JP2003170398A - Method and device for cutting ice block - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method and a device for cutting an ice block capable of forming notches for cutting or breaking the ice block into a plurality of pieces of specified sizes while improving an yield of ice block by preventing the corners thereof from being chipped. <P>SOLUTION: This ice block cutting device comprises a loading device 2 for loading an ice block K thereon, nozzles 3 for injecting water against the ice block at a high speed, and a support member 4 for fixing the nozzles. The notches are formed in the ice block K or the ice block is cut out by injecting a high-speed jet stream from the nozzles 3 against the ice block K while moving the ice block K and the nozzles 3 relative to each other. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for cutting ice blocks, and more particularly, to cutting ice blocks into a plurality of pieces of a predetermined size.
The present invention relates to a method and a device for cutting an ice block that can be cut quickly or can be cut for breaking with less loss.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, ice blocks made into ice are cut into a predetermined thick plate of, for example, 6 × 25 × 13 cm so that they can be easily handled thereafter and fresh food can be placed directly on them for cooling. It is put on the market by cutting it, making cuts, or splitting it into an appropriate size with an ice pick. And
In restaurants, this thick plate of ice is cut as it is or with a manual saw, for example, into a cube of about 6 cm in size, or after making a cut for breaking, an ice pick I use it after dividing it into an appropriate size.

As described above, the lump of ice or the thick plate-like ice is cut as it is or after being cut with a manual saw, or cut into pieces, and then cut into an appropriate size with an ice pick or the like. Although it is broken and used, the large plate-shaped ice is difficult to handle, and it is not only troublesome to break it into an appropriate size with an ice pick or the like, but also it is easily injured during handling.

In order to improve the handling difficulty when handling the above-mentioned thick plate-like ice blocks, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-121220 has been proposed.
There is known an ice block cutting machine of a type that cuts with a saw, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. H11 (1998). The ice block cutting machine disclosed in this publication has a cutting mechanism in which a plurality of disk-shaped saw blades are fixed to a drive shaft driven by a motor at predetermined intervals, and the cutting mechanism in a state in which an ice block is placed. A moving carriage adapted to form a break in the ice block by inserting it into a lower position of the ice cube, and an adjustment stand for detachably arranging the moving carriage to adjust the depth of the break formed in the ice chunk. There is.

Then, with the ice blocks placed on the moving carriage, by inserting a plurality of disc-shaped saw blades at predetermined intervals on a driving shaft driven by a motor, the cutting mechanism is inserted into a lower position. , Form a break in the ice block. At this time, by selectively disposing an adjusting table on the moving carriage and adjusting the depth of the break formed in the ice block, it is possible to cut the ice block into a plurality of pieces of a predetermined size, Alternatively, it is possible to form a cut having a required depth for breaking.

[0006]

By the way, since the above-mentioned conventional ice lump cutting device has a mechanism for cutting by cutting with a saw, its cutting width is likely to be wide, and the corners are easily broken or chipped, resulting in a high yield. I had to get worse.

In view of the above problems in handling thick plate-shaped ice in the related art, the present invention divides an ice block into a plurality of pieces of a predetermined size,
An object of the present invention is to provide an ice lump cutting method and cutting device capable of preventing breakage of corners and improving yield to form cuts for cutting or breaking.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, in the method for cutting ice cubes of the present invention, a high-speed jet jet of water is jetted onto the ice cubes to increase the pressure on the ice surface to melt the ice cubes. It is characterized by forming a cut or cutting in an ice block by a jet flow. The method for cutting ice blocks with this configuration is to spray a high-speed jet jet of pressurized water toward the ice blocks to melt the ice in the collision area by pressurizing the ice with the water stream, and at the same time, to cut the ice with the high-speed jet jet. Cut or cut the ice. In this case, it is preferable to raise the water temperature because it can accelerate the dissolution of ice. According to the cutting method of the present invention, the cutting is performed not by mechanically scratching with a saw tooth but by a liquid flow. Therefore, by narrowing the jet jet, it is possible to reduce the cutting (melting) width of ice and reduce chipping. You can as a result,
The amount of loss associated therewith can be reduced, and the yield can be improved.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an ice block cutting method according to the first aspect, wherein the pressure is 30 MPa to 100 MPa.
The pressurized water of MPa is jetted as a high-speed jet jet onto the ice blocks. By using high-pressure water in this way, a high-speed jet jet can be obtained, so with a small amount of water,
With a narrow cutting width, for example, a 13 cm thick ice block 0.3-1 m
Can cut at a high speed of / min. Pressure of pressurized water is 20MP
If it is less than a, the cutting speed will be slow, which is suitable for small-scale processing but not suitable for large-scale processing. Pressure water pressure is 150M
If it exceeds Pa, the processing speed can be increased and it is suitable for large-scale processing, but the cost of measures against reflection and collision of high-pressure water, equipment for generating pressure water, and the like increase. Therefore, the pressure of the pressure water is preferably about 30 MPa to 100 MPa.

The ice lump cutting device of the present invention includes a placing device for placing the ice lump, a nozzle for jetting water at a high speed to the ice lump, and a fixed angle of the nozzle so that the inclination angle can be changed and maintained. And a supporting member for By constructing the ice lump cutting device in this way, the ice lump can be cut efficiently with a narrow width and even if the ice lump with a large thickness does not shake like saw teeth, it can be cut safely and at high speed. Moreover, the loss of ice due to cutting can be reduced by eliminating the corner chipping during cutting work to reduce the amount of cutting loss, and the yield can be improved.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the ice lump cutting device according to the third aspect, wherein at least one of the support member and the placing device is movable. By relatively moving the ice block placed on the and the nozzle fixed to the support member,
It was configured to form a break or cut the ice block while moving a jet jet that jets at high speed to the ice block. In this case, it is preferable to form a groove or a through hole penetrating downward in the ice lump mounting device such as a moving trolley because the jet of pressurized water that cuts the ice lump can be smoothly released.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the ice lump cutting device of the third or fourth aspect, the placing device is a conveyor. As a result, a large amount of ice blocks can be efficiently cut with a simple structure having few mechanical operation parts. Moreover, the amount of ice loss due to cutting can be reduced, and the yield can be improved.

[0013]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a schematic configuration of one embodiment of an ice lump cutting device for carrying out the ice lump cutting method of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a partial breakage of a nozzle for generating a high-speed jet jet of the ice lump cutting device. FIG.

Ice block cutting device 1 in this embodiment
Is a mounting device 2 for mounting and moving the ice block K, and the ice block K.
On the other hand, a nozzle 3 for ejecting a high-speed jet jet and a support member 4 for fixing the nozzle 3 so that the inclination angle of the nozzle 3 can be changed and maintained with respect to the ice lump surface.

The mounting device 2 is composed of a wire net for carrying and transporting the ice blocks K, and a conveyor having a porous plate member.
It should be noted that this mounting device may be configured by a conveyor as shown in FIG. 1, or may be configured by a trolley type device provided with rails and moved. The point is that the ice block can be efficiently cut by moving it along a required cutting line. In this case, the conveyor system is preferable because the cutting speed of the ice blocks can be easily changed with a simple configuration. Then, the ice block K is mounted on the mounting device 2, and a high-speed jet jet of high-pressure water is jetted from the nozzle 3 while moving the ice block K, and the ice block K is finely divided by melting and cutting.

The nozzle 3 has a main body 5 as shown in FIG.
The nozzle tip 6 is screwed to the tip, and the cap 7 covers the nozzle tip 6. A water conduit is provided in the center of the main body 5 of the nozzle 3, and high-pressure water is sent to the nozzle tip 6 provided at the tip. Also,
A screw portion 8 is provided at the rear end of the main body 5 so as to be connected to a supply pipe (not shown). And 30 MPa-
High-pressure water of 100 MPa is supplied from the rear end of the main body 5 to the nozzle tip 6 via the water conduit, and the high speed jet jet is jetted from the nozzle tip 6.

The support member 4 for fixing the nozzles 3 has a mounting member 9 extending in the width direction of the mounting apparatus 2 and a fixing member for fixing the mounting members 9 so that a large number of nozzles 3 can be mounted at predetermined intervals. It has a member 10. The fixing member 10 adjusts the position of the mounting member 9 so that it can be fixed with a bolt or the like so that the axial direction of the nozzle can be changed to change the ice cutting direction. The intervals between the nozzles 3 are, for example,
In order to cut the plate-shaped ice pieces L into the required size of 6 cm or 25 cm in the thickness direction, the cutting width is taken into consideration when determining, the nozzle 3 is attached to the attachment member 9, and a water supply pipe (not shown) is connected. . It should be noted that the size of the ice pieces L can be easily reduced to a size of 2 to 3 cm that is easy for consumers to use.

(Embodiment) Next, a method of cutting an ice block using the cutting device having the above-described structure will be described. An ice block with a size of 50 x 26 x 13 cm is supplied to the conveyor sequentially in the width, depth, and height directions, and is placed at a speed of about 0.4.
It was moved at m / sec. Nozzle diameter is 0.2
9 mm nozzle tips were attached, and fixed at intervals of 6 cm so as to be oriented vertically on the ice surface. A high-speed jet jet was jetted using normal temperature water pressurized to 50 MPa to cut the ice blocks.

As a result, it was possible to cut into a width of 6 mm or less with a melting width of 2 mm or less without causing corner chipping. The consumption of high-pressure water was about 3 l per ice block. According to this embodiment, it is possible to prevent the chipping of the corner, reduce the loss, improve the yield, and easily and quickly cut.

The present invention is not limited to the above description, and it is needless to say that the present invention can be modified and implemented within a range not changing the gist thereof. In the above description, an example in which the placement device is moved has been described, but the nozzles may be moved, or both may be moved. Further, the ice block to be cut may be fixed to the conveyor and moved, and the size of the ice block is not limited to that described above.

[0021]

According to the ice lump cutting method of the present invention configured as described above, the ice lump is divided into a plurality of pieces each having a predetermined size to prevent chipping of corners, improve the yield with less loss, and simplify the operation.
In addition, it is possible to quickly form a cut line for cutting or breaking.

According to the method for cutting ice blocks according to claim 2 of the present invention, pressure water of 30 MPa to 100 MPa is jetted as a high-speed jet jet onto the ice blocks, so that the ice surface is pressurized with high-pressure water to remove ice. Since both the action of melting and the action of cutting the ice by the high-speed jet jet are utilized, the ice block can be quickly cut. In addition, the ice block can be cut at high speed by using less water.

According to the ice lump cutting device of the present invention, the ice lump can be cut efficiently and at high speed with a narrow width loss. Moreover,
By eliminating the corner chipping during cutting and reducing the amount of cutting loss, it is possible to reduce the amount of ice loss due to cutting and improve the yield.

In the ice lump cutting device according to the fourth aspect of the present invention, forming the groove or the through hole penetrating downward allows the jet of the pressurized water that cut the ice lump to smoothly escape, thereby removing dirt. It also works as a wash and gives high quality cut pieces. The ice lump cutting device according to the fifth aspect of the present invention can efficiently cut a large amount of ice lumps with a simple configuration having few mechanical operation parts. Moreover, the amount of ice loss due to cutting can be reduced, and the yield can be improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view showing a schematic configuration of a cutting device for carrying out an ice block cutting method of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view in which a part of the nozzle of the ice block cutting device of the present invention is cut away.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Ice block cutting device 2 Placement device 3 nozzles 4 Support members

Continued front page    (72) Inventor Kozo Kato             6316-1 Toyooka, Ryoyo-cho, Iwata-gun, Shizuoka F-term (reference) 3C060 AA20 CA10 CE23

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. Cutting of an ice block characterized in that a high-speed jet jet of water is jetted onto the ice block to increase the pressure on the ice surface to melt the ice block and the jet stream jetted or cuts the ice block. Method. 2. The method for cutting an ice piece according to claim 1, wherein pressure water of 30 MPa to 100 MPa is jetted onto the ice piece as a high-speed jet jet. 3. An ice lump cutting device comprising: a mounting device for mounting an ice lump, a nozzle for spraying water at a high speed onto the ice lump, and a support member for fixing the nozzle. 4. At least one of the support member and the placement device is configured to be movable, and an ice block placed on the placement device and the nozzle fixed to the support member are relatively moved. The ice lump cutting device according to claim 3, wherein the ice lump is cut or cut while moving a water stream that is jetted at high speed with respect to the ice lump. 5. The placing device according to claim 3, which is a conveyor.
Alternatively, the ice lump cutting device according to item 4.