Article alignment and conveying apparatus

Claim 1

Article alignment and conveying apparatus for conveying elongated articles past a work station in which the articles are aligned in single file in a plurality of transversely spaced lanes and then moved longitudinally past the work station, in which the articles have a prescribed maximum cross-sectional dimension, comprising: an article feed means upstream of the work station for successively feeding the articles; an elongated belt conveyor extending in the longitudinal direction from the article feed means past the work station; said conveyor having a plurality of movable elongated narrow belts extending from the article feed means past the work station in continuous engaging parallel relationship forming a resultant wide movable continuous article conveying surface for receiving the articles from the discharge section and moving the articles single file past the work station in the plurality of transversely spaced lanes; said belt conveyor having a first bed section for slidably supporting the plurality of narrow belts adjacent the article feed means in which the first bed section has a plurality of laterally spaced longitudinal grooves defining valleys and adjacent ridges to slidably elevate respective narrow belts on the ridges to corrugate the wide movable continuous article conveying surface as the narrow belts move over the first bed section with the belts in the valleys defining the lanes and receiving the articles from the article feed means and longitudinally aligning the articles in the lanes between the narrow belts on the ridges; said valleys having a defined valley width and said ridges having a defined ridge width; said belt conveyor having a second bed section at the work station for slidably supporting the narrow belts downstream of the first bed section with the wide movable article conveying surface being relatively flat; and drive means operatively connected to the elongated narrow belts for slidably moving the narrow belts in unison over the first and second bed sections with the wide article conveying surface changing from a corrugated contour to a substantially flat contour to initially successively receive the articles from the article feed means and form the articles into single files on the narrow belts in the valleys confined by the moving narrow belts on the ridges to register the articles in the lanes and to prevent transverse movement of the articles as the articles are moved toward the work station and for moving the articles in the lanes past the work station with the contour of the wide article transport surface substantially flat.