GB2213045A - Cauliflower corer - Google Patents

Abstract

An automatic cauliflower corer machine has an inlet conveyor (19) carrying a series of upwardly-facing bowls 27 for individually carrying inverted cauliflowers to a coring station having a pair of half-tubular cutter members (47,48), which are synchronised witn the inlet conveyor, and an inclined elevator (35) to take-off cores and florets separately after coring and in synchronizatlon with the inlet conveyor. Pivotal support bars (49,50) are connected with each cutter member for positioning thereof and cam means (58,52; 62,64; 66,75) for controlling the pivotal movement of the support bars are provided. The arrangement is such that the half tubular members 47 are pressed together to form a tube with cutting edges 48 which is forced into the base of the cauliflower to sever the core from the florets. The cutting edges 48 then pivot into contact to completely sever the core of the cauliflower and then discharge the core to guide chute 46. <IMAGE>

Description

CAULIFLOWER CORER This invention relates to the coring and floretting of cauliflowers and other similar vegetables such as broccoli and calabrese. The invention will be hereinafter described with reference to cauliflowers, but it will be understood that it is equally applicable to broccoli, calabrese and other similar vegetables.

It is customary to pick cauliflowers by severing their stalks and leaving the flower surrounded by at least the innermost leaves, as these serve as a protection during transport and storage. Cauliflowers are commonly sold in this way. Since in general only the flower or florets are eaten by humans, a cauliflower has to be separated from its leaves and then part or all of the relatively hard central core is often removed, when a cauliflower is being prepared for cooking. Therefore, it is common practice to cut across the stalk between the leaves and the flower and then to separate the latter into halves or quarters and finally remove at least some of each part of the core.

It is also essential to do this if it is intended to cook only the cauliflower florets or to package and store the cauliflower for sale in this way. Since this procedure is essentially a labour-intensive and timeconsuming manual operation, there is a need for a machine and a method capable of industrial application for carrying out this operation of coring and floretting of cauliflowers.

According to the invention there is provided a coring machine for cauliflowers and similar vegetables, comprising a pair of co-operative corer cutters, means for driving the cutters into an inverted cauliflower around its core and means for driving the cutters so as to separate florets from the core. Preferably, the pair of cutters comprise confronting half-tubular members and means are provided for relatively pivoting the cutters and for driving the cutters so as to separate florets from the end of the core. It has been found that removal of the cores from cauliflowers can be carried out in a one-step coring operation mechanically and successfully and that this operation detaches all the florets from the cores, so that these two parts of cauliflowers can be separated from one another.The base of a cauliflower may thus be presented to the adjacent ends of a pair of half-tubular corer cutters, which are driven into the cauliflower around its core and which then pivot relatively so as to separate the core along its length and around its tip from the associated florets, so that the flower portion, if desired as a number of now separate florets of the cauliflower, is separated from the excised core.

Preferred features of the invention are defined in the dependent claims.

According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a cauliflower coring machine including an inlet conveyor carrying means for individually conveying inverted cauliflowers to a coring station, cutter means at the coring station synchronised with advance of the inlet conveyor to core each cauliflower at the coring station, and means to take off cores and florets separately after coring and in synchronism with the inlet conveyor. Preferably the machine includes a rotational shaft which synchronises coring by means of a cam arrangement.

In a preferred embodiment of a cauliflower coring apparatus according to the invention, there is provided a conveyor having a plurality of upwardly-open supports for receiving and supporting a series of cauliflowers in an inverted or base-upwards position, this conveyor being for the purpose of advancing cauliflowers to a coring station equipped with at least one pair of corer cutters of the kind mentioned above, the apparatus also including at least one conveyor for receiving and discharging the separated florets and including means for separately removing from the coring station of the machine the separated cauliflower cores.

In order that the invention may be more readily and fully understood, a preferred embodiment of a machine for coring or floretting cauliflowers in accordance with the invention is described by way of example briefly below, in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. The description of the drawings also includes by way of example a preferred embodiment of a method of cauliflower coring according to the invention.In the accompanying drawings: Fig. 1 shows a diagrammatic side view of a cauliflower coring machine according to the invention; Fig. 2 shows diagrammatically details of part of the corer control mechanism of the machine of Fig.1; Fig. 3 shows also diagrammatically a plan view of the coring station and discharge end of the machine of Fig. 1; and, Fig. 4 shows a diagrammatic perspective view of some of the main components of the corer control mechanism of the machine of Fig. 1 (see also Fig.2.) A cauliflower cutter machine according to the invention for coring or floretting consists of a frame, or chassis, 10 indicated diagrammatically in Fig. 1 and including a floor support 11 and a housing 12.All the components of the machine are appropriately mounted upon the frame 10, which is essentially symmetrical about a central plane parallel to the plane of Fig. 1 of the drawing, and all the moving components of the machine derive their motion from a motor, which is shown mounted on the frame 10 in Fig. 1, and is for example in the form of an electric motor 14. The motor 14 is connected by a pulley 15 on its output shaft and a drive member, for example a chain 16, to a driven sprocket 17, on one end of a shaft 18 mounted horizontally across the frame 10.

The shaft 18 supports centrally one end of a generally horizontal endless inlet conveyor 1 9 consisting, for instance, of a chain having horizontal upper and lower runs 20,21, the conveyor 19 also being supported similarly on a second rearward shaft 22. The conveyor 19 includes a plurality of horizontal transverse supports, shown end-on at 24 in Fig. 1, the opposite ends of which run along horizontal lowfriction bearers 25, located beneath the upper run 20.

The bearers 25 are suitably attached (by means not shown) to parts of the frame 10. By this arrangement, the upper run 20 of the conveyor 19 travels in a guided horizontal manner from the rear shaft 22 to the forward shaft 18, so that a series of cauliflowers can be put on the conveyor 19 in a loading stage 31 and then presented to a coring stage of the machine, shown by broken line enclosure 26. The centre of each transverse support 24 carries an outwardly-facing bowl or dish 27 into each of which a cauliflower 28 is placed, such as by being mechanically fed into position. The horizontal arrow 29 indicates the direction of advance of the top run 20 of the conveyor 19 and therefore of the bowls 27 and the cauliflowers 28 contained in them, while the inclined arrow 30 diagrammatically represents a supply of cauliflowers 28 and their placement in the bowls 27 in the loading section 31 of the apparatus, indicated merely as an open part of the housing 12.

By means of the chain 16 and a further pulley 32, which is attached to the shaft 18 and in turn drives a chain 34, the motor 14 also drives a discharge conveyor 35. The chain 34 drives a pulley 36 attached to a shaft 37 forming the lower support and drive for the lower on-running end of the conveyor 35, which is also supported at its off-running upper end by a further shaft 38, with associated conveyor drive means.

The discharge conveyor 35 is inclined and preferably consists of a flexible endless belt 35, running around the shafts 37,38 and having across its outlet surface a plurality of transverse walls 40. As the off-running shaft 38 is disposed above the onrunning shaft 37, the discharge conveyor 35 is thus constructed as a simple form of elevator; material received on it, namely from the discharge end of the conveyor 19 and the coring section 26, as explained in more detail below, is therefore raised to the offrunning end adjacent the upper shaft 38 and is then discharged, via a chute at 41.

In practice, the discharge conveyor 35 is desirably divided widthways into a first longitudinal portion, for receiving and discharging the severed cauliflower florets, and an adjacent second longitudinal portion for receiving and discharging the cores separated from the cauliflowers 28. These adjacent portions are shown by the respective arrows 42,44 in Fig. 3. Each side of the belt 39 on its upper run has a guide plate; an intermediate third guide plate, indicated at 45, is mounted above the conveyor 35. Each transverse wall 40 of the conveyor is desirably provided with a slot which engages each side of the middle guide plate 45.This, the first up-running section 44 of the belt 39, between associated side plate (not shown) and the intermediate guide plate 45, serves as a discharge route for the cauliflower florets, discharging on to one portion of the chute 41 while the other portion 42 of the belt 39 between the other side plate (not shown) and the guide plate 45 discharges the cores on to the other and smaller portion of the chute 41.

In order to divert the severed cores from the approximate centre line of the apparatus, where they are separated from the florets, as explained in detail below, a short transverse inclined guide is provided.

This guide may consist of an inclined tube 46 having its upper end open in the region where the separated cores are released from the machine and its other lower end discharging above the portion of the conveyor 35 which leads to the portion of the discharge conveyor indicated by the arrow 42. The guide is preferably movable into the appropriate collecting and discharge position, shown in Figs. 1 and Fig. 3, when required.

This guide or tube 46 can take a number of forms but, as illustrated, is typically a short wide length of inclined tubing. A pair of diametrically opposite such tubes is employed in this embodiment. These tubes are rotated through the operative position.

In order to remove the cores from the inverted cauliflowers 28, in the coring section 26 the machine includes one and preferably two pairs of co-operative cutters 47. These take the form of portions of a tube, disposed in an axial plane and having one end at a right-angle to the tube and the other at an acute angle, so that the cutter at this latter end has a relatively sharp cutting edge 48. The two cutters 47 are disposed adjacent one another so that they form a tube having the two cutting edges 48 directed and mutually adjacent and facing one another. The tube formed by the juxtaposed cutters 47 is forced into the base of a cauliflower, so as to sever the core from the florets by cutting through their stalks.To complete the coring operation, it is desirable for the cutting edges 48 of the pair of cutters 47 to close together so as to sever the stalks at the narrow inner tip part of the cauliflower core, from the central florets, as described in more detail below.

So as to operate the cutters 47 each of them is mounted on the centre of and mid-way along a bail bar 49,50, each of which can effect controlled pivotal movements about its ends, so as to position the pair of cutters 47 in juxtaposition, and also so as to pivot them so that only the inclined edges 48 are brought into juxtaposition. For clarity, the pairs of cutters 47 are not shown in their true relationship with one another or with other parts of the machine in the drawings.

In order to control operation of the cutters 47 width the bail bars 49,50 on which they are mounted, a further horizontal shaft 51 is mounted in bearings 52, shown in Fig.4, which are in turn mounted across the frame 10 of the machine in an appropriate manner, the shaft 51 being above and generally parallel to the shafts 18 and 37. Adjacent each bearing 52, a support bar 54 is welded to the shaft 51 and has a subsidiary support member 55 adjacent each of its ends. The bail bars 49,50 consist essentially of generally straight horizontal centre portions, at the mid-points of which the cutters 47 are mounted, joined to relatively short end parts, cranked in the case of the bail bars 49. Two pairs of such bail bars 49,50 are mounted upon a different one of a pair of spaced-apart pivot pins 56 secured between the end of the support bar 54 and its associated support member 55.

The shaft 51 and the parts mounted upon it rotate clockwise as shown in Fig. 1, as indicated by the arrows 57, so that the pair of cutters mounted one upon each respective pair of bail bars 49,50 rotate about the axis of the shaft 51. The pairs of cutters 47 are arranged so as to be able to move forward at the offrunning end of the cauliflower inlet conveyor 19 at the same speed as and in register with the bowls 27 on the conveyor 19, as indicated diagrammatically in Fig. 1.

In order that the pairs of bail bars 49,50 and therefore the cutters 47 mounted upon them move in the appropriate way, since these rotate around the shaft 51 on the support bars 54, cam tracks are provided adjacent each end of the shaft 51 so as to control the cutters 47 attached to the respective cranked bail bars 49, these are associated with a cam track 58 located adjacent one end of the shaft 51 and including a number of generally straight portions, connected by curved portions and shown conceptually in Figs. 2 and 4.

During rotation pf the shaft 51 in the direction of the arrows 57, a cam follower in the form of a roller 59 rotates around the shaft 51 and, at a selected point in such rotation, contacts the lower part 60 of the cam track 58, being biassed towards it by a spring associated with each respective bail bar 49, cooperating for instance with the mounting pins 56. The connection between each roller and its associated cranked bail bar 49 is shown for simplicity by a chaindotted line 61 in Figs. 3 and 4. In practice, this connection 61 would be effected by means upon which the roller 59 is mounted so as to be freely rotatable, for instance a lever arm or link carrying the roller 59 at one end and attached at its other end to an adjacent and appropriate part of the bail bar 49. As there are two pairs of cutters 47 on the support bar 54, there are in fact two rollers 59, as indicated in Fig. 4.

At the opposite end of the shaft 51, a curved cam track 62 is provided which co-operates, in a generally similar way, with a roller 64 acting as a cam follower and associated, by means of a mechanical connection indicated only by a chain-dotted line 65, with an appropriate part of the bail bar 50 supporting the other one of the pair of cutters 47. A further means for controlling operation of the cutters 47 is provided by a guide surface 66 (Fig. 2) formed by the upper face of a lever 67 pivotally mounted at 68 from a suitable part of the machine frame 10 (not shown) and also pivotally connected at 69 to the upper end of a piston 70.

The lower end of the piston 70 is connected in turn to a pneumatic cylinder 71 (Fig.1) mounted on a support 72 attached to the frame support 11 and connected appropriately by unions 74 to a source of compressed air (not shown). A cam follower 75 in the form of a roller runs on the guide surface 66 and, on actuation of the piston/cylinder 70,71 by appropriate opening of one of the compressed air unions 74 to the source of compressed air, the piston 70 is raised so as to lift the lever 67 to the broken line position shown in Fig.

2, at which point the cam follower 75 has moved to the position shown in broken lines at 75a. The cam follower 75 is connected by a suitable linkage to the associated bail bar 50.

Rotation of the shaft 51 and the parts mounted upon it is provided by means of a suitable sprocket and drive chain (not shown) typically connected with the motor 14. The speed of rotation of the shaft 51 and the parts mounted upon it is geared so that the shaft 51 makes half a revolution each time one of the bowls 27 advances by a unit length of the top run 20 of the conveyor 19, so that it advances from the position where it is carrying a cauliflower 28 to the position where this is subjected to the coring action in the section 26. In the same half revolution of the shaft 51, it will be understood that the cam followers or rollers 59,64 and 75 effect a cycle of operations i.e.

the whole of the coring procedure on any one cauliflower. During each cycle, one of the chutes 46 moves from its discharge position to the diametrically opposite position.

In operation, the motor 14 is energised so as to drive the moving parts of the machine, so that the conveyor 19 supplies cauliflowers 28 in the bowls 27 to the coring section 26, the chain 34 drives the elevator/conveyor 35, and the shaft 51 with the associated adjacent parts rotates. As each bowl 27 enters the coring section 26, the cauliflower 28 contained in it has its base presented to the confronting pair of cutters 47. The cutter 47 attached to the bail bar 50 is pushed into the base of the cauliflower at its leading edge 48, under the control of the roller 64 and the curved cam track 62 and somewhat later in the cycle, under control of the roller 59 and the cam track 58, the cranked bail bar 49 is operated so that the other cutter 47 of the pair is forced int o the base of the cauliflower by its leading edge 48.

The cutters 47, approximately in the arrangement shown beneath the shaft 51 in Fig. 1, separate the core along its length from the rest of the cauliflower, by cutting through the stalks attaching the florets to the core, and the cylinder 71 is then actuated to raise the piston 70 and move the cam follower 75 to the position 75a, in which a rotary movement relative to the axis of the pins 56 is given to the bail bar 50, causing the cutter 47 mounted upon it to pivot relative to the cutter 47 mounted on the cranked bail bar 49, as shown by the double-ended arrow 76 in Fig. 1. As a result, the edges 48 of the pair of cutters 47 come together, thus closing round and cutting through the floret stems or stalks adjacent and on the tip, that is the end of the cauliflower core nearer the florets, the cutters lifting the severed core.

As the closed pair of cutters 47 rise from the bowl 27, which contains the severed cauliflower florets and discharges them on to the wider part of the upper run of the conveyor 35, between the respective side plate and the middle guide plate 45, and subject to the elevating action of the transverse walls 40. The cylinder 71 is operated in reverse as the pair of cutters 47 open on passing the inlet to the guide chute 46, thus discharging the severed core. The the guide 46 diverts it to the respective, narrower separate part of the discharge conveyor 35, which discharges it into the section 42 of the chute 41.

The invention thus provides for the first time a machine and a mechanical method of subjecting a sequence of cauliflowers to a coring or floretting operation, and which are industrially applicable.

Claims (21)

CLAIMS:

1. A coring machine for cauliflowers and similar vegetables, comprising a pair of co-operative corer cutters, means for driving the cutters into an inverted cauliflower around its core and means for driving the cutters so as to separate florets from the core.

2. A coring machine according to claim 1, wherein the pair of cutters comprise confronting half-tubular members and means are provided for relatively pivoting the cutters and for driving the cutters so as to separate florets from the end of the core.

3. A coring machine according to claim 2, wherein pivotable support bars are connected with each cutter member, for positioning each cutter member, and first cam means are provided for controlling pivotal movement of the pivotable support bars.

4. A coring machine according to claim 3, having an angularly-movable main shaft supporting the pivotable support bars of the cutters, the main shaft being angularly movable so as to move the cutters angularly between a cutting position at a coring station and a non-cutting position.

5. A coring machine according to claim 3 or 4, having second cam means for controlling relative pivotal movement of the cutters.

6. A coring machine according to claim 5, wherein the second cam means comprises a cam surface which is tiltable back and forth by means of a piston arrangement.

7. A coring machine according to claim 6, comprising a guide which is movable between a receiving position, in which cores released from the cutters are received in the guide and directed to take-off -means, and a non-receiving position.

8. A coring machine according to claim 7, having an endless inlet conveyor carrying a series of upwardlyfacing bowls for individually and sequentially conveying inverted cauliflowers to a coring station.

9. A coring machine according to claim 8, wherein inclined take-off which include separate runs for detached cores and florets are disposed between the inlet conveyor and discharge outlet means.

10. A coring machine according to claim 8 or 9, wherein the angular speed of the cutters is controllable so that they move forward at the offrunning end of the inlet conveyor at the same speed as and in register with the bowls of the conveyor.

11. A coring machine according to claim 8,9 or 10, including means for controlling the rotational speed of the main shaft so that it makes half a revolution during the time any one bowl on the conveyor advances a unit length.

12. A coring machine according to claim 11, wherein the first and second cam means are arranged so that the coring operation on each cauliflower occurs during the half-revolution of the main shaft.

13. A coring machine according to any of claims 9 to 12, wherein the inclined take-off means is driven by the same drive means as the inlet conveyor.

14. A coring machine according to claim 13, wherein the inclined take-off means include a driven shaft which is drivingly connected with a driven shaft of the inlet conveyor.

15. A coring machine according to claims 13 ot 14, wherein the inclined take-off means is controlled to run at the same speed as the inlet conveyor.

16. A cauliflower coring machine including an inlet conveyor carrying means for individually conveying inverted cauliflowers to a coring station, cutter means at the coring station synchronised with advance of the inlet conveyor to core each cauliflower at the coring station, and means to take off cores and florets separately after coring and in synchronism with the inlet conveyor.

17. A machine according to claim 16, including a rotational shaft which synchronises coring by means of a cam arrangement.

18. A machine according to claim 16 or 17, comprising a corer according to any of claims 1 to 14.

19. A process for coring cauliflowers using a machine according to any preceding claim.

20.A cauliflower coring machine, constructed and arranged substantially as herein described with reference to the drawings.

21. A process for coring cauliflowers, substantially as herein described.