Abstract: Tube wiping apparatus includes upper and lower reversely canted pinch rollers spaced along respective upper and lower sides of a first path along which the tube is moved and rotated by pairs of the upper and lower pinch rollers located at infeed and exit ends of the first path. The wiping apparatus also includes a toweling drive roll having an exterior surface engaging a toweling roll and carrying a continuous web of toweling along a second path, and a toweling pinch roll having an exterior surface pinching the toweling web between it and the drive roll for causing movement of the toweling web along the second path, across the first path and into contact with the tube so as to perform wiping of the exterior surface of the tube by the toweling.

Abstract: A pellet collating system includes a tray positioning station located adjacent a pellet collating line with a tray transfer robot located therebetween. The tray positioning station has mobile carts lodged thereat, some supporting pellet supply trays and others supporting pellet storage trays. Pellets on one supply tray and later placed on one storage tray are of the same enrichment. Pellet enrichments on some trays are different from on others. The collating line includes pellet input, work and output stations arranged in tandem. The robot is operable to transfer supply and storage trays one at a time to and from the positioning station and the respective input and output stations. An input sweep head is operable for sweeping pellets onto the work station from a supply tray on the input station. A gripping and measuring head is operable for measuring a desired length of pellets on the work station and then separating the measured desired length of pellets from the remaining pellets, if any.

Abstract: A pellet collating system includes a tray positioning station located adjacent a pellet collating line with a tray transfer robot located therebetween. The tray positioning station has mobile carts lodged thereat, some supporting pellet supply trays and others supporting pellet storage trays. Pellets on one supply tray and later placed on one storage tray are of the same enrichment. Pellet enrichments on some trays are different from on others. The collating line includes pellet input, work and output stations arranged in tandem. The robot is operable to transfer supply and storage trays one at a time to and from the positioning station and the respective input and output stations. An input sweep head is operable for sweeping pellets onto the work station from a supply tray on the input station. A gripping and measuring head is operable for measuring a desired length of pellets on the work station and then separating the measured desired length of pellets from the remaining pellets, if any.