Method and Apparatus for Cleaning Workpieces

Author:  Carpenter, James H. Jr.
Source:  US Patent 5,163,253
Doc ID:  1992035
Year of Publication:  1992
Abstract:  
Workpieces such as sand-casted automobile ingine blocks are cleaned by advancing a series of such workpieces asially into one end of an elongate, skeletal barrel that holds the workpieces and rotates or tumbles them in the path of impinging streams of particles. The workpieces are advanced from one end of the barrel to the other by oscillating the barrel along the longitudinal axis of the barrel. By this technique workpieces can be advanced through the barrel without the need to puch the workpieces against each other, or without the need to provide workpiece-engaging and advancing mechanisms.