U.S. patent application number 11/554031 was filed with the patent office on 2008-07-10 for rubber shoe sole.
Invention is credited to Yu-Hua Kao.
Application Number | 20080166536 11/554031 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 39594547 |
Filed Date | 2008-07-10 |
United States Patent
Application |
20080166536 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Kao; Yu-Hua |
July 10, 2008 |
RUBBER SHOE SOLE
Abstract
An environment-conservation rubber shoe sole is made of
vegetable fibrous materials including disposed rice/wheat husks,
together with natural and synthetic rubbers with suitable amounts
of curing additive, activation prompter, and filler, which, after
being fully mixed and stirred, are subject to pressurization to
form material sheets of suitable thickness for subsequent
deposition in a forming mold for curing and molding by heating and
pressurizing to complete formation of shoe sole made of
environment-conversation material, whereby a de-molded product can
be finished with simple trimming whereby low-cost, comfortable, and
easy-to-recycle environment-conservation rubber shoe sole can be
manufactured and true non-pollution use of shoe sole can be
realized.
Inventors: |
Kao; Yu-Hua; (Taichung
Hsien, TW) |
Correspondence
Address: |
LEONG C LEI
PMB # 1008, 1867 YGNACIO VALLEY ROAD
WALNUT CREEK
CA
94598
US
|
Family ID: |
39594547 |
Appl. No.: |
11/554031 |
Filed: |
October 30, 2006 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
428/292.1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
D04H 1/42 20130101; Y10T
428/249924 20150401 |
Class at
Publication: |
428/292.1 |
International
Class: |
D04H 13/00 20060101
D04H013/00 |
Claims
1. A rubber shoe sole that is made with a process comprising steps
of mixing and preparing raw material, feeding into a mold, molding,
and edge trimming, the rubber shoe sole being characterized in that
the raw material comprises fibrous components comprising rice/wheat
husks having a percentage of 5-25%, natural rubber of 20-50%,
synthetic rubber of 25-55%, and additives of 10-30%, the components
of the raw material being mixed together and added with rubber
curing additive and flowability-enhancing activation promoter,
which takes a percentage of 8-12%, the mixture being subject to
stirring and pressurizing to form a sheet of shoe sole material,
which is then deposited in a forming mold for molding by heating
and pressurizing to provide a semi-product that is removed out of
the mold and subject to edge trimming to finally provide a shoe
sole product.
2. The rubber shoe sole as claimed in claim 1, wherein the
additives selectively comprise kaolin, calcium carbonate, glass
powder, and aluminum oxide.
3. The rubber shoe sole as claimed in claim 1, wherein the sheet of
raw material is deposited into the mold together with a pre-formed
synthetic rubber surface layer to be heated and pressurized
simultaneously for forming a shoe sole of different materials.
4. The rubber shoe sole as claimed in claim 1 further comprising PU
material or foaming rubber to carry out a secondary molding for
forming a shoe sole of special purposes.
5. The rubber shoe sole as claimed in claim 1, wherein the raw
material is added with minor foaming agent to induce foaming of the
shoe sole material.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] (a) Technical Field of the Invention
[0002] The present invention relates to a rubber shoe sole, and in
particular to an environment-conservative rubber sole that is made
of vegetable fibers, such as rice/wheat husks, which is mixed, with
a proper ratio, with natural and/or synthetic rubber, with addition
of suitable amounts of curing additives and activation prompters,
the mixture being uniformly stirred to provide a raw material that
is subject to pressing to form material sheets for easy deposition
into a forming mold to carry out in-mold curing and forming by
heating and pressurizing to eventually obtain a rubber sole,
featuring both continuous and efficient forming of shoe sole and
environment conservation to thereby improve wearing comfort and
recycling for reuse and reduce costs of shoe sole manufacturing.
[0003] (b) Description of the Prior Art
[0004] Materials for making shoe soles, especially outsoles, often
comprise a great amount of rubbers for wearing resistance. Since
there are only limited resources available in the Earth and also
since the natural rubber has various applications with great
consumption, modern people are developing conscience of environment
protection. To make shoe sole manufacturing complying with the
trend of environment conservation with a consideration of
environment protection based processing of disposed wastes,
reduction of wasting and consumption of the natural resources, and
recycling for reuse and regeneration of industrial products,
environment protection is now one of the design issues for
industrial products or general commodity.
[0005] Disposed shoe soles are often handled as wastes. Due to the
environment-conservation oriented trend of consumption that has
recently developed, shoe soles featuring environment conservation
are now available in the market. The conventional
environment-conservation shoe soles that are available in the
market are made of paper based materials or cork chips mixed
materials, which are further mixed with pulps, additives, and
adhesives for enhancing hardening and water-resistance. Such
materials are then processed by stacking, pulverization, stirring
and compression for forming, and trimming to eventually complete
shoe sole manufacturing. The portion of the shoe bottom that is in
contact with the ground requires sufficient water-resistance and
wearing-resistance and is often provided with an additional layer
of rigid plastics to complete the manufacturing of the shoe sole.
This is a complicated manufacturing process and requires multiple
operations and controls before a shoe sole featuring environment
conservation can be obtained. As a consequence, the overall
manufacturing costs are very high and the rigidity of the sole
bottom is proven a very unsatisfactory characteristic for wearing
and walking and easy to break.
[0006] Thus, to reduce the manufacturing costs of the shoe soles,
to provide the shoe soles with satisfactory characteristics of use,
and to allow the material that makes the shoe soles to be consumed
in a more environment conservative and less expensive manner, the
paper based or cork chip based materials that are commonly used in
manufacturing environment conservation shoe soles are just not fit
for these purposes for they are of limited effectiveness in serving
environment conservation for the reasons that pulps or cork chips
are products of wood and pulp or paper based materials are obtained
from trees, which grow very slowly. Clearly, the effectiveness that
can be obtained for environment conservation by using tree material
is just limited and the best result of which is simply causing no
secondary pollution to the surroundings. It is questionable of the
practical effect and protection of environment that using the tree
material in an environment protection chain of shoe sole.
[0007] Therefore, it is desired and a challenge to the researchers
and manufacturers to provide a material for making environment
conservation shoe soles that is of low costs, has excellent
capability of efficiently forming, and has values of long span
effect of environment protection.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0008] The primary purpose of the present invention is to provide
an environment-conservation shoe sole that is made of rubber added
with a suitable amount of disposed rice husk material, which are
uniformly mixed and stirred for subsequent molding by heating and
pressurizing to form the shoe sole whereby the shoe sole so made is
of a long span effect of environment conservation and the
manufacturing process of the shoe sole is simplified and thus
realizing multiple purposes in environment conservation and
economics.
[0009] In view of the above-discussed drawbacks of the conventional
environment-conservation shoe soles of being high costs of material
and processing and having no long span effect of environment
protection, the present inventor, based on his experience in
researching and developing environment-conservation materials and
carrying out a series of tests and experiments, has developed an
environment-conservation rubber shoe sole, which is comprised of
high percentage of recycled waste materials, including rice/wheat
husks, mixed with regular rubber. The mixtures is fed into a
forming mold and is subject to curing by pressurizing and heating
and thereafter, a semi-product is removed and is subject to edge
trimming to thereby complete the manufacturing of an
environment-conservation shoe sole that features excellent
cushioning and lightweight. The shoe sole of the present invention
can be manufactured by successively molding so that the
manufacturing costs are substantially lowered to thereby overcome
the problem of high costs encountered by the conventional
environment-conservation shoe soles.
[0010] The foregoing object and summary provide only a brief
introduction to the present invention. To fully appreciate these
and other objects of the present invention as well as the invention
itself, all of which will become apparent to those skilled in the
art, the following detailed description of the invention and the
claims should be read in conjunction with the accompanying
drawings. Throughout the specification and drawings identical
reference numerals refer to identical or similar parts.
[0011] Many other advantages and features of the present invention
will become manifest to those versed in the art upon making
reference to the detailed description and the accompanying sheets
of drawings in which a preferred structural embodiment
incorporating the principles of the present invention is shown by
way of illustrative example.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0012] FIG. 1 shows a flowchart of a manufacturing method of
environment-conservation shoe sole in accordance with the present
invention;
[0013] FIG. 2 shows a flowchart of a process for stacking the shoe
sole of the present invention and a synthetic rubber pad; and
[0014] FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of a secondary molding process for
the shoe sole of the present invention and a foaming material.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0015] The following descriptions are of exemplary embodiments
only, and are not intended to limit the scope, applicability or
configuration of the invention in any way. Rather, the following
description provides a convenient illustration for implementing
exemplary embodiments of the invention. Various changes to the
described embodiments may be made in the function and arrangement
of the elements described without departing from the scope of the
invention as set forth in the appended claims.
[0016] With reference to the drawings and in particular to FIG. 1,
which shows a flowchart of a manufacturing method of
environment-conservation shoe sole in accordance with the present
invention, an environment-conservation shoe sole of the present
invention is made of vegetable fibers, such as husks of rice and
wheat, which is mixed with natural rubber and/or regular synthetic
rubber and stirred together (11) to form a raw material (10) for
shoe soles, wherein the fibrous component takes 5-25% of the raw
material, the natural rubber 20-50%, and the synthetic rubber
25-55%. The raw material (10), after being added with additives
(12) of 8-12% for facilitating curing and activation of molding, is
sufficiently stirred (11) with suitable machinery, and then
pressurized to form sheets of raw material or directly forming a
bundle of sheets of the raw material (10) to allow for easy
operation of subsequent trimming, collection, and management. The
thickness of the raw material sheet can be varied as practically
desired. The raw material sheet is then cut to a desired size and
is quantitatively deposited into a forming mold to complete the
step of feeding into the mold (13). Upper and lower molds are then
clamped together to proceed with heating and pressurizing (14) for
molding. The additive contained in the raw material (10) comprises
sulfur that facilitates curing and prompter that facilitates
activation of the rubber so that the material can be of enhanced
flowability inside the mold and thus effectively and completely
fills a cavity of the mold. This provides molding of
completely-shaped shoe sole. The molding temperature is heated to a
range between 100 to 160.degree. C., which depends on the mixing
ratio of the components of the raw material.
[0017] Depending upon the practical uses of the shoe sole, the
mixing ratio of the components of the raw material (10) can be
adjusted. A semi-product, after demolding (15), is finished with
edge trimming (16) to remove burring and thus obtaining an
integrally formed product of environment-conservation shoe sole
(17).
[0018] To provide a shoe with different resiliency or flexibility,
or to meet the requirements wearing-resistance for direct contact
with solid ground and comfort of wearing, the ratio among different
components of the raw material can be varied and/or further adding
a filler (18) for variation of characteristics thereof to realize
wearing-resistance and skidding-proof of the portion in contact
with the ground. The addition of the filler (18) is within the
range of 10-30%, and includes for example kaolin, calcium
carbonate, glass powder, and aluminum oxide, of which the
percentage can be adjusted in accordance practical requirement of
solidification and toughness for realizing wearing-resistance and
enhanced characteristics for use. In addition, a minor amount of
foaming agent can be added in the raw material (10) to effect
foaming of the raw material (10). This helps in reducing the weight
of the final product and makes the shoe sole material more
practical in use.
[0019] To provide variations of the shoe sole product, a surface
sheet (20) that is manufactured in advance by pressurizing
synthetic rubber into the form of sheet. The surface sheet (20) can
then be stacked with the sheet of the raw material (10) in an
inside-and-outside stacking manner or in a partially laminated
manner, as shown in FIG. 2, which are then put in a mold for
molding by heating and pressurizing to thereby form a shoe sole
product having a surface of different characteristics or sharply
distinct colors. Or, as shown in FIG. 3, the shoe sole sheet of the
present invention can be combined with foaming rubber or PU
material to carry out secondary filling and foaming and molding to
form a shoe sole product of special purposes by comprising PU or
foaming rubber. Since the composition of the raw material (10) of
the shoe sole of the present invention is primarily rubber, in
carrying out secondary molding with different foaming or PU
material, or stacking with shoe sole layer (20), no additional
adhering step is needed and the pre-formed sheet-like surface layer
(20) and the raw material (10) can be together put in the forming
mold for feeding into the mold (13) for simultaneously molding by
simultaneously pressurizing and heating (14) to thereby obtain an
integrated structure of shoe sole of special purposes. Additional
operation is thus saved. In view of manufacturing of the shoe sole
of special purposes, additional operation is saved, and
non-separable stable integration can be provided. Consequently,
novel environment-conservation rubber shoe sole that is economic
and satisfies requirements of environment conservation is obtained.
Due to the special combination of materials in accordance with the
present invention, characteristics of use of the shoe sole material
can be effectively enhanced and the overall costs of shoe sole
manufacturing can be cut off at least 30% as compared to the
regular shoe soles and can be even several times of reduction as
compared to the currently-existing environment-conservation shoe
soles.
[0020] It will be understood that each of the elements described
above, or two or more together may also find a useful application
in other types of methods differing from the type described
above.
[0021] While certain novel features of this invention have been
shown and described and are pointed out in the annexed claim, it is
not intended to be limited to the details above, since it will be
understood that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and
changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in
its operation can be made by those skilled in the art without
departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.
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