METHOD OF PROCESSING TREES AND INTEGRATED PLANT FOR PROCESSING WHOLE TREES

摘要

ABSTRACTA method of processing trees and integrated plantfor processing whole trees. In the integrated plant thereis a tree collecting and storage area with a boom unit forpicking up trees in the storage area and moving them to aninfeed area in front of the plurality of processing units.The processing units are located side-by-side and each consistof an infeed boom, means to delimb trees and means to supportat least one log after the limbs have been removed. Eachunit is reciprocably movable at a direction transverse tothe length of the trees in the storage area and operativeto pick up trees one at a time from the infeed area and movethem endwise and in so doing remove the limbs from the treeMeans are provided to collect the limbs and process the sameand there is a receiving deck for the delimbed trees with aconveyor located below the tree support means and operative toreceive the delimbed logs from all of the processing units andconvey the logs to a sorting and distribution system havingmeans associated therewith operative to buck the logs intoselected lengths, debark selected logs, chip further selectedlogs, process the chips and convey the removed bark to themeans for processing the limbs, The method involves pilingprefelled whole trees in a tree collecting area in frontof a tree processing plant, aligning a boom and processingunit associated therewith trees in the pile by shifting theboom and processing unit at a direction transverse to thelength of the piled trees. The trees are picked up by theprocessing unit one after the other and fed endwise throughthe processing unit to remove the limbs and as the limbsare removed they are directed onto conveying means whichconvey them to a processing unit. The tree trunk is supported duringthe delimbing thereof above another conveyor means that movesthe delimbed tree trunks laterally one after the other inseries to a sorting and distribution system for further handlingand processing of the delimbed logs.