Automatic transport system for green tires between forming and vulcanizing processes

Claim 1

In a tire manufacturing installation, in which different kinds of tires are manufactured through a forming process making use of a plurality of forming machines and a subsequent vulcanizing process making use of a plurality of vulcanizing machines, an automatic transport system for green tires between said forming and vulcanizing processes; characterized in that said system comprises pallets each adapted to be charged with four or more formed green tires and to be used for transporting them as one unit, a temporary storage interposed between a forming machine group and a vulcanizing machine group for temporarily storing said pallets at predetermined locations, forming side unmanned transport trucks for making circulatory transport between said forming machine group and said temporary storage with said pallet loaded thereon, vulcanizing side unmanned transport trucks for making circulatory transport between said temporary storage and said vulcanizing machine group with said pallet loaded thereon, carry-out means associated with the respective forming machines for charging green tires into the pallet and loading said pallet onto the forming side unmanned transport truck, carry-in means associated with the respective vulcanizing machines for unloading the pallet from the vulcanizing side unmanned transport truck and discharging green tires from the pallet, carry-in means associated with the temporary storage for carrying in green tires from forming side unmanned transport truck, carry-out means associated with the temporary storage for carrying out green tires onto the vulcanizing side unmanned transport truck, and control means for controlling the respective unmanned transport truck, the respective carry-in and carry-out means and the temporary storage; and in that said control means controls traveling of said forming side unmanned transport trucks in response to truck demands issued from the respective forming machines, controls traveling of said vulcanizing side unmanned transport trucks in response to truck demands issued from the respective vulcanizing machines, independently performs transport control for the green tires on the forming side and transport control for the green tires on the vulcanizing sides with each other.