that extend over a longitudinal extent of the roller, each of said teeth having a leading tooth flank, a trailing tooth flank, and a tooth edge; wear protection zones formed on the roller continuously or in partial regions, said wear protection zones having a wear resistance being greater than a wear resistance of a material of said base body of the roller; said base body having a tooth structure determining a shape of said teeth and said teeth having tooth wear protection zones formed on said trailing tooth flanks by a high energy radiation method, substantially maintaining a geometry of the tooth structure, said tooth wear protection zones also forming roller wear protection zones on the roller.

17. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 16, wherein the wear resistance of said wear protection zone is at least 10% greater than the wear resistance of the material of said base body.

18. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 16, wherein said wear protection zone is produced by converting the structure of the material of said base body without adding material in a hardening or remelting process.

19. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 16, wherein said wear resistance zone is produced by applying or incorporating an additional material by way of a process selected from the group consisting of coating, build-up welding, dispersing, alloying and melting.

20. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 19, wherein said wear protection zone comprises hard material particles.

21. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 16, wherein said wear protection zone is a hard material coating applied by a build-up welding process.

22. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 21, wherein said hard material coating has a thickness of between 0.05 and 0.5 mm.

23. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 22, wherein the thickness of said hard material coating lies between 0.1 and 0.4 mm.

24. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 21, wherein said hard material coating contains hard material particles embedded in a matrix material and having a size of between 40 and 250 m.

25. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 24, wherein said matrix material contains a material selected from the group consisting of nickel, cobalt and a nickel-chromium-silicon composite, and said hard material particles are selected from the group consisting of carbides, nitrides and oxides.

26. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 24, wherein said hard material particles are tungsten carbide particles.

27. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 24, wherein said hard material particles are arranged so as to protrude from a rapidly hardened said matrix material so as to form a rough surface.

28. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 16, wherein said base body is pre-hardened or retrospectively hardened at least in the region of said teeth.

29. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 28, wherein said base body is hardened by inductive hardening.

30. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 16, wherein said roller wear protection zones are alternatively applied on said base body to the following regions: a. over an entire said roller surface; or b. only in a region of a greatest wear; or c. over the entire said roller surface and additionally in the regions of the greatest wear; or d. over the entire said roller surface and additionally in the regions of the greatest wear; or e. in a spiral-shaped extent over the entire said roller surface.

31. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 30, wherein said roller wear protection zones are applied to the following regions: only on the roller ends; or on the roller ends, in a reinforced embodiment, or on the roller ends and/or a spiral-shaped region between the roller ends, in a reinforced embodiment

32. The conveying and conditioning roller according to claim 16, wherein said wear protection coating is arranged so as to encompass said tooth edge.

33. A method for producing a conveying and conditioning roller for a harvesting machine, the method comprising: providing a base body and forming teeth on a surface thereof, the teeth having tooth edges and tooth flanks, and a given tooth structure determining a shape of the teeth; subsequently forming a wear protection zone on the roller which is continuous or divided into partial zones, the wear protection zone having a wear resistance that is greater than a wear resistance of a material of the base body; wherein the base body is first produced with the tooth structure and the wear protection zone is subsequently formed by a high energy radiation process, while substantially maintaining a geometry of the tooth structure.

34. A roller pair assembly, comprising: two conveying and conditioning rollers according to claim 16 in a paired arrangement for processing harvested crop, said two rollers being driven to rotate in opposite directions and disposed to form a gap there between, permitting a breaking-up of the harvested crop; and wherein said two rollers are driven to rotate in opposite directions and at mutually different rotational speeds.

35. The assembly according to claim 29, wherein said rollers have roller wear protection zones which surround said rollers in opposite directions.

Description

[0025] In order to illustrate the invention more clearly, it is described once again with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0026] FIG. 1 shows schematically two conveying and conditioning rollers, the harvested crop being guided therethrough.

[0027] FIGS. 2a to 2c show schematically in each case a partial cross section through a conveying and conditioning roller with differently formed wear protection zones on the teeth.

[0028] FIGS. 3, 4, and 5 show in each case two conveying and conditioning rollers in a perspective view.

[0029] The harvested crop 6 is guided through and conditioned by the two conveying and conditioning rollers 1.

[0030] The conveying and conditioning rollers 1 shown in FIG. 1 have the same diameter which is generally 150 to 350 mm. The length of the conveying and conditioning rollers 1 is generally 500 to 1000 mm. The rotational axes 2 of the two conveying and conditioning rollers 1 extend in parallel. Each conveying and conditioning roller 1 comprises teeth 3 on the outer surface, the tooth edges 4 thereof extending parallel or obliquely to the longitudinal and rotational axis 2 of the conveying and conditioning roller 1. The teeth 3 may be equal-sided or saw tooth-shaped in cross section. The rollers 1 rotate in opposing directions, wherein one of the rollers 1, in FIG. 1 the upper roller, rotates at a greater rotational speed as is indicated by the longer arrow 5a in comparison with the arrow 5b. The harvested crop 6 is guided through the friction gap 7 between the rollers 1, wherein the teeth 3 of the rollers 1 ensure the transport of the harvested crop 6 and the breaking-up of the grains in the harvested crop 6.

[0031] As seen in FIG. 1, between the encasing ends 8 of the two rollers 1 which extend through the tooth edges 4 of the rollers 1 is a spacing d which should be slightly smaller than the grain size of the harvested crop 6 but nevertheless should not be so small that a blockage of the harvested crop 6 is caused. For maize, for example, the spacing d should be between 2 and 3 mm. For smaller grains of whole plants, the spacing d has to be correspondingly smaller in order to ensure the breaking-up of the grains. The wear which occurs during operation causes the rounding of the tooth edges 4. An increase in the spacing d of just one millimeter results in a portion of the grain not being broken up, even if this is only the case in partial longitudinal sections of the roller 1, and the quality of the fodder/basic material is reduced. Therefore, it is essential to keep the spacing d in an optimal range. In the case of uniform wear over the length of the rollers 1, by altering the spacing of the rotational axes 2 of the two conveying and conditioning rollers 1 the spacing d may be re-adjusted but the tooth edges 4 should also not be too blunt and in most cases during operation the teeth 3 of the conveying and conditioning rollers 1 are also subjected to variable stresses over the length, whereby in the conveying and conditioning rollers 1 of the prior art this leads to a variable level of wear over the length of the rollers 1.

[0032] FIGS. 2a, 2b and 2c illustrate, on three teeth 3a, 3b and 3c, different tooth wear protection zones 9a, 9b and 9c on the teeth which have been produced by different high energy radiation methods. The teeth 3a, 3b and 3c have in the example shown the shape of an equilateral triangle with leading flanks 11a, 11b and 11c and trailing flanks 12a, 12b, 12c in the rotational direction 5. The teeth 3a, 3b and 3c may also be saw tooth-shaped in cross section. The base body of the conveying and conditioning roller 1 is a cylinder having the teeth 3 on its periphery and both the cylinder and the teeth 3 consist of the material of the base body. The base body may, for example, be cast or forged and preferably obtains its final shape by mechanical treatment. According to the invention, wear protection zones 9a, 9b, 9c of the teeth are produced by a high energy radiation method on the surface of the teeth 3a, 3b and 3c, at least in the region of its tooth edges 4a, 4b, 4c. In this case, the geometry of the tooth structure of the teeth 3a, 3b, 3c is not altered or is only insignificantly altered. In the tooth 3a, a wear protection zone 9a of the tooth 3a which has been produced without the addition of material is shown schematically. In this case, in the uppermost layer of the trailing flank 12a of the tooth 3a the material of the base body has been altered, for example by a hardening or remelting method.

[0033] In the teeth 3b and 3c, however, the production of the wear protection zones 9b, 9c on the teeth 3b, 3c is carried out by applying an additional material by means of a high energy radiation method. In this case, the tooth 3b has a wear protection zone 9b on the trailing flank 12b along the tooth edge 4b. The tooth 3c exhibits a wear protection zone 9c in the form of a coating which primarily extends over the trailing flank 12c of the tooth 3c and encompasses the tooth edge 4c. If the teeth 3a, 3b and 3c bear the wear protection zone 9a, 9b and 9c only or primarily on the trailing flank, without the wear protection zone 9a, 9b and 9c this leads to more rapid wear on the trailing flank 12a, 12b and 12c due to the lower wear resistance of the material of the base body in comparison with the wear resistance of the wear protection zone 9a, 9b and 9c and this results in a self-sharpening effect 13.

[0034] Preferably, the rollers will have only one of the variants of the teeth provided with a wear protection zone. However, any variants are also possible on a roller. As mentioned above, the teeth may also be configured to be saw tooth-shaped.

[0035] FIG. 3 shows two conveying and conditioning rollers 1 with partial and/or reinforced roller wear protection zones 9e at the ends of the rollers 1 which may be provided with teeth having the tooth wear protection zones 9a, 9b and 9c in FIG. 2. According to the invention, the generally greater stress at the ends of the conveying and conditioning rollers 1 may be counteracted by a reinforced configuration of the wear protection zones 9e at the ends of the rollers 1 as indicated in FIG. 3. Thus the portions of the rollers 1 subjected to the greatest stress wear more slowly, the spacing d between the rollers 1 remains constant and the service life of the rollers 1 is increased.

[0036] FIG. 4 also shows two conveying and conditioning rollers 1, where the wear protection zones 9e at the roller ends are configured as in FIG. 4 and/or FIG. 2 and additionally a spiral-shaped and/or reinforced roller wear protection zone 9f is applied between these wear protection zones. By the spiral-shaped wear protection zone 9f of the opposing rollers 1 or the reinforcement in this zone 9f a slight height difference is produced on the tooth edges 4 which causes an axial shearing action 10 and improves the degree of conditioning of the harvested crop 6.

[0037] The wear protection zones 9 on the teeth 3 are generally produced by high energy radiation methods and namely either without introducing additional materials in a hardening or remelting method or by incorporating or applying additional materials in a coating, build-up welding, dispersing, alloying or melting method. In particular, the wear protection zone 9 may be implemented by a hard material coating and may contain, for example, hard material particles which are embedded in a matrix material and which have a size of between 40 and 250 m, wherein the matrix material preferably contains nickel, cobalt or a nickel-chromium-silicon composite, and the hard material particles are preferably carbide, nitride or oxide, particularly preferably tungsten carbide.

[0038] As an alternative to the disclosed hardening or hard material coating of the trailing tooth flanks 12 it may also be advantageous to harden or hard-coat the leading tooth flanks 11 but with lower wear resistance than the trailing flanks 12 in order to achieve the self-sharpening effect.

[0039] FIG. 5 shows a roller arrangement in which the roller wear protection zones 9f in each case surround the outer cylindrical surface of the rollers in a spiral-shaped manner. The greater wear of the unhardened zones between the roller wear protection zones leads to a shearing action on the harvested crop which, as a result, is effectively broken up and distributed equally over the rollers.

TABLE-US-00001 List of reference numerals 1 Conditioning roller 2 Rotational axes 3 Teeth 4 Tooth edges 5a Arrow (longer) 5b Arrow (shorter) 6 Harvested crop 7 Friction gap 8 Encasing end 9 Wear protection zone 10 Shearing action 11 Leading flanks 12 Trailing flanks 13 Self-sharpening effect d Spacing