Milled Uniform Travel Surface
Cutting elements may be used to degrade hard surfaces in roadway surface milling, earthworking, mining, or other in situ disintegration processes. A plurality of such cutting elements may be disposed on a movable base and thereby brought into engagement with a degradable surface. Groupings of the plurality of cutting elements may comprise unique cutting surface geometries. Various groupings may be arranged on the movable base such that the degradable surface forms a cross-sectional topography resembling a waveform comprising truncated peaks.
The present invention relates to the field of driven cutter devices for use in roadway surface milling, earthworking, mining, or other in situ disintegration of hard materials. More particularly, the present invention is directed to cutter devices of various geometries and groupings of such cutter devices.
Roadway surfaces may become damaged over time thus requiring periodic maintenance. Milling may be performed to degrade a layer of the roadway surface to recondition it for travel or prepare it for resurfacing. It may be desirable to leave the roadway surface as smooth as possible after milling to ease travel or optimize adhesion of resurfacing materials. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,639,180 to Sulosky, et al., which is incorporated herein for all that it contains, describes a drum assembly for the milling of a roadway substrate to a fine texture. The design of the drum assembly permits the spacing between adjacent points of impingement to be 0.100 inches, and even less than 0.100 inches. The result is a substantially smooth roadway surface with little road noise.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,325,219 to Guillon, et al., which is incorporated herein for all that it contains, describes how adjacent picks on known cutting machines may follow each other at such relatively great distances that the stresses developed in the material by one of the picks has no influence on the conditions of working of the following picks. To overcome this issue, Guillon discloses distributing picks such that the tracks left by the picks are sufficiently close, such that a ridge becomes sufficiently fragile to be broken-up by the passage of the pick making the next adjacent cut, to provide in the vicinity a substantially plane surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,621,871 to Salani, which is incorporated herein for all that it contains, also describes how, when surface finish is important in road planning, more cutting teeth having a smaller spacing are desired.
Thus, increases in the smoothness produced by roadway surface milling operations and other in situ disintegration procedures are desired.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONA movable base, such as a rotatable drum, continuous chain or other such driven mass known in the art, may be disposed on a translatable vehicle such as a road milling, mining, or trenching machine for the in situ degradation of a hard surface. The movable base may comprise a plurality of cutting elements disposed thereon. The cutting elements may be detachable from the movable base. The cutting elements may also be interchangeable with other cutting elements.
Groupings of the plurality of cutting elements may comprise unique cutting surface geometries. For example, a first grouping of cutting elements may comprise conical, cylindrical or dome shaped cutting surface geometries while a second grouping of cutting elements may comprise flat shaped cutting surface geometries. The flat shaped cutting surface geometries may be formed as semicircular cylinders.
In some embodiments, cutting elements from the first grouping may be alternated with cutting elements from the second grouping when viewed tangentially. This arrangement may be accomplished by alternating cutting elements from the first grouping with cutting elements from the second grouping in a series or disposing cutting elements from the first grouping in a series parallel to a series of cutting elements from the second grouping. Either way, the cutting elements of each grouping may be arranged such that at least two of the cutting elements from the first grouping precede a cutting element from the second grouping in a direction of motion of the movable base. Additionally, the first grouping may be disposed at a greater distance from the movable base than the second grouping.
Such an arrangement may form a degradable surface comprising a cross-sectional topography resembling a waveform comprising truncated peaks. In various embodiments, the waveform may be triangular or sinusoidal. The waveform may also be uniform or comprise valleys with varied spacing there between.
Referring now to the figures,
The cutting elements 320 may be disposed around an exterior of the rotatable drum 303 in several series. Each series may comprise a plurality of cutting elements 320 each offset a certain angular rotation and axial distance from an adjacent cutting element such as to form a spiral around the exterior of the rotatable drum 303. In the embodiment shown, the first grouping 329 of cutting elements 320 form a first series 328 that runs parallel to a second series 331 formed by the second grouping 332 of cutting elements 320.
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Whereas the present invention has been described in particular relation to the drawings attached hereto, it should be understood that other and further modifications apart from those shown or suggested herein, may be made within the scope and spirit of the present invention.
Claims
1. A degradation platform, comprising:
- a plurality of cutting elements disposed on a movable base; and
- wherein groupings of the plurality of cutting elements comprise unique cutting surface geometries.
2. The degradation platform of claim 1, wherein:
- a first grouping of the plurality of cutting elements comprises conical shaped cutting surface geometries; and
- a second grouping of the plurality of cutting elements comprises flat shaped cutting surface geometries.
3. The degradation platform of claim 2, wherein the flat shaped cutting surface geometries are formed as semicircular cylinders.
4. The degradation platform of claim 2, wherein cutting elements from the first grouping are alternated with cutting elements from the second grouping in a series.
5. The degradation platform of claim 2, wherein cutting elements from the first grouping are in a series parallel to a series of cutting elements from the second grouping.
6. The degradation platform of claim 2, wherein cutting elements from the first grouping are alternated with cutting elements from the second grouping when viewed tangentially.
7. The degradation platform of claim 2, wherein the first grouping is disposed at a greater distance from the movable base than the second grouping.
8. The degradation platform of claim 2, wherein at least two cutting elements from the first grouping precede a cutting element from the second grouping in a direction of motion of the movable base.
9. The degradation platform of claim 1, wherein:
- a first grouping of the plurality of cutting elements comprises cylindrical shaped cutting surface geometries; and
- a second grouping of the plurality of cutting elements comprises flat shaped cutting surface geometries.
10. The degradation platform of claim 1, wherein:
- a first grouping of the plurality of cutting elements comprises dome shaped cutting surface geometries; and
- a second grouping of the plurality of cutting elements comprises flat shaped cutting surface geometries.
11. The degradation platform of claim 1, wherein the movable base is a rotatable drum.
12. The degradation platform of claim 1, wherein the movable base is a continuous chain.
13. The degradation platform of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of cutting elements is detachable from the movable base.
14. The degradation platform of claim 1, wherein the groupings are interchangeable.
15. The degradation platform of claim 1, wherein the movable base is disposed on a translatable vehicle.
16. A degradable surface, comprising a cross-sectional topography resembling a waveform comprising truncated peaks.
17. The degradable surface of claim 16, wherein the waveform comprising truncated peaks is uniform.
18. The degradable surface of claim 16, wherein the waveform comprising truncated peaks is triangular.
19. The degradable surface of claim 16, wherein the waveform comprising truncated peaks is sinusoidal.
20. The degradable surface of claim 16, wherein the cross-sectional topography further comprises valleys wherein spacing between the valleys varies.
Type: Application
Filed: Jul 15, 2013
Publication Date: Jan 15, 2015
Inventors: David R. Hall (Provo, UT), Davido L. Hyer (Provo, UT)
Application Number: 13/941,721
International Classification: E01C 11/00 (20060101); E02F 5/06 (20060101); E01C 23/088 (20060101);