NUT FEEDER

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To automate feeding of nuts to a segment fastening device in a shield machine by taking out the nuts one by one from 5 nut stocker, and holding the nut by chuck units to transfer the nut. SOLUTION: Nuts stacked being fitted to the periphery of an vertical pipe in a nut stocker 3 are pushed up to suck the uppermost nut to a nut holder, and the nut holder is vertically erected to change the attitude of the nut. A pair of jaws of chuck units 17 fixed onto a chuck reversing unit 28 are inserted in the hollow part of the nut and separated from each other to hold the nut. A fork unit 36 disposed almost horizontally on a platform 56 of a segment erector has an intermediate fork, a tip fork and a sliding plate placed one upon another in three stages so as to be slidable onto a frame, and the chuck reversing unit 28 and the chuck units 17 mounted on the sliding plate in the uppermost layer transfer the nut from the nut stocker 3 to a segment fastening device.