JP5022052B2 - Sterilizer - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a cap sterilizer for sealing a mouth of a bottle.

  In some cases, fillings such as drinking water and liquid seasonings are filled into bottles with an aseptic filling system. Here, aseptic filling refers to supplying clean air that has passed through a filter into a sterilized chamber and increasing the chamber pressure to the outside to create a sterile environment inside the chamber. This is a system in which a sterilized container is filled with the above filling and sealed with a cap. In such a system, the cap is sterilized before the bottle filled with the filling is sealed with the cap.

  Hydrogen peroxide and ultraviolet irradiation are often used for sterilization of caps, but in recent years, sterilization technology by electron beam irradiation that has superior sterilizing power than ultraviolet rays has attracted attention, and has been intensively developed (for example, patent documents) 1 and 2).

JP 2002-205714 A JP 2002-128030 A

In order to sterilize the cap, it is necessary to irradiate a sufficient amount of electron beams. This is because if the amount of electron beam irradiation is small, sufficient sterilization cannot be performed, and particularly in the case of a plastic cap, excessive irradiation of the electron beam leads to defects such as discoloration, softening and deformation of the cap. .
Further, it is preferable to irradiate the electron beam as uniformly as possible so that the dose of the electron beam does not vary greatly depending on the part of the cap. Even in the technique described in Patent Document 2, a device is devised to solve these problems by irradiating the electron beam while rotating the cap, but there is still room for further improvement. For example, since caps, particularly plastic caps, are small and light, it is unexpectedly difficult to reliably rotate the cap while transporting it at high speed. If the electron beam is irradiated with the cap rotating insufficiently, the electron beam is concentrated and irradiated only on a part of the cap, and the above-described cap is applied to the portion where the electron beam is concentrated. As a result, defects such as discoloration and dissolution occur, and the portion where irradiation was insufficient cannot be reliably sterilized. However, if a complicated mechanism is employed to reliably rotate the cap, the cost and size of the apparatus will increase.
In addition, some failure or the like may occur in the irradiation mechanism that irradiates the electron beam, and the electron beam may not be irradiated.

In the cap sterilization process, if any abnormality occurs in the irradiation of the electron beam or the rotation of the cap, it is necessary to reliably eliminate the cap as a defective product. However, in the filling device, the liquid is filled into the container at a high speed of several hundreds per minute. Along with this, the cap is sterilized at a high speed. If it is late to know that an abnormality has occurred, a large number of caps become defective, leading to an increase in manufacturing cost. Therefore, if any abnormality occurs in the cap sterilization process, it is preferable to detect this reliably and promptly.
The present invention has been made on the basis of such a technical problem. The cap is sterilized by irradiating the electron beam uniformly, and if an abnormality occurs in the sterilization, this is detected promptly and reliably. It aims at providing the sterilizer which can do.

The present invention made for this purpose is a sterilization apparatus for sterilizing a cap by irradiating the cap of the container with an electron beam, the electron beam generating source generating the electron beam, and the electron beam generating source An electron beam scanning unit that scans the electron beam within a predetermined range, a cap transport unit that passes the range in which the electron beam is scanned by the electron beam scanning unit while rotating the cap, and an electron beam generation source A monitoring unit that monitors an electron beam generation state, an electron beam scan state in an electron beam scanning unit, a cap conveyance speed and a cap rotation state in a cap conveyance unit, an electron beam generation state, an electron beam scan state, a cap One of the monitoring results obtained at the monitoring section is determined in advance for the transport speed and the rotation state of the cap. When departing from the range, characterized in that it comprises a cap rejection unit to eliminate the cap corresponding to the monitoring results to the outside of the process.
As described above, by monitoring the generation state of the electron beam in the electron beam generation source, the scanning state of the electron beam in the electron beam scanning unit, the conveyance speed of the cap in the cap conveyance unit, and the rotation state of the cap, the cap can be uniformly and reliably monitored. It can be detected whether or not sterilization is performed. When the detection result by monitoring deviates from a predetermined reference range, it is determined that there is an abnormality in the sterilization quality of the cap, and the cap can be eliminated. Thereby, the sterilization quality can be managed by selecting caps that may be insufficiently sterilized or have discoloration or softening / deformation.
Here, since it is difficult to perform reliable rotation of the cap, it is important to monitor the rotation state of the cap and detect this when the cap is not reliably rotating.
Of course, similar monitoring can be performed on the container.

The monitoring unit monitors the generation state of the electron beam by detecting the current that controls the generation timing of the electron beam and the acceleration voltage for generating the electron beam, and the frequency of the current that controls the scan timing of the electron beam. By detecting, it is preferable to monitor the scanning state of the electron beam in the electron beam scanning unit.
Furthermore, it is preferable that the monitoring unit monitors the scanning state of the electron beam by detecting the scanning width of the electron beam in the electron beam scanning unit.

  Moreover, it is preferable that the monitoring unit detects whether or not the cap conveyance speed in the cap conveyance unit corresponds to the scanning frequency of the electron beam in the electron beam scanning unit. Changes in the cap conveyance speed and the electron beam scanning frequency affect the amount of electron beam irradiation to the cap. Depending on the production amount per unit time, there is a case where the cap transport speed changes, and accordingly, it is detected whether or not the cap transport speed and the electron beam scan frequency correspond to each other.

  The monitoring unit can monitor the rotation state of the cap by detecting the rotation speed of the cap conveyed by the cap conveyance unit. The cap rotation state can also be monitored by photographing the cap conveyed by the cap conveyance unit at a plurality of positions spaced in the conveyance direction and comparing the images imaged at the respective positions.

  A cap transporting member that moves the cap in the transporting direction; a guide member that is provided on the side of the cap moving member along the cap moving member and rotates the cap in contact with the cap that is moved by the cap moving member; , The cap can be reliably rotated by such a mechanism. In this case, the monitoring unit can monitor the rotation state of the cap by detecting the contact pressure of the cap with respect to the guide member.

  In addition to this, the monitoring unit can monitor the rotational state of the cap by detecting the temperature distribution of the cap that has passed the range where the electron beam is scanned by the electron beam scanning unit.

  According to the present invention, when an abnormality occurs in the sterilization process of the cap by monitoring the generation state of the electron beam, the scanning state of the electron beam, the conveyance state of the cap, and the rotation state of the cap, the corresponding cap Can be reliably eliminated as a defective product. In addition, since such monitoring can be performed in real time, if an abnormality occurs, it can be detected immediately, and the cap that becomes a defective product can be minimized.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail based on embodiments shown in the accompanying drawings.
Fig.1 (a) is a figure for demonstrating schematic structure of the sterilizer 10 for bottle caps in this Embodiment.
The sterilizer 10 shown in FIG. 1A is provided on the front side of a filling device that fills a bottle 100 with a beverage. The sterilizer 10 includes a bottle transport mechanism 20 that transports the bottle 100, a cap transport mechanism (cap transport unit) 30 that transports the cap 200, and an electron beam irradiation unit that performs sterilization by irradiating an electron beam (electron beam scan). Part) 40.

  Although there is no intention to limit the configuration of the bottle transport mechanism 20 in the present invention, for example, while circulating the endless transport belt 21, the bottle 100 is placed on the transport belt 21 by a not-shown indexing mechanism at regular intervals. By indexing, it is possible to adopt a configuration in which the bottle 100 is transported in a state of being arranged on the transport belt 21 at predetermined intervals. The bottle transport mechanism 20 may have any configuration other than this. Note that the bottle 100 is held on the transport belt 21 with its center axis aligned with the substantially vertical direction.

The electron beam irradiation unit 40 according to the present embodiment includes an electron beam generation source 41, a deflection magnet 42, a scanning magnet 43, a horn 44, and a controller (monitoring unit) 50.
Depending on the apparatus configuration conditions, the vertical relationship between the deflecting magnet 42 and the scanning magnet 43 may be reversed.
As shown in FIG. 2, the electron beam generation source 41 generates a beam-shaped electron beam and irradiates the bottle 100 transported by the bottle transport mechanism 20 and the cap 200 transported by the cap transport mechanism 30.
In the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 3, the electron beam generation source 41 generates an electron beam with a low-frequency pulse current I1 such as 60 Hz. The generation of the pulse current I1 for driving the electron beam generation source 41 is controlled by the controller 50. A so-called electron gun can be used as such an electron beam generation source 41, and the controller 50 also controls an acceleration voltage for generating an electron beam in the electron beam generation source 41.

  Here, in the following description, in order to facilitate understanding of the description, the bottle 100 in the bottle transport mechanism 20 and the cap transport mechanism 30 and the transport direction of the cap 200 are orthogonal to the X axis and the X axis, and the bottle in the electron beam generation source 41. The electron beam irradiation direction with respect to 100 is defined as the Z axis, and the X axis and the direction orthogonal to the Z axis are defined as the Y axis.

Each of the deflection magnet 42 and the scanning magnet 43 has a magnetic field generated in accordance with an applied current.
The deflection magnet 42 is provided so as to surround the electron beam irradiated from the electron beam generation source 41, and is arranged to deflect the electron beam around the X axis by a predetermined angle by the generated magnetic field. The deflection magnet 42 is controlled by the controller 50 in synchronism with a pulse current I1 that generates an electron beam from the electron beam generation source 41, and is output every time a predetermined number of pulses are output by the pulse current I1. A strong current I2 is output. The deflecting magnet 42 generates a magnetic field by the output current I2, and deflects the electron beam by this magnetic field. When the magnetic field is not generated by the deflecting magnet 42, the electron beam is applied to the bottle 100 on the bottle transport mechanism 20, and when the magnetic field is generated by the deflecting magnet 42, the electron beam is deflected to be on the cap transport mechanism 30. The cap 200 is irradiated.

The scanning magnet 43 is disposed immediately below the deflection magnet 42 and surrounds both the electron beam path when the deflection magnet 42 is not deflecting and the electron beam path when the deflection magnet 42 is deflected. Is provided. The scanning magnet 43 can be disposed, for example, immediately below the deflection magnet 42.
Under the control of the controller 50, a current I3 whose intensity continuously changes with a constant change width is applied to the scanning magnet 43 for each pulse of the pulse current I1 generated by the electron beam generation source 41. The Thus, when the current I3 applied to the scanning magnet 43 changes within a certain time (a time corresponding to one pulse of the pulse current I1), the magnetic field strength generated by the scanning magnet 43 changes. As a result, the deflection amount of the electron beam, that is, the deflection angle of the electron beam continuously changes, and the electron beam scans within a certain range (a certain angle). The scanning magnet 43 is arranged so that the scanning direction of the electron beam at this time coincides with the X-axis direction.
Although there is no intention to limit the change width of the current I3, the current intensity at the start of the change, and the current intensity at the end of the change, the electron beam is initially irradiated in the Z-axis direction. It is preferable to adjust the magnetic field intensity at the start of the change and the magnetic field intensity at the end of the change so that the absolute values are equal to each other so that the scan is performed at an equal angle.
As described above, the electron beam scan performed by the current I3 is performed for each pulse of the pulse current I1 that generates the electron beam by the electron beam generation source 41. That is, not only when the electron beam is irradiated toward the bottle 100 on the bottle transport mechanism 20, but also with the deflection magnet 42 once every several pulses, the electron beam is directed toward the cap 200 on the cap transport mechanism 30. Even when the light beam is deflected and irradiated, scanning with a constant width of the electron beam is performed.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the horn 44 is provided so as to surround the irradiation range of the electron beam when the deflection by the deflection magnet 42 and the scan by the scan magnet 43 are performed as described above. Accordingly, when the horn 44 is viewed from the side in the X-axis direction, the horn 44 is formed so as to branch from the first horn portion 44a and the first horn portion 44a extending substantially vertically downward toward the bottle transport mechanism 20, A second horn portion 44b extending obliquely downward toward the cap conveyance mechanism 30, and each of the first horn portion 44a and the second horn portion 44b is in the Y-axis direction as shown in FIG. When viewed from above, the taper shape gradually increases in width as it goes downward from the deflecting magnet 42 and the scanning magnet 43.

  As shown in FIG. 4, the cap transport mechanism 30 transports the caps 200 arranged in two rows. The cap conveying mechanism 30 is provided so that two screw members (cap moving members) 31A and 31B are arranged in parallel with each other at a distance from each other and come into contact with the top surface 200a of the cap 200. Guide members 32, 33, and 34 are provided between both sides of the two rows of caps 200 positioned on the screw members 31 </ b> A and 31 </ b> B and between the two rows of caps 200.

In the guide members 32 and 33 located on both sides, rack gear teeth are continuously formed on the guide surfaces 32a and 33a facing the side surface 200b of the cap 200 on the screw members 31A and 31B. The guide members 32 and 33 are formed so that the lower end portions 32b and 33b of the guide surfaces 32a and 33a protrude inward to have a substantially L-shaped cross section, and the top surface 200a of the cap 200 is supported by the lower end portions 32b and 33b. It is preferable to adopt a configuration to do so. Thereby, the top surface 200a of the cap 200 is supported by the guide members 32 and 33 and the screw members 31A and 31B.
In addition, although stainless steel and resin can be used for the material of the guide members 32 and 33, it is preferable to use stainless steel in the case of electron beam sterilization.
Then, the movement of the cap 200 to the side is restricted by the guide members 32, 33, and 34 while the cap 200 is housed in the spiral groove 31 a formed on the outer peripheral surfaces of the screw members 31 </ b> A and 31 </ b> B. The When the screw members 31A and 31B are rotated and driven by a motor or the like (not shown) in this state, the cap 200 is conveyed in a direction along the guide members 32, 33, and 34. At this time, the screw members 31A and 31B are formed so that the winding direction of the groove 31a is different between the one screw member 31A and the other screw member 31B, and is further rotationally driven in different directions by a motor (not shown), The cap 200 is pressed against the guide members 32 and 33 on both sides on the upper surface side of the screw members 31A and 31B. Since the guide members 32 and 33 have rack gear teeth formed on the guide surfaces 32a and 33a as described above, the cap 200 pressed against the guide members 32 and 33 has a groove formed on the outer peripheral surface thereof. Meshes with the teeth of the guide members 32 and 33, the friction between the guide members 32 and 33 is increased, and the cap 200 is conveyed while being reliably rotated.

  By irradiating the cap 200 conveyed while rotating along the guide members 32 and 33 by such a cap conveying mechanism 30 with the electron beam irradiating unit 40 scanning an electron beam within a certain scanning region, Sterilization is performed by uniformly irradiating the entire cap 200 with an electron beam.

Note that such a cap transport mechanism 30 does not match the scanning direction of the electron beam in the electron beam irradiation unit 40 with the transport direction of the cap 200 of the bottle 100 in the bottle transport mechanism 20 or the cap transport mechanism 30, so that the electron beam irradiation is performed. It is also possible to adopt a configuration in which the bottle 100 and the cap 200 are transported so as to cross obliquely with respect to the electron beam scanned by the unit 40.
In addition, the cap transport mechanism 30 may have any other configuration as long as the cap 200 can be transported while being reliably rotated. Of course, the configuration is not limited to the configuration in which the caps 200 are transported in two rows in parallel, and a configuration in which only one row or three or more rows are transported in parallel is also possible.

  Now, in such a sterilizer 10, the controller 50 has a function of monitoring whether the cap 200 is reliably sterilized. Specifically, the controller 50 monitors the irradiation state of the electron beam with respect to the cap 200, the conveyance state of the cap 200 in the cap conveyance mechanism 30, and the rotation state.

FIG. 1B shows a block configuration for showing a functional configuration for performing the above monitoring in the controller 50. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the flow of monitoring processing in the controller 50.
The controller 50 comprises a computer device, and the CPU, ROM, RAM, information storage device, and the like cooperate to perform processing based on a predetermined program, whereby an electron beam generation source monitoring unit 51, a scan state monitoring unit 52, a cap The conveyance state monitoring unit 53, the cap rotation state monitoring unit 54, and the information storage unit 55 are functionally realized.

In order to sterilize the bottle 100 and the cap 200 with the sterilizer 10, the operator first activates the sterilizer 10. At this time, when a plurality of operation modes of the sterilizer 10 are set, the operator selects an arbitrary operation mode. Here, there are operation modes in which the amount of sterilization treatment per unit time is set in a plurality of stages such as low speed and high speed. Of course, other operation modes can be set.
When a specific operation mode is selected, the controller 50 stores the selected operation mode type in the information storage unit 55. Then, the controller 50 operates each part of the sterilization apparatus 10 according to the selected operation mode, starts irradiating the electron beam from the electron beam irradiation part 40, and starts sterilization of the bottle 100 and the cap 200 (step S201). .

  After the start of sterilization, the controller 50 monitors the operation state at regular intervals based on detection signals input from each part of the sterilizer 10 (steps S202 and S203). Although the details of the monitoring will be described in detail below, it is determined whether or not the detection signal input from each unit is within the range of the predetermined upper limit value and lower limit value. At this time, the upper limit value and the lower limit value set for each detection signal can be set for each operation mode.

  In the electron beam generation source monitoring unit 51, in order to monitor the output of the electron beam generated by the electron beam generation source 41, the pulse current I1 output to the electron beam generation source 41, the voltage applied to the electron beam generation source 41 (acceleration) Voltage) is detected, and it is determined whether or not these detected values are within a predetermined range. Thereby, for example, when the output of the electron beam is excessive or insufficient due to abnormality of the electron beam generation source 41, this can be detected.

  In the scan state monitoring unit 52, the current I2 output to the deflection magnet 42 and the scan magnet 43 are output to monitor the deflection state of the electron beam toward the cap 200 and the number of scans (frequency) of the electron beam. Current I3 is detected, and it is determined whether or not these detected values are within a predetermined range. The scan state monitoring unit 52 also monitors the scan width of the electron beam. For this reason, the beam sensors 56 are provided at both ends of a predetermined scan region of the electron beam, and the scan state monitoring unit 52 determines whether or not the electron beam is detected by the beam sensor 56. As a result, for example, when an abnormality occurs in the deflection magnet 42, the scanning magnet 43, etc., and scanning is not performed normally, this can be detected. In addition, if scanning is performed excessively for some reason, the cap 200 is excessively irradiated with an electron beam, leading to discoloration and softening / deformation of the cap 200, which can be prevented.

The cap conveyance state monitoring unit 53 monitors the conveyance speed of the cap 200 in the cap conveyance mechanism 30. For this reason, the cap conveyance state monitoring unit 53 detects a current for rotating the screw members 31A and 31B, and determines whether or not the detected value is within a predetermined range.
For example, when the rotational speed of the screw members 31A and 31B is reduced due to a motor abnormality or the like, the transport speed of the cap 200 becomes slow, and the cap 200 stays in the scanning range of the electron beam for a long time. Will lead to proper irradiation. This is prevented by the above monitoring.
The amount of sterilization treatment per unit time in the sterilization apparatus 10 may vary depending on the production amount per hour of the product. In order to change the sterilization amount, the operation mode is changed and the conveyance speed of the cap 200 is changed. When the conveyance speed of the cap 200 changes, it is necessary to change the irradiation amount of the electron beam accordingly so that there is no excess or deficiency, and for this, the frequency of the current I3 applied to the scanning magnet 43 is changed. Therefore, the cap conveyance state monitoring unit 53 refers to the information stored in the information storage unit 55 and determines whether the conveyance speed (current value) of the cap 200 corresponds to the type of operation mode selected at that time. It is preferable to monitor whether or not the frequency of the detected current I3 also corresponds to the type of operation mode selected at that time in the scan state monitoring unit 52 as well.

The cap rotation state monitoring unit 54 monitors the rotation state of the cap 200 conveyed by the cap conveyance mechanism 30. This is because when the cap 200 is not sufficiently rotated, uniform electron beam irradiation to the cap 200 is impaired.
Therefore, the rotation state of the cap 200 conveyed by the cap conveyance mechanism 30 is detected to determine whether or not the rotation of the cap 200 is reliably performed. A plurality of forms as shown below can be considered.

  The cap rotation detection device 60A shown in FIG. 6 uses a laser Doppler method. The sensor 61 emits a laser beam, irradiates the side surface of the cap 200 conveyed by the cap conveyance mechanism 30, and receives the reflected light. Based on the time difference, the rotational speed ( Peripheral speed) can be detected. The cap rotation state monitoring unit 54 determines whether or not the detected rotation speed of the cap 200 is within a predetermined range.

The cap rotation detection device 60B shown in FIG. 7 detects the rotation of the cap 200 by photographing the cap 200 a plurality of times with the camera 63 and processing a plurality of photographed images. For this purpose, a plurality of cameras 63 are installed below the cap transport mechanism 30 at intervals in the transport direction. At this time, the interval between the cameras 63 and 63 that are in front of and behind each other is set so as not to match the length necessary for one rotation while the cap 200 is conveyed. Further, it is preferable that these cameras 63 be installed outside the irradiation range of the electron beam so that the camera 63 is not irradiated with the electron beam.
Then, each camera 63 captures the top surface 200a of the cap 200 at the timing when the cap 200 reaches the position corresponding to each camera 63. Since a logo mark such as a product name or a manufacturer name is printed on the top surface 200a of the cap 200, this is photographed. For this reason, it is preferable that the screw members 31 </ b> A and 31 </ b> B are arranged offset to one side from the center of the cap 200. Then, the images captured by the respective cameras 63 are transmitted to the cap rotation state monitoring unit 54.
The cap rotation state monitoring unit 54 compares the images captured by the plurality of cameras 63, and determines whether the angles of the logo marks included in the captured images are different among the images captured by the plurality of cameras 63. Determine. If the cap 200 is reliably rotated, the angles should be different between images taken by a plurality of cameras 63. If the logo mark angle does not change between images taken by a plurality of cameras 63, it can be determined that the cap 200 is not rotating.

The cap rotation detection device 60 </ b> C shown in FIG. 8 detects the rotation of the cap 200 by the laser displacement meter 66. The laser displacement meter 66 is provided so as to be movable along the guide rail 66a or the like so as to move in parallel with the cap 200 at a speed equal to the speed at which the cap 200 is transported in the cap transport mechanism 30.
As shown in FIG. 9, a plurality of wings 201 for fitting the cap 200 to the bottle 100 are formed on the inner peripheral edge portion of the cap 200. These wings 201 are provided at intervals in the circumferential direction.
Therefore, the laser beam is irradiated to the wing 201 formed on the inner peripheral edge of the cap 200 while moving the laser displacement meter 66 at the same speed as the cap 200. In the laser displacement meter 66, the amount of displacement detected by the laser displacement meter 66 when the laser beam to be irradiated is irradiated on the portion of the wing 201 and when the cut portion of the adjacent wings 201 and 201 is irradiated. Since this changes, this is detected. Since the rotation speed can be calculated from the period in which the displacement detection amount changes, the cap rotation state monitoring unit 54 determines whether the rotation speed of the cap 200 is within a predetermined range. .

  A cap rotation detection device 60D shown in FIG. 10 detects the contact pressure of the cap 200 against the guide members 32 and 33 of the cap transport mechanism 30. Therefore, strain gauges 67 are provided on the guide surfaces 32a and 33a of the guide members 32 and 33. As described above, the cap 200 rotates by being pressed against the guide surfaces 32a and 33a of the guide members 32 and 33 by the rotation of the screw members 31A and 31B. The contact pressure is detected by the strain gauge 67, and the cap rotation state monitoring unit 54 determines whether or not the detected contact pressure is within a predetermined range.

A cap rotation detection device 60E shown in FIG. 11 detects the temperature distribution of the cap 200 after the electron beam irradiation. The temperature of the cap 200 is increased by the electron beam irradiation, and the temperature and the electron beam irradiation amount are correlated.
Therefore, a thermography 68 for detecting the temperature distribution of the cap 200 after the electron beam irradiation is provided on the post-process side of the electron beam irradiation region. The cap rotation state monitoring unit 54 detects, for example, the maximum temperature and the minimum temperature of the cap 200 from the temperature distribution of the cap 200 detected by the thermography 68, and determines whether or not they are within a predetermined range. .

  The controller 50 makes a determination based on the monitoring results in the electron beam generation source monitoring unit 51, the scan state monitoring unit 52, the cap conveyance state monitoring unit 53, and the cap rotation state monitoring unit 54 as described above (step S203). If the monitoring result deviates from the predetermined range, the cap 200 is excessively or insufficiently irradiated with the electron beam or nonuniform irradiation is performed. It is excluded from the process as a non-defective product (step S204).

  In this way, if any abnormality occurs in the sterilization process of the cap 200 by monitoring the generation state of the electron beam, the scanning state of the electron beam, the conveyance state of the cap 200, and the rotation state of the cap 200, The cap 200 to be performed can be reliably excluded as a defective product. In addition, since such monitoring can be performed in real time, if an abnormality occurs, this can be detected immediately, and the cap 200 that becomes a defective product can be minimized.

In the above embodiment, the sterilization state of the cap 200 has been described. However, it is preferable to perform the same monitoring for the bottle 100 as well.
Moreover, although the structure of the sterilizer 10 has been described, there is no problem even if any structure is changed, added, or deleted within the scope of the gist of the present invention.
In addition to this, as long as it does not depart from the gist of the present invention, the configuration described in the above embodiment can be selected or changed to another configuration as appropriate.

It is a figure which shows the structure of the sterilizer in this Embodiment. It is a figure which shows the structure of an electron beam irradiation part. It is a figure which shows the example of the control current in an electron beam irradiation part. It is a figure which shows an example of a cap conveyance mechanism. It is a figure which shows the flow of a monitoring process. This is an example of a configuration for detecting the rotation of the cap, and is an example using a laser Doppler type sensor. This is an example of a configuration for detecting rotation of a cap, and is an example in the case of performing image processing on an image captured by a camera. This is an example of a configuration for detecting rotation of the cap, and an example using a laser displacement meter. It is a perspective view which shows the cap in which the wing was formed. It is an example of the structure for performing rotation detection of a cap, and is an example which attached the strain gauge to the guide member. It is an example of the structure for performing rotation detection of a cap, and is an example using thermography.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Sterilizer 30 ... Cap conveyance mechanism (cap conveyance part), 31A, 31B ... Screw member (cap moving member), 32, 33 ... Guide member, 40 ... Electron beam irradiation part (electron beam scanning part), 41 ... Electron beam generation source, 42 ... deflection magnet, 43 ... scanning magnet, 50 ... controller (monitoring unit), 51 ... electron beam generation source monitoring unit, 52 ... scan state monitoring unit, 53 ... cap conveyance state monitoring unit, 54 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS ... Cap rotation state monitoring part, 56 ... Beam sensor, 60A-60E ... Cap rotation detection apparatus, 61 ... Sensor, 62 ... Speedometer, 63 ... Camera, 66 ... Laser displacement meter, 67 ... Strain gauge, 68 ... Thermography, 100 ... bottle, 200 ... cap

Claims (8)

A sterilizer for sterilizing the cap by irradiating the cap of the container with an electron beam,
An electron beam generation source for generating the electron beam;
An electron beam scanning unit that scans the electron beam generated by the electron beam generation source within a predetermined range;
A cap transport section that passes through the range while rotating the cap;
A monitoring unit that monitors a generation state of the electron beam in the electron beam generation source, a scanning state of the electron beam in the electron beam scanning unit, a conveyance speed of the cap in the cap conveyance unit, and a rotation state of the cap;
When any of the monitoring results obtained by the monitoring unit is out of a predetermined range with respect to the generation state of the electron beam, the scanning state of the electron beam, the conveyance speed of the cap, and the rotation state of the cap. , A cap reject part that excludes the cap corresponding to the monitoring result out of the process;
A sterilizing apparatus comprising: The monitoring unit monitors the generation state of the electron beam by detecting a current for controlling the generation timing of the electron beam and an acceleration voltage for generating the electron beam,
The sterilizer according to claim 1, wherein the electron beam scanning state in the electron beam scanning unit is monitored by detecting a frequency of a current that controls the scanning timing of the electron beam.   The sterilization apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the monitoring unit monitors a scanning state of the electron beam by detecting a scanning width of the electron beam in the electron beam scanning unit.   The said monitoring part detects whether the conveyance speed of the said cap in the said cap conveyance part respond | corresponds with the scanning frequency of the said electron beam in the said electron beam scanning part. The sterilizer in any one.   The sterilizer according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the monitoring unit monitors a rotation state of the cap by detecting a rotation speed of the cap conveyed by the cap conveyance unit. .   The monitoring unit captures the cap transported by the cap transport unit at a plurality of positions spaced in the transport direction, and compares the images captured at the respective positions to determine the rotation state of the cap. The sterilizer according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein monitoring is performed. The cap transport unit includes a cap moving member that moves the cap in the transport direction;
A guide member that is provided laterally along the cap moving member and rotates the cap in contact with the cap that is moved by the cap moving member;
The sterilizer according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the monitoring unit monitors a rotation state of the cap by detecting a contact pressure of the cap with respect to the guide member.   The sterilizer according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the monitoring unit monitors a rotation state of the cap by detecting a temperature distribution of the cap that has passed through the range.

Images