Unstacking and shingling of sheet material articles

摘要

An improved method and apparatus are provided for removing a densely shingled series of folded sheet material articles from a storage tray and moving the sheet material articles into a loosely shingled overlapping stream. The series of sheet material articles is transferred to a multiple of spaced-apart conveyor belts in a first conveyor assembly by moving the tray downwardly through a space between the conveyor belts. As the tray moves downwardly, the lowermost edge portions of the sheet material articles are supportingly engaged by longitudinally extending upper runs of the conveyor belts. The forwardmost article in the series of sheet material articles is held in an on-edge orientation by a plurality of sprocket wheels. As the conveyor belts advance the series of sheet material articles, the sprocket wheels are rotated to sequentially release or separate the sheet material articles. The released sheet material articles are moved to a second conveyor assembly by a transfer conveyor. The transfer conveyor is retractable from a position in which it extends between the conveyor belts of the first conveyor assembly to enable the tray to move through the space between the conveyor belts. To provide for the disposition of the sheet material articles on the second conveyor assembly in an overlapping stream, the transfer conveyor is driven at a higher speed than the first conveyor asembly and the second conveyor assembly is driven at a higher speed than the transfer conveyor.