JPH0672349B2 - Ball-shaped structure manufacturing equipment - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial field of application] The present invention relates to a ball shape in which fibers that can be used as a contact material for water treatment, a material for fish farming, a filter material, etc. are three-dimensionally uniformly entangled. And a method for manufacturing the structured structure.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, woven fabrics, knitted fabrics, braids, non-woven fabrics and the like made of synthetic fibers are known as contact materials used for purification and filtration of water.

In addition, in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 1-35278, a structure in which a bundle of fiber yarns with crimping is formed, but the bundle is bound tightly by squeezing it almost at the center and rolled into a ball shape, is contacted for wastewater treatment. An example of use as a material is disclosed. As a method of rolling the tightly bound bundle having a shape similar to that shown in FIG. 4 into a ball shape, a mechanical method such as rolling the bundle on a belt conveyor has been conventionally used.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention]

However, the above-mentioned woven fabric, knitted fabric, braid and non-woven fabric are
When they are used as a contact material, they have a drawback in that sludge formation and frog removal are planar, and they are inferior to a ball-shaped structure having a three-dimensional structure in terms of performance.

Further, since the mechanically formed structure is mechanical, the ball-rolling force works strongly on the surface, and even if it becomes a ball-shaped external shape, the uniform three-dimensional structure of the fibers up to the internal structure is obtained. The entanglement was not enough. Therefore, there is a problem in that the shape is collapsed during use or the water treatment performance is deteriorated.

In view of the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art, the present invention is suitable as a contact material for water treatment in which fibers are evenly three-dimensionally entangled to the inside, and is strong, and manufactures a ball-shaped structure of stable quality. A method and an apparatus therefor are provided.

[Means for Solving the Problems]

The present invention provides a binding means for binding a bundle of a plurality of crimpable fibers aligned with each other using a binding material, a gear means for holding and rotating the bundle at a binding portion, and the bundle being held. An apparatus for manufacturing a ball-shaped structure, comprising cutting means for cutting a body in cooperation with gear means and heat treatment means by a rotary kiln for heat-treating a short bundle of fiber bundles produced by cutting.

The fibers that can be used in the device of the present invention may be natural fibers or synthetic fibers as long as they have crimps or potentially crimps. By way of example, fibers of vinyl chloride, vinylidene chloride, polyamide, polyester, urethane or polypropylene-based synthetic resins can be used. In particular, vinylidene chloride-based resin fibers are preferable because they have excellent durability and sludge adsorption. Therefore, the crimped fibers of the present invention may be not only crimped fibers that have already been crimped, but also latent crimped fibers that develop crimps in the heat treatment step. It is also possible to develop crimps elsewhere in the manufacturing process using latently crimped fibers.

Further, the fiber of the present invention may be a long fiber or a short fiber, and may be a processed yarn or a non-processed yarn. As the textured yarn, crimped textured yarn, wooly textured yarn and the like are preferable, and in the case of short fiber, it can be spun and used. The cross section of the fiber is not limited to a circular shape, and may have an oval shape, a rectangular shape, a triangular shape, a hollow shape, or the like.

The crimp ratio of the fiber is preferably 10 to 300%, more preferably 2
The range is 0 to 200%. If the crimp ratio is less than 10%, the crimp is too small to obtain sufficient entanglement between the fibers. On the contrary, if the crimp ratio exceeds 300%, the fibers become too coiled and the fiber density does not increase, resulting in a ball-shaped structure. Not favorable for formation. Further, in addition to crimping, it is preferable to use a fiber having a characteristic of being heat-shrinkable in the heat treatment step, since the surface portion is particularly tightly contracted by the shrinkage to form a structure having a more uniform fiber density. In this case, the heat shrinkage rate of the fiber is 5 to 50.
The range is%. Further, as the crimpable fiber, it is generally suitable that the crimping degree is in the range of 1 to 25 times / inch.

The bundle formed by the device of the present invention has a thickness of 0.1 to 1000.
100 to 100,000 denier crimpable fibers are lined up,
Alternatively, it may be spun. The bundle may be a bundle of fibers of the same quality, or may be formed by mixing fibers of different materials. In the case of crimped fibers, it is preferable to apply tension to the bundle so that the crimped fibers are substantially straight. Because the tension applied to the bundle is such that when the tension is released by cutting the bundle, the fibers are intertwined intricately by rebounding, and the bundle of the above-mentioned bundles of fibers becomes ball-shaped. Because it approaches. As a guide for the tension applied to the bundle,
The range is 1 to 500 mg / denier.

Next, as the binding material used in the present invention, in addition to a string or string-like binding fixture made of metal such as aluminum and iron or plastic, binding may be performed by an adhesive or heat fixing. A known binding means can be adopted. A high frequency heating means and an ultrasonic heating means are suitable as the binding means in the case of heat fixing. The fixed interval for binding the bundles with the binding material should be appropriately determined so that a ball-shaped structure having a given size is formed, but the diameter is 0.5 by the method and apparatus of the present invention. Ball-shaped structures of ~ 30 cm are easily manufactured.

The heat treatment of the bundle of fiber bundles is performed at a temperature close to or lower than the processing temperature at the time of crimping for crimped fibers and at a temperature at which the above crimp ratio can be achieved for potential crimped fibers. Is good. The heat treatment method employs a heat treatment means using a rotary kiln.

That is, in the present invention, since the crimpable fiber is used, the fiber whose flexibility is increased by heat is deformed and rounded into a ball shape in the process of forming the bundled fiber bundle. What happens is that the heat treatment with a rotary kiln causes all or part of the crimps to develop in the latent crimped fibers, and in crimped fibers the elongation of the crimps is restored due to the tension during the binding and cutting processes. This is because a force in a contracting direction for rolling into a ball shape is rapidly given. And in the heat-crimpable fiber, this force is further strengthened. Therefore, it is surprising that a structure having excellent properties as described below could be formed.

[Action]

The ball-shaped structure manufacturing apparatus according to the present invention forms a bundle-shaped fiber bundle into a ball shape by using the rapidly shrinking force of the fiber by the heat treatment in the rotary kiln, so that the fiber density is uniform over the entire structure, It is possible to provide a ball-shaped structure suitable as a contact material in which fibers extend intricately intertwined with a radiating material from a binding material located at the center.

Further, the obtained ball-shaped structure has good sphericity and is excellent in strength.

〔Example〕

 Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

1 is a schematic front view showing the method and apparatus of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the V-shaped gear of FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the heat treatment means of FIG. 1, and FIG. 4 is a short bundle. FIG. 5 shows the ball-shaped structure of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, A is a long bundle of crimpable fibers, which is pulled by the V-shaped gear 6 and enters the binding means 3 via the guide roller 1 and the pinch roller 2. In the binding means 3, the above-mentioned bundle A is fixedly spaced, for example, 3 to 30.
Bundling material B is sequentially bound at appropriate intervals between cm to form a binding portion.

Next, the bundled material A bound by the binding material B is further taken up by the V-shaped gear 6 via the guide rollers 4 and 5.
The V-shaped gear 6 can be driven to rotate in the direction shown, and has a plurality of teeth 7. Each tooth 7 is provided with a V-shaped recess 8 at the center of its tip as shown in detail in FIG. ing. The V-shaped concave portion 8 includes a U-shaped or trough-shaped one.

The V-shaped gear 6 rotates continuously or intermittently so that the binding portion or the binding material B that binds the bundle A is hooked on the V-shaped recess 8 of the tooth and the bundle A is pulled. The distance between the V-shaped concave portions 8 of the teeth 7 adjacent to each other is preferably larger than the distance between the binding materials B. By changing the distance and / or the distance, the tension applied to the bundle A can be adjusted.

Reference numeral 10 in the drawing denotes a rotary blade attached to the cutting means 9.
Moves forward in conjunction with the rotation of the V-shaped gear 6 and moves horizontally so as to be inserted between the teeth 7 and cuts the bundle A at approximately the middle between the binding portions. . When the cutting is completed, the rotary blade 10 returns to the original position.

As a result, a bundled fiber bundle C as shown in FIG. 4 in which short fiber bundles are arranged on the left and right with the bundle B as the center is produced.
The bundled fiber bundle C has a shape closer to a sphere as the tension at the time of cutting is stronger. 11 and 12 are a belt conveyor and a guide for guiding the bundled fiber bundle C to the next heat treatment step.

As shown in FIG. 3, the heat treatment means 13 has a structure similar to a rotary kiln, and comprises a slightly inclined porous cylinder 17 rotated by a motor 14, a blower 18, a heater 19, a duct 20, and the like. The hot air blown by the blower 18 and warmed by the heater 19 is provided as a heat source for heat treatment through the duct 20 and the holes on the cylinder 17. The bundled fiber bundle C supplied into the perforated cylinder 17 through the opening of the backflow prevention plate 15 is a cylinder.
Efficiently warmed by the hot air from the holes of 17 and the rotation of the cylinder 17 and the action of the weir 16 provided on the cylinder 17 cause it to spirally roll in the cylinder 17 while shrinking into a round shape and backflowing. It is stored in the receiving tank 21 from the discharge port on the opposite side of the prevention plate 15.

[Test Example-1] A long-fiber yarn made of vinylidene chloride-based synthetic resin with a crimping rate of 100%, a 70-denier 24-filament 80-ply 3 gauge, that is, a 5760 multi-thread bundle (convergent fineness: 403200 denier). A ball-shaped structure was prepared using the apparatus shown in FIG. The heat shrinkage of the fiber used was 15%.

First, through the binding means 3, an aluminum wire having a diameter of 2.5 mm was sequentially clipped at intervals of 6 cm. Next, while applying tension to the V-shaped gear 6 so that the fibers can be crimped and become substantially straight, the middle of the clip was cut to obtain a bundled fiber bundle C of the present invention.

Then, the bundled fiber bundle C was supplied to the heat treatment means 13 and heat-treated at a temperature of 90 to 110 ° C. to obtain a ball-shaped structure of the present invention. The average residence time of the bundle of fiber bundles C in the heat treatment means 13 was about 60 seconds.

The obtained ball-shaped structure had a uniform fiber density even to the inside, and had perfect sphericity and strength. Furthermore, the evaluation as a water treatment contact material was also preferable.

[Test Example-2] The bundle-like fiber bundle C prepared in Test Example-1 was placed in boiling water.
When heat treatment operation was performed for 10 minutes, test example-
An excellent ball-shaped structure similar to that of Example 1 was obtained.

〔The invention's effect〕

According to the ball-shaped structure manufacturing apparatus of the present invention, since the crimpable fiber is used, the fiber is rapidly shrunk in a short time during the process in which the bundled fiber bundle is formed into a ball shape by the heat treatment by the rotary kiln. While being rolled. Therefore,
Be sure to form a ball-shaped structure that has a uniform fiber density throughout the entire structure, especially in the center, and that is suitable as a contact material that extends outward from the binding material in which the fibers are located at the center and radially entangle with the fibers. You can

Further, since this ball-shaped structure has good sphericity and is excellent in strength, it becomes the closest packing when it is filled in the treatment tank, and the contact efficiency in combination with the uniformity of the fiber density, There is also an effect that the water permeability is excellent.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic front view showing the device of the present invention. 2 is a perspective view of the V-shaped gear of FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the heat treatment means of FIG. 1, FIG. 4 is a short bundle of fiber bundles, and FIG. 5 is obtained by the device of the present invention. It is a ball-shaped structure. 3: Bundling device, 6: V-shaped gear, 8: V-shaped recess, 9: Cutting means, 1
0: rotary blade, 13: heat treatment means.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-60-215854 (JP, A) Actual exploitation Sho-48-104694 (JP, U)

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A binding means for binding a bundle formed by aligning a large number of crimpable fibers with a binding material, a gear means for holding and rotating the bundle at the binding portion, and the bundle held. An apparatus for producing a ball-shaped structure, comprising cutting means for cutting a shaped body in association with gear means, and heat treatment means using a rotary kiln for heat-treating a short bundle of fiber bundles produced by cutting.