This invention relates to refuse collection systems and specifically to side-loading refuse collection vehicles with a pivoting double arm extendable carriage to reach out and engage a container alongside the vehicle, lift the container, and dump it into a hopper having an auger in the bottom to compact the refuse into the main body, and then to return the container to its original curbside position.
Side loading refuse collection vehicles which operate without manual handling of the refuse container are known, examples being shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,773,197 and 3,910,434 and in co-pending application Ser. No. 505,765. However, such prior art devices have used reciprocating plunger packers to transfer and compact the refuse. Reciprocating plungers have numerous disadvantages.
Thus, some plunger devices must be in the retracted position while the hopper is being loaded, and no load can be received while the plunger is compacting or retracting. Therefore, dumping and compacting cycles must be coordinaged and sequentially separated in those reciprocating plunger packers. Other plunger devices will take a load of refuse at any time, but the hopper must have enough capacity to accept an entire container load above the plunger, in the event a container is dumped while the plunger is near its fully extended position compacting or retracting.
Moreover, a reciprocating plunger is severely limited in the volume of refuse it can displace per square foot of plunger blade, since it operates only intermittently. Accordingly, the blade must be quite large in cross-section in order to have adequate capacity. That large cross-section reduces the compaction in the body, as the larger the cross-section of the compacting blade, for a given compacting force, the less compaction pressure.
The side-loading collection vehicles with reciprocating compactors have presented problems with design of lifting devices. The large area of the blade required that the container be lifted fairly high in order to get over the hopper and use a large part of the cross-section which might otherwise be used for loading. That has made pivoting lift arms impractical for side-loaders although some have been tried as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,790,011. Instead, the art has gone to vertical rail devices of the general type shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,910,434. Such devices have worked satisfactorily, but are specifically designed for use with reciprocating plunger packers, are slower and are of less mechanical efficiency. Further, side-loading devices have presented problems because material deposited in the hopper or body passes the compaction blade and accumulates behind it. It must be periodically removed in order to maintain the stroke and avoid damaging the mechanism. Also, reciprocating plungers tend to compact the material along the axis where it is loaded with little lateral movement. Consequently, bodies may be unevenly loaded by the compactor.
To the extend that augers have been used at all for displacing refuse into the body, they generally have been in manually loaded rear end loaders, which may be additionally provided with ancillary container lifting and dump means. Neither has taken advantage of the high output of the auger.