Instant sand bagger

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a fragmentary side elevational view of the sandbagger of the invention applied to a dump truck body with the latter elevated to a suitable inclination for employing the invention to bag a load of sand or loose dirt carried by said truck body.

FIG. 2 is an elevational view of FIG. 1 taken from the opposite side thereof.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the present invention taken from the rear end thereof with this detached from a truck body and resting either on level ground or on an elevated platform such as may be provided for supporting the same while said unit is not in use.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the sandbagger of the invention as shown in FIG. 3 but is taken from the front thereof so as to give a view of the elements located inside the hopper of the sandbagger.

FIG. 5 is an enlarged detailed fragmentary longitudinal vertical sectional view of the invention which illustrates the mechanism for controlling the degree to which the tailgate of the truck is opened during the operation of the sandbagger.

FIG. 6 is a fragmentary detailed view illustrating the operation of mounting a bag on the bag holder of one of the chutes of the invention.

FIG. 7 is a rear end view of one of said bagging chutes and the gate provided for controlling the opening of this.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Referring specifically to the drawings, the invention comprises a detachable sandbagging unit 10 which is adapted to be associated with the tiltable dump body 11 of a standard dump truck 12. Such dump trucks are built in different standard sizes from 2 tons up to 14 tons in capacity and the units 10 of the invention are correspondingly built in different sizes so as to fit dump bodies 11 of said trucks. Each truck 12 has a wheeled chassis 13 including a structural steel frame 14 on which is provided a pivotal mount 15 for the rear end of the dump body 11. The dump body 11 includes a floor 16 supported by structural steel members 17 and sidewalls 18. The rear end of the dump body 11 is open and lugs 19 mounted on upper rear corners of sidewalls 18 pivotally support a tailgate 20 which is adapted to swing into a closed position in the rear end of the dump body 11 and be latched in this position by latches 25 engaging lugs 26 on the outer rear corners of tailgate 20. These latches may be manually disengaged to free the tailgate and thus permit this to swing open when the dump body 11 is tilted rearwardly.

The detachable sandbagging unit 10 includes a heavy sheet metal hopper 27 having a top plate 28, a bottom plate 29, sideplates 30 and 31, and a rear end plate 32. The front end of hopper 27 is open and is reinforced by a perimetral frame 33 formed of channel material welded to said hopper. A pair of beams 34 also made of channel material are welded transversely of the hopper to the top plate 28. Secured as by welding to the beams 34 near their opposite ends are plates 35 on which are mounted ratchet mechanisms 40 having ratchet wheels 41 which are provided on shafts 42 which are adapted to be manually rotated for winding up cables 43 which pass downwardly through holes provided in plates 35 and top plate 28 and terminate in hooks 44 which are adapted to be hooked into eyes 45 which are provided normally on tailgates 20 of a standard dump truck 12. Also provided and secured as by bolts 46 to inside faces of top plate 28 are three brackets 47 providing bearings for pivot pins 48 on each of which is pivotally mounted a lug 49 that is welded on the upper end of a heavy inverted U-shaped hook 50. Each of these hooks has a relatively long inner arm 51 and a substantially shorter outer arm 55. The hooks 50 are dimensioned to snugly fit downwardly over the upper edges of a tailgate 20 of a truck 12 in order to mount the sand bagging unit 10 of the invention on such a truck. This is normally done when the tailgate 20 is

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INSTANT SAND BAGGER

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a facility for producing very rapidly at any desired location bags of sand at a relatively high rate of speed and at relatively low cost. This facility offers a hitherto unavailable source of bagged sand at strategic points in the building of levees for flood and hurricane control and in the building of fortifications for use in warfare or building barricades for use in riot control.

The invention takes advantage of the fact that dump trucks have become standardized in construction and are universally used in the earth moving industries everywhere in the modern civilized world. These dump trucks are available for emergency use in the bagging of sand or dirt, but the means for converting these trucks to such use quickly when an emergency occurs has simply not heretofore been available. The present invention provides a unique facility for doing this. This facility comprises a sheet steel hopper which fits over and closes the 20 rear end portion of a standard dump truck body and has plural pivoted hooks which hook over the upper edge of the tailgate of said truck and cables with hooks which hook onto structural members of the truck body and are tightened by ratchet means on the hopper to securely hold the hopper in place on 25 the rear end of the truck body. The hopper has sufficient room in it to permit the tailgate when unlatched at its lower edge to be swung rearwardly around its pivotal mounting on the truck body to vary the degree which the tailgate is opened and thus vary the amount of sand or loose dirt in the truck body which 30 is allowed to pour past the tailgate into said hopper. Additional ratchet and cable means is provided on the hopper for controlling the degree of opening of the tailgate. The hopper is provided with plural sacking chutes which extend downwardly at suitable angles to cause loose material to gravitate 35 downwardly therethrough, these chutes having manually operable gates at their outer ends and rotatable sack supporting devices for rotatably supporting sacks beneath the chutes for receiving material discharged downwardly from the chutes when said gates are manually opened. The hopper also has a novel link chain fabric supported therein to form a screen for withholding from said chutes articles too large to pass therethrough into a sack. Said chain link screen also functions to break up large clods and many articles not too solid so that these will fragment and thus pass downwardly through the chutes and into the sack.

Also provided on said hopper is a gasoline motor driven vibrator means which sets up an intense vibration in the hopper which is transmitted to the truck body during the operation of the device to assure movement of all loose material in the truck body downwardly through the partly opened tailgate and into the sand bagging unit.

The truck body is lowered into horizontal position when empty and travels thus to the point where it receives a load of 55 sand or baggable dirt and while it travels with this to the scene where bags of sand are required. When arriving at this point, the truck body is rapidly tilted to a suitable angle for starting the sandbagging, the vibrator motor is started which sets up a vibration in the sandbagger and truck body and the operators ,50 at the sand delivery chutes start filling bags of sand from said chutes. Suitable means are of course provided on the hopper to hold bag tying equipment with which each bag is tied to close the neck thereof immediately after it has been filled and removed from the bag holder on one of said chutes. 6.5

The sandbagger of the invention may remain on a given dump truck while it makes a round trip between the scene of bagging and the place where a fresh supply of sand or dirt may be picked up so that on the return of the truck, the bagging operation may be resumed immediately. Where there is a 70 plentiful supply of dump trucks and only a few sandbaggers are available, means may readily be provided for quickly removing the sandbagger from a truck which the sandbagger has just been used to empty, and transferring this sandbagger to a loaded truck which has just arrived on the scene. Suitable 75 steps have been worked out for accomplishing this transfer of a sandbapver unit from one truck to another which will be ex3,602,402 closed and locked shut by latches 25 and the manner in which this is done will be described in the section on the operation of the invention.

Anchored on suitable eyes 56 welded to inner faces of the hopper 27 is a chain link fabric screen 57 with a fairly coarse mesh as shown in FIG. 4 which is provided for the purpose of transmitting energy to lumps coming against this screen in the course of the operation of the device and breaking up all such lumps which are subject to being fragmented by the operation of the invention and preventing the passage of lumps through said screen which are too large for use in a bagging operation.

To support the unit 10 when it is detached from a dump truck, the hopper 27 is provided with U-shaped legs 58 at its opposite ends, which legs are welded thereto so as to support the unit 10 as this appears in FIGS. 3 and 4 when the same is sitting on a horizontal surface. Each of the legs 58 is provided with a ratchet mechanism 59 which are similar to ratchet mechanisms 40 and are manually operable to separately wind up cables 60 which extend forwardly from these mechanisms through holes provided in the legs 58 and terminate in hooks 61. Welded to rear faces of legs 58 and extending horizontally therefrom are platform supporting brackets 62 from the ends of which are pivotally suspended posts 63 lower ends of which are welded to opposite ends of a light frame 63 of a bag supporting platform 64 which includes a screen 65 covering said frame and individually rotatable bag supporting discs 70. The discs 70 are individually pivotally mounted on frame 63 so that a bag of sand resting on one of these discs may be readily rotated manually to assist in the operation of tying said bag at the conclusion of a bagging operation.

A series of holes 71 are cut in the bottom plate 29 and rear end plate 32 of the hopper 27 as shown in FIG. 5 and each of these holes connects with a bag filling chute 72 having a semicylindrical outer end portion 73 and a semicylindrical gate 74 is pivotally mounted on said chute in concentric relation with the end portion 73 and has a lip 75 at its upper end which retains said gate in closed position when it is lowered as shown in FIG. 5. Each of these gates has a handle 76 by which it may be manually lifted and closed by the operator attending that particular chute. In the preferred embodiment of the invention there are four holes 71 and chutes 72 disposed across the back end of the unit 10. Suitable means such as impaling rods 77 are provided on the rear end plate 32 for keeping the operators attending the chutes 72 supplied with empty bags required in their sand bagging operation.

Each of the chutes 72 has a bag holding device 78 mounted thereon which includes a rear arcuate bar 79 having short rods at its ends which are welded to the chute and has a deeply scored arcuate external face which fits within and against a portion of the neck of a bag 80 and a complimentary deeply scored arcuate front bar 85 which fits within and against the opposite portion of the neck of bag 80. Bar 85 is fixed on a pair of rods 86 which slide in bearing brackets 87 welded to the chute 72 and extend alongside the chute to be also guided near their rear ends in brackets 88 mounted on said chute. Rods 86 have set collars 89 and expansive coil springs 90 between brackets 87 and 88 so that said springs constantly bias rods 86 and arcuate front bar 85 forwardly into an expansive relation with the fixed arcuate rear bar 79. Rods 86 also have set collars 91 which are located behind brackets 88 and limit the forward movement of arcuate front bar 85 when this is not employed in conjunction with bar 79 in supporting a bag 80 on said bag holding device 78.

The sandbagging unit 10 of the invention is provided with its own independent power driven vibrator mechanism 92 which includes a small internal combustion engine unit 93 which is mounted on a wedge-shaped base 94 which is fixed to upper edges of channel beams 34 so that the motor 93 is upright when the unit 10 rests on a horizontal surface as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4. Mounted on the top plate 28 are bearings 95 in which a shaft 100 journals, this shaft having a small pulley 101 which is belt-driven from the motor 93 and a larger pulley 102 which is connected by a belt 103 to a pulley 104 mounted on shaft 105 which journals in bearings 106 which are rigidly mounted on the bottom plate 29 of the hopper 27. The bearings 106 are, in certain instances, provided in pairs and the shaft 105 has fixed thereon between each such adjacent pair of bearings 106 an eccentric vibrator element 107. At the opposite end of shaft 105 from pulley 104, this shaft has fixed thereon a pulley 109 which is connected by a belt 110 to a pulley 115 which is rotatably stud mounted on the right hopper side plate 31. This pulley has mounted thereon a vibrator element 116 the weight of which is eccentrically disposed so as to set up a vibration when it is rotated. Just inside the pulley 104 another pulley is mounted on shaft 105 which connects through a belt 118 with a stud shaft mounted pulley 119 provided on left side plate 30, this pulley carrying a vibrator element 120. Through the belt transmission means just described, vibrator elements 116 and 120 are rotated at the same time and at approximately the same speed as vibrator elements 107 which are mounted directly upon vibrator shaft 105. Inasmuch as there is a direct connection between the motor 93 and the shaft 105 all of these vibrators are rotated whenever the motor 93 is running. Welded to the channel beams 34 are steel rods bent in loops to form lifting eyes 121 for use in lifting the unit 10 by a crane whenever this service is available. Secured as by welding to the top plate 28 of the hopper 27 are small sheet metal cabinets 122 for holding supplies of filamentary bag tying elements for use in closing bags filled by the unit 10. One of the cabinets 122 provides a background for a plumb indicating needle 123 which indicates to the operator the angle at which the unit 10 is tilted from the position in which the unit is shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 and which may be referred to as a vertical position of the unit because the motor 93 is at that time vertically positioned. The needle 123, being always hanging in vertical position, indicates the angle which the unit 10 departs from vertical. This angle is important because internal combustion motors of the type used for the motor 93 will operate safely only within a certain narrow range of angular inclination of the motor away from vertical position. As the angular relation of the unit 10 relative to vertical varies when this unit is applied to a dump body 11 and the latter is tilted backwardly from horizontal, the plumb needle 123 constantly keeps the operator on guard lest the backward inclination of the dump truck body be greater or less than that angular range within which the motor 93 may safely operate.

Each of the sideplates 30 and 31 of the hopper 27 are provided with a series of horizontal holes 124. These holes are provided for the selective location in corresponding pairs of these holes of bull pins 125 which are provided to prevent the hopper from permitting the dump body 11 of the truck 12 to extend too far into the hopper for proper operation of the latter.

OPERATION

As the use of dump trucks for a sandbagging operation happens only occasionally, it is necessary to make provision for the rapid attachment of the unit 10 to a dump truck and the ready removal of said unit from said truck when the need for a sandbagging operation is temporarily terminated. To facilitate the application and removal of a unit 10, it is suggested that a platform be built in every storage yard from which the dump trucks involved operate, for storing one or more of the units 10. This platform should be built in proportion to the height of the respective truck beds that will be employed in connection with the sandbagger units. These units will then be stored resting on the platform where the open ends of the inverted Ushaped hooks 50 are positioned approximately 2 inches below the upper edge of the tailgate of said truck. The truck operator will thus be able to back his truck, whether or not filled with material to be bagged, right up to the open ends of said hooks so that the latter will be contacted by the tailgate of the truck. Once this is done, the truck driver will start tilting the dump body 11 of his truck rearwardly causing the upper edge of the

3,602 tailgate to swing downwardly until the tailgate slides under the shorter outer arms 55 of the U-shaped hooks 50 and rest against the longer inner arms 51 of said hooks. The driver will then reverse the rotation of the dump body 11 to cause the tailgate to rise, sliding upwardly in the inverted U-shaped hooks 50. When the tailgate reaches the upper ends of the Ushaped hooks 50, (which occurs before the dump body 11 has returned to horizontal position) and the downward rocking of the dump body is continued by the driver, the rising tailgate 20 will lift the said bagging unit 10 from the platform on which it rests causing this unit to be suspended from said tailgate whereupon the driver drives away from over the platform and the following steps are taken to securely fasten the unit 10 to the truck 12. The driver (or the operator of the unit 10) then releases the latches 25 on the truck to release the tailgate 20 and allow this to swing rearwardly freely inside of the hopper 27. At this time the operator rotates the two top ratchet mechanisms 40 to slightly open the tailgate while allowing room on each side of the hopper to insert the adjustable bull pins 125 in suitable pairs of holes 124 in each of the hopper sideplates 30 and 31 so as to prevent the truck body being drawn too far into the hopper 27. The texture of the material being used will determine the angle to which the tailgate should be thus drawn up into the hopper. If the material is fine sand, only a small opening will be required at the bottom of the tailgate. If it is large clods of hard earth, the opening should be slightly larger, but not too far, as the tailgate itself will act as a clod-buster when the vibrators on the unit 10 are placed in operation. This same adjustment of the tailgate that is used for large clods is also applicable when handling slick gumbo clay.

The next step in securing the unit 10 to dump body 11 is to place hooks 61 over one of the structural steel members 17 of the floor 16 of dump body 11, as shown in FIG. 5, and then tighten up on cables 60 by actuating the ratchet mechanisms 59. The combining of the dump body 11 and sandbagging unit 10 in one operative apparatus has now been completed and the dump truck 12 embodying this combination is now ready to travel anywhere either with a full load or an empty bed. Assuming that the truck 12 has travelled (with the dump body 11 horizontal) in order to reach a stricken disaster area and that it arrives there with the dump body 11 filled with sand or other baggable material, it is first necessary, before starting the internal combustion motor 93 to power the vibrator mechanism 92, to tilt the dump body 11 rearwardly substantially as this is shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 before starting the motor 93. Because the motor 93 is very sensitive to the angle with which it is tilted reference first need be made by the operator to the pendulum plumb needle 123 (see FIG. 1) so as to be certain that the motor may be safely operated. This precaution having been taken, the motor 93 is started so as to rapidly rotate shaft 105 and the vibrator elements 107, 116 and 120, driven thereby, so as to set up a vigorous vibration within the unit 10 and said body.

The apparatus, including the detachable unit 10 and dump truck 12, is now in readiness to proceed with the withdrawal of sand or other material contained in the dump body through the four chutes 72 by the four operators normally supplied as a crew for operating the same. The bag holding device 78 of each chute is actuated by the chute operator by hooking the open mouth of a bag 80 over the arcuate front bar 85 of the device and pressing rearwardly to compress springs 90 until the bag neck may be pulled up to the rear arcuate bar 79 after which the operator releases the bag and the bag is held in place by the reaction of the compressed springs 90. The operator then raises the gate 74 to permit a flow of material downwardly into the bag 80 until the bag is filled to the desired extent. It being unnecessary in a sand bagging operation to weigh the amount of sand placed in each bag to a very close tolerance, each operator is able with a little practice to fill each bag adequately while leaving a sufficient loose portion at the upper end of the bag for tying the same.

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The rotary bag supporting disc 70 for each chute 72 permits bags filled from said chute to be manually rotated to twist the necks of the bags for application of a tie wire thereto prior to removing the bag neck from the bag holding device 78. This simplifies the neck tying step and the bag may then be readily detached from the bag holding device 78 and swung to one side as another bag filling operation is started by that operator.

Whenever a desired quantity of bags of sand are produced at any stop by the truck 12, and it is time to move on to another station for producing sandbags, the motor 93 is shut off before lowering the dump body 11 to horizontal position for travelling. This precaution is necessary to protect internal combustion motor 93 from damage for the reasons aforestated.

In any equipment yard provided with a travelling crane, such a crane may be used to lift one of the sandbagging units 10 of the invention whenever it is desired to apply this to or remove it from the tailgate of a dump truck. It is for this use that the lifting eyes 121 are provided this being done by inserting hooks of a lifting unit 10 by the crane, either to lift it off of a dump truck or to swing it into proper relation with the tailgate of a dump truck and then lowering the same so that the tailgate of the truck will be slidably received in the inverted hooks 50 of the bagging unit.

It is to be noted that the cabinet 122 on which the plumb needle 123 is swingably mounted is provided with a spot 130. This spot is positioned so that when the plumb needle 123 overlies this spot, or is slightly to the left of it, it indicates that the motor 93 is tilted at an angle where it may be run safely and efficiently indefinitely. The angle thus indicated by spot 130 is attained only by tilting the dump body 11 upwardly and rearwardly to the position in which it is shown in Figures 1 and 2. When the plumb needle 123 hangs to the right of spot 130, the dump body 11 has not been tilted rearwardly far enough for the motor 93 to be safely operated. The plumb needle 123 thus provides a device by which the operator of the unit 10 may always check the operating position of this unit prior to starting the motor 93 so as to be certain that the latter at all times is being safely operated.

As above-mentioned, the bag supporting discs 70 are rotatably supported on the platform 64. This is accomplished by providing a frame crossbar 131 just under the middle of each of the discs 70, each such bar having a hole at a midpoint therein which pivotally receives a pin 132 centrally provided on that disc. If desired, crossbars 131 may be provided with ball bearings for receiving the pins 132 so as to give antifriction support for the discs 70.

End portions of the perimetral hopper frame 33 have welded thereto upper and lower link chains 133 and 134. Each of the upper chains 133 is a safety chain and has a hook 135 which is adapted to be hooked into an eye 136 welded on the upper rear corner of the dump body 11 and each lower link chain 134 has provided on its extremity a ring 137 which is welded to the adjacent bull pin 125 to prevent this pin being lost. The purpose of providing chains 133 is to assure that the hopper 27 shall not be accidentally dropped from its attachment to the rear end of the dump body 11 during the operation of applying said hopper to said body or removing said hopper therefrom.

It is to be noted in FIGS. 1 and 2, that the belts employed for rotating vibrator elements 116 and 120 which are mounted on the opposite ends of the hopper 27 are provided with manual belt tightening devices 139 for keeping these belts tight.

Secured as by welding to the U-shaped legs 58 -eyes the hopper 27 just below the open mouth of said hopper, are “D”eyes 140 into which hooks 61 are adapted to be hooked when the unit 10 is applied to a dump body 11 when there is no member found on this body which the hooks 61 can hook onto, but where there is a shaft or the like on the body around which the cables 60 may be looped with enough length of cable remaining for the hooks 61 to be returned and hooked into the “D”-eyes 140. Thus the “D”-eyes 140 provide an alternate mode of utilizing cables 60 and hooks 61 for securing the lower portion of the unit 10 to the truck dump body 11.

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