Rotary cutter apparatus

Claim 1

In a rotary cutting apparatus comprising a cutting chamber; a generally cylindrical rotor mounted within said cutting chamber for rotation about its longitudinal axis, said rotor having a vertical center plane and a horizontal center plane and at least one longitudinal fly knife peripherally fixed to said rotor, at least one bed knife having first and second terminal ends and intersecting the horizontal center plane of the rotor at a shear angle and situated adjacent said rotor for cooperative cutting action with said fly knife as said rotor is rotated about its longitudinal axis to effect size reduction of material fed into said chamber, wherein the improvement is comprised in the fly and bed knives being relatively positioned at least at one point in the rotation of the rotor such the bed and fly knives cross and said fly knife intersects said horizontal center plane of the rotor from an opposite direction from said bed knife at an angle equal to said shear angle and said fly and bed knives are further approximately positioned according to the formula C=R-√R.sup.2 -(tangent S×L).sup.2 wherein C is the difference between the peripendicular lateral distances between the first end on the bed knife and the vertical center plane of the rotor and the second end on the bed knife and the vertical center plane of the rotor, R is the distance between the longitudinal axis of the rotor and the terminal edge of the fly knife, S is the shear angle betwen the bed knife and the horizontal center plane of rotor, L is the length of the rotor and C, R and L are in a common linear dimension, such that uniform fly knife to bed knife clearance is maintained across the face of the rotor.