FIELD OF THE INVENTION:
The present invention relates to mechanism and methods to minimize the noise produced while handling the finished tubes at various sequence of operations that are performed on equipments during cold drawing process in the tube manufacturing unit. Further, this invention also relates to subsequent automatic packaging of prescribed set of tubes without human operator involvement.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
During cold mill process many operations are involved like pointing, drawing, Hydro test, NDT testing, oiling and straightening, packing in converting a billet into a tube form. In all these areas noise levels generated are above threshold levels which lead to high sound pollution in the work environment. Occupational Health Services department of BHEL Trichy has measured noise levels and found that noise levels are greater than threshold level (95dbA). When human beings are exposed to such kind of high sound pollution over a long period of time, it leads to health hazards like hearing related problems and ultimately to permanent deafness. As per statutory requirements for industrial areas, noise levels are targeted to be below 70-75dbA for few hours of working per day. The bay is covered with asbestos roof tiles, and since it is closed, the noise is reverberated causing stress to the employees working over there. Though they

are using protective safety equipment like ear plugs in the ears, but still they face health issues over prolonged time as the noise levels measured is more than 90dBA levels much above the industrial levels of 70dBA required. The noise is generated mainly due to one tube falling on other tubes during collection in trough after each operation. The height of fall varies between 1 to 1.5m at various operational equipments mentioned earlier. There are 315kN, 800kN, 50T and 60T drawing machines used for generally tubes of sizes 21.3mm to 82.5mm OD and lengths varying between 5 to 15m are handled. The operational speed i.e. amount of time taken to complete operations at each one of the working platforms on one tube and ready to fall into collection trough varies between 1 to 3 minute. Each lot consist of 40 to 70 tubes to be collected before a hoist is used to bundle and tied up with metallic ropes and carried away to other bay or storage yard.
The current invention is an automatic mechanism to collect the tubes and drop the tubes at lesser height so that the noise produced during the tube operations can be reduced. In this invention a method is disclosed which serves purpose of reducing the noise generated during tube manufacturing process by eliminating the source of the noise generation.
The existing methods with conventional knowledge of avoiding noise during the aforesaid tube operations are like placing a rubber mat on the floor where the

tubes are falling or lay husk on the floor. These methods may be able to support if there is only one tube to handle while falling after operations. But in the existing scenario, these tubes are operated batch-wise, meaning that each time certain numbers of tubes are to be handled one by one after production operations. During the batch operation of tubes, with the above mentioned approaches, first tube may not produce much noise as it is falling directly on a rubber mat or husk but subsequent tubes falling would produce noise as if there is no rubber mat or husk, as these tubes touch each other and produce reverberating noise.
In abstract, US3018991A discloses an invention relates to an improved damping pad for isolating a source of vibration from the surroundings, and more particularly to a damping pad including a glass fiber pack with a rigid slab thereon and a wall there around which is resistant to the passage of air. In abstract, US3860086 discloses an invention relates to improved apparatus reducing the transmitted sound level of a machine to an operator. More specifically, this invention is a noise reduction enclosure for a can bodymaker. In abstract, EP0737620A1 discloses an invention relates to an integral protective and sound-insulating chamber for automatic machines in general and especially for automatic sweet and chocolate wrapping machines and other automatic packaging machines.

In abstract, US5081818A discloses an invention concerns a method to package sections and also a rotary packaging machine that employs the method. To be more exact, the method concerns a packaging machine that comprises layer overturning means including arms able to rotate about an axis. In abstract, US4278377A discloses an invention relates to a method of and apparatus for stacking elongated bars. More particularly this invention concerns the stacking of channel bars whose widths lie within a range below a predetermined maximum bar width.
In abstract, CN202962576U invention is an utility model, discloses a noise reduction lining plate for a ball grinder. The noise reduction lining plate comprises a rubber layer and a manganese-steel lining plate, wherein the rubber layer is arranged at the bottom of the manganese-steel lining plate. The noise reduction lining plate is simple in structure and convenient to use; and noise produced by impact between a steel ball and the lining plate can be effectively closed in a cavity of the ball grinder, so that an effect of reducing noise is
achieved.
In abstract, CN2432458Y is an utility model belongs to silencer, more precisely, a ball mill noise protection device for power plant ball mills Noise Reduction. The utility model relates to a sound insulation device, particularly a sound insulation protector for a steel ball coal mill, which is suitable for the sound insulation and

noise reduction of the steel ball coal mill in a heat (thermal) power plant. The sound insulation protector for the steel ball coal mill is composed of skeletons of channel steels and sound insulation cover plates, wherein, the skeletons of the channel steels are formed by connection of bolts. Both sides of the skeleton of the channel steel are provided with doors, and the sound insulation cover plate is arranged on the skeleton of the channel steel. The sound insulation cover plate is composed of sound insulation plates, glass fiber feels, damping layers, and steel plates.
Unlike the invention disclosed in the current specifications, none of the above mentioned prior art methods or processes or systems or mechanisms address the drawbacks mentioned herein, or used method or process or system disclosed for reducing the noise produced similar to the method, process, system disclosed herein. In the prior art, most of the noise reduction mechanisms have enclosures made around the operating machines. Further, none of the inventions related to handling of tubes during various operations involved in tube manufacturing to mitigate the source of noise generation itself. The disclosed mechanism works to mitigate the source of the noise generation itself, instead of suppressing after the noise generated. In Addition to noise mitigation, the disclosed mechanism helps in arranging the tubes to package them into a compact form, which none of the prior art methods have disclosed.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
The main objective of the invention is to reduce noise at the source which is generated while handling tubes that are operated on any of the sequence of operations involved in the tube manufacturing process and after completing tubes, packing the finished tubes without manual intervention. The invention is to introduce a controlled mechanism which can handle multiple tubes operated and can be retrofitted on any of the operational specific equipments like pointing machines, drawing machines, straitening machines, oiling areas, storage areas, NDT areas, Hydro testing areas etc. that are needed in the tube manufacturing unit and specially suitable for the process step which is finishing sequence of the tube manufacturing i.e. oiling area.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Invention is related to a method that handles finished tubes from various intermediate stage operations of cold drawing and reduces the noise produced by tubes. The mechanism has the provision to sense the tube(s) coming in contact with mechanism or released from the mechanism by sensing the change in the payload, employing load cells in the mechanism. Initially the mechanism would be waiting by maintaining with the platform height at the place, where the finished tube can reach into it with a natural gravitational force. When the sensor

of mechanism senses that predefined number of tubes have fallen on the mechanism, the controller of the mechanism activates downward motion to be able to accommodate next set of finished tubes. This process repeats for making seven layers as shown in Figure 2. The height of total fall of the tube from work bench to trough would be reduced by introduction of this mechanism, thereby leading to noise reduction. Once the seven layers of tubes are placed on the mechanism, the finished tubes are moved to prescribed place, and the controller of the mechanism activates motion to reach its initial position and wait to receive tubes further from manufacturing process.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS
Fig1: Sketch depicting the arrangement of one of the tube production
operations with platform and tubes collecting trough.
Fig.2: Depiction of Layer wise tube arrangement for compact packing of
tubes
Fig.3: Schematic diagram of the new method, where trough itself will
move up and down based on the number of tubes (proportional to weight) that are collected on the trough, (a) Isometric view of the collecting trough at its empty state, (b) Isometric view of the

collecting trough after collecting one operated tube, (c) Side view of the collecting trough when on operated tube is being collected, (d) Side view of the collecting trough when second layer of tubes are being collected; where it can also be seen that the sliding portion of the trough has moved down by an appropriate amount proportional to the weight of tubes in it, such that distance of top portion of tubes is always constant from the drawing bench platform.
Fig.4: Sequence of steps involved in packing the finished tubes
automatically.
Fig.5: Schematic diagram of load cell for sensing the weight and
activating the pneumatic platform for appropriate movement to perform activities.
Fig.6: (a) Mechanism showing the tube being filled for the last two layers
in the compact tube packing process, (b) After the tubes are filled as per the arrangement it is rotated by 90° on either one of the sides to be able to place in floor stably.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION
Figure 1 represents an arrangement of one of the various operations involved in the tube production process that generally have to be performed on a tube before it is converted from a billet to final finished tube product. Figure 1 represents main components like head-stock (1), Incoming tube receiving area (2), operated tube receiving trough (3) and platform (4) through which the tube is fed to head stock. When these operations are performed in the existing setup, dropping of tubes from working platform to the trough (3) leads to a heavy noise which pollutes the work environment. To address this issue of noise generated due these operations, a noise reduction mechanism is proposed in current invention.
Figure 3 (a) shows the mechanism in the invention consists a "V" shaped piston kind of arrangement (5) inside the trough (6) which can move up and down with the help of pneumatically controlled cylinder (7). To sense the load change that happens due to the tubes coming-in and going-out from the "V" shaped arrangement (5), at least one load cell is placed in position where it can sense the entire load in the "V" shaped mechanism. Based on the length of the tubes being operated, minimum two or more such mechanisms would be placed to support the tubes at equidistance. These mechanisms are placed at a certain

height such that it is at a height just less than the height of the working platform which will help to receive tube with gravitation effect; reduced height of tube falling helps in reducing the noise that is generated.
Figure 2 depicts an example of layer by layer arrangement of tubes with one particular diameter size. The invention disclosed herein will help in achieving the tubes arrangement shown in Figure 2. Figure 3(a) and (b) show the sequence of the operations and positions such that the total mechanism receives tubes smoothly, layer by layer as shown in Figure 2. Figure 3(c) and (d) show the isometric representation of the platform at its empty state and when it is holding one tube is in the trough respectively (6).
Figure 4 shows the steps involved in achieving the arrangement of tube shown in Figure 2. Figure 5 visualizes the mechanism augmentation change for achieving the layer-by-layer of tube to finally pack the tubes in a compact manner. Figure 3 (a) and (b) in conjunction with Figure 4 show the detailed schematic description of a method and explain method in the current invention. Figure 3 (a) and (b) depicts on how the tube moves from the operating area into the trough when the "V" shaped piston (5) in the trough is empty and one layer is already filled respectively. The trough will be at the same position till it collects some predetermined number of tubes for that layer (12)(13). Once the predetermined number of tubes is collected, the "V" shaped piston in the trough senses the

number of tubes reached for the current layer using the counter in the controller (14). Then controller sends control action to move "V" shaped piston downwards by predetermined distance proportional to the height from the initial distance from working platform (14). Figure 3(b) shows the position of the trough after moving downward by the predetermined amount and set ready for accepting to collect new set of tubes till it reaches the second set of predetermined number of tubes. This sensing and predetermined weights and thereby number of tubes will continue till the trough is filled or in other words the final set of number of tubes are collected by the trough and ready to move these tubes for next operations (12), (13) and (14).
For arranging the tubes for compact packing, Figure 6 (a) shows an extra arrangement with an extending arm (16), which will help for laying the tubes into last two layers of the tube package. After satisfying the number of layer criteria in the operation (14), the controller executes the operation (15) and gives a visual alert to the operator to move package for the next stage of operations.
While the invention has been described in detail in connection with only a limited number of embodiments, it should be readily understood that the invention is not limited to such disclosed embodiments. Rather, the invention can be modified to incorporate any number of variations, alterations, substitutions or equivalent

arrangements not heretofore described, but which are commensurate with the spirit and scope of the invention. Additionally, while various embodiments of the invention have been described, it is to be under stood that aspects of the invention may include only some of the described embodiments. Accordingly, the invention is not to be seen as limited by the foregoing description, but is only limited by the scope of the appended claims.

WE CLAIM
1. A automated mechanism in its single form to mitigate the source of noise
generation in manufacturing sites wherein comprises:
"V" shaped piston (5) to carry the load;
a pneumatic actuated cylinder (7) engaged the said piston (5);
a pneumatic system means that move the "V" shaped piston in upward and downward direction;
at least one sensing means embedded to sense the weight change;
a trough that is encased with claim 1(a) and 1(d) which receives operated load wherein the mechanism is positioned at a height just less than the height of the working platform.
2. The mechanism as claimed in claim 1, wherein
plurality of such mechanisms are positioned equidistantly along the length of the tubes.
3. The mechanism as claimed in claim 1, wherein the sensing means may be a
load cell.

4. A method to mitigate the source of noise generation in tubes manufacturing
sites wherein comprises the steps carried out by a mechanism of carrying the
load in "V" shaped pistons which is engaged with a pneumatic system to
move the load in downward direction from the operating area into the trough,
wherein the mechanism is positioned at a height less than the height of the working platform;
sensing the load change and subsequently when the counter of the controller means reaches a predetermined count, the trough is sent to the next stage of packaging.
5. A method for arranging the tubes for compact packing, wherein an extra
arrangement with an extending arm (16), lays the tubes into last two layers
of the package, on satisfying the number of layer criteria in the operation
(14), which moves operation (15) and gives a visual alert to the operator to
move package for the next stage of operations.