JPH09113419A - Automatic sampling apparatus for extrusion granulated product - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain an automatic sampling apparatus by which extrusion granulated products are sampled by a method wherein samples as pellet-shaped molded products manufactured from noodle-shaped molded products by an extrusion granulating operation are sampled in a proper amount, their overlap is exclused and the samples are imaged by an imaging means such as a CCD video camera under stable illumination. SOLUTION: A sampling chute 2 in which a sampling dish 1 is placed at the tip is brought close to a noodle-shaped molded product exit at a granulating machine, and it samples, in a proper amount, molded products. The upper part 2a of the chute is expanded and contracted with reference to the lower part 2b of the chute, and the upper part can be moved up and down by an air cylinder 5. A sampling-chute vibration mechanism 4 is attached to the chute 2, a vibration is given to the chute as a whole, and pellets are moved to a rectlinear feeder 7. The pellets which are vibrated by a rectlinear-feeder vibration mechanism 6 so as to be moved are conveyed to the position of a video camera 8. When the pellets reach the position of a pellet sensor 12, a signal is output to a sequencer, and the mechanism 6 is stopped. The camera 8 images the pellets which are situated directly under it, and an image processing operation is executed.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

The present invention relates to an apparatus for automatically collecting a sample of an extruded granulated product from an extruded granulation plant for evaluating the quality of the extruded granulated product using an image processing technique. In particular, the present invention relates to an automatic extruded granulation sampling apparatus in an extruded granulation plant for transporting a pellet-shaped molded product from the extruded granulation plant to an imaging area and performing stable imaging.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Extruded granulated products are extruded from a screen having small holes (lattice-shaped hole screen) of a so-called extrusion granulation plant, and are spontaneously broken to form pellet-shaped granulated products. In the field of manufacturing chemical fertilizers, various chemicals, additives, plastic raw materials, etc., such extrusion granulation is employed. In the granulation by the extrusion molding, the properties of the finished product differ depending on the raw materials and additives to be blended and the environment (temperature, humidity, etc.) to be produced.

In order to produce a stable product, it is necessary to adjust the compounding state of additives and the like while checking the properties of the product. In the past, attempts have been made to perform image processing on image data from a video camera to evaluate the quality of this type of extruded product and evaluate the quality based on the processing results. Because it was random to allow overlapping of objects, shadows were generated in image processing or pellet-like objects overlapped, so it was difficult to extract the properties and specificity of each individual pellet-like object there were.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is to provide a sample sampling apparatus which is indispensable when the confirmation of the product state as described above is to be automated, and to provide an extrusion granulation plant of this kind. It is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic sampling device that can be widely applied without being limited to a molded pellet-shaped object.

[0005] That is, an object of the present invention is to collect a proper amount of a sample of a pellet-like molded product manufactured from a noodle-like molded product formed by extrusion granulation, eliminate the overlap thereof, and perform stable illumination under stable lighting. An object of the present invention is to provide an automatic sampling device for extruded granulated products in an extruded granulated plant for taking an image by an imaging means such as a CCD video camera and evaluating the image by an image processing method.

[0006]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, a kneaded material is extruded into a noodle shape and then naturally cut into an appropriate length to form a pellet. Sampling pelletized molded product into
An automatic sampling device for an extruded granulated product in an extruded granulated plant for imaging the surface shape and collecting data for evaluating the quality of the pellet-shaped molded product according to the state of the imaged surface shape, A sampling dish 1 with a coil spring for cutting and collecting an appropriate amount and an appropriate length of a pellet-shaped molded product extruded from a grain plant;
Has a U-shaped groove made of aluminum or hard resin and a linear feeder vibrating mechanism for aligning the transferred pellet-shaped molded products, and aligning the pellet-shaped molded products. In addition to guiding to the take-in position, the above-mentioned pellet-like molded product after the completion of the image take-in
3 and the sampling dish 1
The sampling chute 2 incorporating the sampling chute vibration mechanism 4 and the tilting air cylinder 5 for transferring the pellet-shaped molded product collected to the linear feeder 7, and the fact that the pellet-shaped molded product has reached the imaging position. A pellet detection sensor 12 for detecting, a video camera 8 installed at the imaging position for imaging the pellet-shaped molded article conveyed by the linear feeder, and an external controller for controlling the operation of each of the components. Control box box 29 with a power interface for sending and receiving signals
And at least

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect, an annular light source or an LED arranged coaxially with the video camera 8 so as to uniformly illuminate an imaging area of the video camera 8. A light source 9 and said annular light source or LE
An illumination adjustment mechanism 10 installed between the D light source 9 and the imaging area; a dustproof positive pressure mechanism 11 for maintaining the video camera, the annular light source or the LED light source 9 and the illumination adjustment mechanism 10 in a positive pressure environment; It is characterized by having.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS According to the structure of the present invention, (1)
A stable collection volume is guaranteed. (2) The length of the pellet-shaped molded product can be appropriately shortened. (3) The transfer performance of the sampling chute is improved. (4) Transfer, alignment, and overlap of the collected pellet-shaped molded product are prevented. (5) A clear image can be obtained by taking an image in a stationary state with a pellet sensing function. (6) The quality of the output image of the video camera is good because stable illumination can be performed. (7) The contamination of the video camera with dust can be prevented, and the image quality does not deteriorate due to the environment.

The automatic sampling apparatus in the extrusion granulation plant according to the present invention has a compact structure in which the entire apparatus is housed in one housing. Then, a fan-shaped sampling dish was provided at the tip of the sampling chute in order to guarantee a stable sampling amount. A saw-shaped cutout is provided at the tip of this sampling dish at a pitch of about 5 times the diameter D of the pellet-like molded product, and the noodle-like molded product coming out of the screen (lattice-shaped hole) of the granulator. The resistance has been reduced. Further, a sampling dish with a coil spring (hereinafter, also referred to as a sampling dish) is moved up and down by an air cylinder at intervals of a fixed time for each sampling chute to increase the sampling efficiency.

The collecting sheet vibrating mechanism is installed at an angle on the upper surface of the collecting chute in order to improve the transfer performance of the collecting chute, and the transfer performance is improved by downward vibration. Furthermore, the coil springs provided at the tip and upper part of the sampling dish have the effect of shortening the length of the pellet-shaped molded product, and this coil spring resonates and is pushed out by the vibration source installed on the upper surface of the sampling chute. The pellet-shaped molded product coming out of the screen of the granulator comes into contact with the noodle-shaped molded product to fold it short.

Although a straight feeder is used for transferring the collected pellet-shaped molded products, it is not possible to prevent the overlap due to the intersection of the pellet-shaped molded products by itself, so that the 0.8D of 0.8D corresponding to the diameter D of the pellet-shaped molded products is used. 1. Make a U-shaped groove of radius.
By providing the pitch at an interval of 8D, the orientation of the pellet-shaped molded products is forcibly aligned in one direction, and the intersection of each other is prevented. In other words, the upper pellet-shaped molded product falls into the adjacent U-shaped groove without the pellet-shaped molded product overlapping in two steps due to the shape of the peak of the U-shaped groove.

Further, as the material of the straight feeder of the U-shaped groove, hard resin or aluminum is used to reduce friction. Then, in order to reduce the luminance of the background and use a black resin as the high-quality resin in order to extract a required image of the pellet-shaped molded article with good contrast, or when using aluminum, a black non-reflective coating is applied to the surface thereof. Is applied.

A laser displacement sensor can be used as a detection sensor for a pellet-shaped molded article, and it is possible to quickly and accurately detect that the collected pellet-shaped molded article group has reached directly below a video camera. In image inspection, the illuminance of an imaging part (the field of view of a video camera) is the most important parameter. If this is not stable, reliable test results cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, by installing an illumination light source composed of a donut-type fluorescent lamp coaxially with the video camera, stable illuminance is ensured.

Further, as an illumination adjustment mechanism for adjusting the light amount of the annular light source, three overlapping screens having a plurality of round holes formed at the same position provided in the circumferential direction of the annular light source are arranged. Then, the illuminance of the visual field of the video camera can be adjusted by rotating and shifting the center screen sandwiched between the three screens.

On the other hand, since the fluorescent annular light source generates a considerable amount of heat, it can be considered that a long-time operation adversely affects the camera section. Therefore, a high brightness light emitting diode (LE
By using D), heat generation can be suppressed. By arranging the light emitting diodes in a matrix of 5 × 8 or in a ring of about 40 light emitting diodes, it is possible to obtain sufficient illuminance for imaging. The number of LEDs to be energized may be set in two to several steps to adjust the illuminance.

The dustproof positive pressure mechanism has a camera unit and an illumination device (annular light source or LED light source) that are open only for the imaging window, and sends compressed air into the enclosure to maintain a positive pressure environment. Thus, it is possible to prevent the lens and the lighting device of the video camera from being contaminated by dust generated from the pellet-shaped molded product or from the extrusion granulator.

[0017]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating the configuration of an embodiment of a sampling unit of an automatic sampling device in an extrusion granulation plant according to the present invention, wherein 1 is a sampling dish with a coil spring (collecting dish), 2 is a sampling chute, 2a
Is a sampling chute upper part, 2b is a sampling chute lower part, 4 is a sampling chute vibration mechanism, 5 is an air cylinder, 6 is a linear feeder vibration mechanism, 7 is a linear feeder, 8 is a video camera composed of a CCD or the like, 9 is an annular light source or LED. Light source, 10
Denotes a lighting adjustment mechanism, 11 denotes a dustproof positive pressure mechanism, 12 denotes a pellet-shaped molded product detection sensor (hereinafter, also simply referred to as a pellet sensor), 13 denotes a pellet stocker, 14 denotes a housing, and 15 denotes an inspection window.

In the figure, a sampling chute 2 having a sampling dish 1 installed at its tip approaches an outlet of a noodle-shaped molded product of an extrusion granulator and collects an appropriate amount of the noodle-shaped molded product. The upper portion 2a of the collecting chute can be extended and contracted in the direction of arrow A with respect to the lower portion 2b of the collecting chute, and can be moved up and down in the direction of arrow B by the air cylinder 5.

Further, a sampling chute vibrating mechanism 4 is attached to the sampling chute 2 so as to vibrate the entire sampling chute when a pellet-shaped molded product (hereinafter, also simply referred to as a pellet) is sampled, and to collect the sample in the sampling dish 1. The pellet thus moved moves to the straight feeder 7 as shown by the arrow C. The straight feeder 7 is a straight feeder vibration mechanism 6
The pellets moved from the collecting chute 2 are conveyed toward the position where the video camera 8 is installed.

When the head of the pellet reaches the position of the pellet sensor 12, a pellet detection signal is output from the pellet sensor 12 to the sequencer 18 of the control panel box in FIG. The control panel stops the linear feeder vibration mechanism 6 in response to the arrival of the pellet detection signal.

In this stopped state, the video camera 8 picks up an image of the pellet immediately below and sends it to the control panel to execute required image processing. The dustproof positive pressure mechanism 11 accommodates the video camera 8, the annular light source or the LED light source 9, and the illumination adjustment mechanism 10, and sends compressed air from a blowing mechanism (not shown) to maintain the inside at a positive pressure environment higher than the atmospheric pressure. Thus, it is possible to prevent the lens of the video camera, the annular light source or the LED light source from being contaminated by dust generated from the pellet-shaped molded product or from the extrusion granulator.

FIGS. 2A and 2B are explanatory views of a structural example of the collecting dish and the collecting chute in FIG. 1, wherein FIG. 2A is a top view and FIG. 2B is a side view. In the figure, the same reference numerals as those in FIG. 1 correspond to the same parts, 3a is a notch, and 3b is a coil spring.
Saw-shaped notches 3a are formed at a pitch about 5 times the diameter of the pellet at the fan-shaped tip edge of the sampling dish 1 to reduce the resistance of the noodle-shaped molded product extruded from the granulator.

A plurality of coil springs 3b are laid across the fan-shaped tip edge and the entire upper surface or a part of the upper surface of the collection tray 1 so as to cross the width direction of the collection tray 1. This coil spring 3b
Resonates with the vibration of the chute vibration mechanism 4 installed on the upper surface side of the sampling chute and shortly cuts the noodle-shaped molded product extruded from the granulator into pellets.

The pellets supplied to the collecting chute are conveyed in the direction of arrow C by the vibration of the linear feeder vibrating mechanism 6. The upper part 2a of the collecting chute is the lower part 2 of the collecting chute.
The storage chute 2 is configured to be retractable in the direction of the arrow A with respect to b, so that it can be pulled out during operation, and the entire sampling chute 2 moves up and down in the direction of the arrow B by the air cylinder 5.

FIGS. 3A and 3B are main part structural diagrams for explaining the structure of the linear feeder, wherein FIG. 3A is a cross-sectional view in the width direction, and FIG. 3B is a side view of the main part. In the figure, a straight feeder 7 has a gutter shape, and a plurality of U-shaped grooves 7a extending in a longitudinal direction on a bottom surface thereof.
Are formed. The U-shaped grooves 7a are provided at intervals of 0.8D in radius and 1.8D in pitch, where D is the diameter of the pellet.

The pellets are forcibly aligned in the U-shaped groove 7a by the vibration of the sampling chute 7 and are conveyed without overlapping. If a sufficient image cannot be obtained for the inspection, the straight-ahead feeder is operated again, and the same process is repeated. When the image capture for the inspection is completed, the linear feeder is operated to discharge the collected pellets to the pellet stocker 13.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory view of the state of the pellets arranged on the sampling chute. As shown, the pellets are aligned in the U-shaped groove of the sampling chute 7 and transported in the direction of arrow C. In the straight feeder having the U-shaped groove, the hard resin resin feeder having less pellet clogging than the aluminum feeder feeder was advantageous in terms of maintenance and image quality.

FIG. 5 is an enlarged explanatory view of the image pickup portion.
Is a video camera using a CCD, 9 is a light source having a circular arrangement of annular fluorescent lamps or LEDs arranged coaxially with the video camera, 10 is a lighting adjustment mechanism, 10a, 10b, 10c
Is a screen, 10d is an adjustment handle, and 10e is an opening. This lighting control mechanism 10 has three screens 10a,
10b, 10c are superimposed, and the center screen 10b
Is rotated in the direction of arrow D by the handle 10d, thereby changing the overlapping state of the openings 10a and 10c and the opening 10e of the screen 10b to adjust the amount of light.

A dustproof positive pressure mechanism 11 is provided so as to cover the video camera 8, the annular fluorescent lamp 9, and the illumination adjusting mechanism 10. The compressed air is sent from an air blowing mechanism (not shown) to set the inside to a positive pressure environment higher than the atmospheric pressure. keep. FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram for explaining an embodiment of a control panel box for controlling the sampling unit of the automatic sampling device shown in FIG.
17 is a noise filter, 18 is a sequencer, 19 is a relay, 20 is a feeder controller, 21 is a camera controller, 22 is a pump inverter, 23 is a sensor unit, 24 is a terminal, 25 is a lighting unit, 26 is a pilot lamp, and 27 is a pilot lamp. An operation lamp, 28 is a pump current meter, 29 is a control panel box, and 30 is a control panel.

In this figure, the control panel box 29 is connected to the sampling unit shown in FIG. 1 to control the same and supply necessary energy, and to transmit image data to a high-speed quality evaluation device (not shown). Mediate. This configuration is merely an example, and the arrangement and the like of the diffusion plate components can be changed as appropriate.

FIG. 7 is a system configuration diagram for explaining an example of a granulation control system of an extrusion granulation plant using the automatic sampling apparatus of the present invention, wherein 100 is an extrusion granulator, 101 is a raw material supply pipe, 102 Is an additive A supply pipe,
103 is an additive B supply pipe, 104 is an automatic sampling device, 105 is a video camera, 106 is a high-speed quality evaluation device, 107 is a fuzzy arithmetic device, 108 is a control panel, 10
9, 110 are electromagnetic valves.

The extrusion granulator 100 has a granulation mechanism for kneading raw materials and additives to form granules, and a large number of holes arranged in a lattice, and the kneaded product is extruded through the lattice holes. A noodle-shaped molded product is manufactured by. The noodle-shaped molded product extruded from the extrusion granulator 100 is formed into pellets from the noodle-shaped molded product by the automatic sampling device 104, and the surface state thereof is imaged by the video camera 105.

The video camera 105 magnifies the surface of the pellet and gives an image signal (image data) to the high-speed quality evaluation device 106. The high-speed quality evaluation device 106 non-quantitatively estimates and executes a quality evaluation equivalent to the evaluation of a skilled worker in a non-contact manner based on the above-described configuration. The quality evaluation value estimated by the high-speed quality evaluation device 106 is given to a fuzzy operation device 107, which calculates the flow rate of the additive by so-called ambiguous processing, and outputs this to the control panel 108.

The control panel 108 controls the opening and closing of the electromagnetic valves 109 and 110 based on the input from the fuzzy arithmetic unit 107 to control the amount of the additive, and also controls the kneading conditions of the extrusion granulator 100. The control panel 108 also controls the transfer of the granulated product transfer device 104. 8A and 8B are explanatory diagrams of an example of the luminance distribution of non-defective and non-defective products based on image data of the surface state of the pellet. FIG.

Based on such a difference in luminance distribution, a high-speed quality evaluation device 106 having quality estimating means having the multilayer perceptron-type neural network is used to determine whether or not the noodle-shaped molded product conveyed through the granulated product conveying device 104 is good or bad. Is estimated. The pass / fail estimation result is calculated by the fuzzy arithmetic unit 107.
To control the granulation conditions as described above.

Thus, the quality evaluation is performed at a high speed without the need for an operator who performs the quality evaluation, and the evaluation result is fed back to the amount of the additive supplied to the extruder or the granulation conditions. Thereby, a high-quality granulated product can be manufactured. The present invention can be applied to the evaluation of all objects whose quality can be determined from the state of the surface formed into pellets, such as the chemical fertilizers, various chemicals, additives, plastic raw materials, etc. described in the above embodiments. Needless to say, there is.

[0037]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The noodle-like molded product from the extrusion granulator is granulated into pellets, and a sample for quantitatively evaluating the degree of smoothness of the surface can be automatically collected.
This automatic sampling device for extruded granules determines the degree of cracks and irregularities on the surface of the pellet based on the evaluation criteria of the worker who has learned in advance for each object, and automatically evaluates and classifies each quality at high speed. By applying the present invention to a high-speed quality evaluation system for noodle-like granulated products that can be evaluated and evaluated, the extrusion granulation system can be completely automated.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a configuration of an embodiment of a sampling unit of an automatic sampling device for extruded granules in an extrusion granulation plant according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory view of a structural example of a sampling dish with a coil spring and a sampling chute in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a main part structure diagram illustrating a structure of a straight-ahead feeder.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory view of a state of pellets arranged on a sampling chute.

FIG. 5 is an enlarged explanatory diagram of an imaging portion.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating an embodiment of a control panel box for controlling a sampling unit of the automatic sampling device for extruded granulated products shown in FIG.

FIG. 7 is a system configuration diagram illustrating an example of a granulation control system of an extrusion granulation plant using the automatic sampling device for extrusion granulation products of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram of an example of luminance distribution of non-defective products and defective products based on image data of a surface state of a pellet.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Sampling dish with coil spring (sampling dish) 2 Sampling chute 2a Sampling chute upper part 2b Sampling sheet lower part 4 Sampling chute vibrating mechanism 5 Air cylinder 6 Straight-line feeder vibrating mechanism 7 Straight-line feeder 8 Video camera consisting of CCD 9 Ring light source or LED light source ( Lighting device 10 Lighting control mechanism 11 Dust-proof positive pressure mechanism 12 Pellet-shaped molded product detection sensor 13 Pellet stocker 14 Housing 15 Inspection window 16 Breaker 17 Noise filter 18 Sequencer 19 Relay 20 Feeder controller 21 Camera controller 22 Pump inverter 23 Sensor unit 24 terminal 25 lighting unit 26 pilot lamp 27 operation lamp 28 current meter for pump 29 control panel box 30 control panel panel.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Yutaka Okada, Nakamura 1167-80, Kumage-cho, Kumage-gun, Yamaguchi Prefecture (72) Inventor Toshiaki Sakai 11-316, Ohnokita, Hirayo-cho, Kumage-gun, Yamaguchi Prefecture

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. After extruding a kneaded material into a noodle shape, the material is naturally cut to an appropriate length, and a pellet-shaped molded product obtained by granulating into a pellet is sampled, and its surface shape is imaged.
In an automatic sampling device in an extrusion granulation plant for collecting data for evaluating the quality of the pellet-shaped molded product according to the state of the imaged surface shape, an appropriate amount and appropriate amount of the pellet-shaped molded product extruded from the extrusion granulation plant A sampling dish with a coil spring to be sampled at an appropriate length, and having a U-shaped groove and a linear feeder vibration mechanism for transferring the pellet-shaped molded article from the sampling dish with the coil spring and aligning the transferred pellet-shaped molded article, A linear feeder that guides the pellet-shaped molded product to an image capturing position in an aligned state and discharges the pellet-shaped molded product after the image capturing to a pellet stocker; and a pellet-shaped molding sampled on the sampling dish with the coil spring. Chute shake to transfer the goods to the straight feeder A sampling chute incorporating a mechanism and an air cylinder for tilting; a pellet detection sensor for detecting that the pellet-shaped molded article has reached an imaging position; and the pellets installed at the imaging position and conveyed by the linear feeder. A video camera for capturing an image of a molded article; and a control panel box having a power interface for controlling the operation of each of the components and transmitting and receiving signals to and from an external controller. Automatic sampling device for granulated products. 2. The annular light source arranged coaxially with the video camera so as to uniformly illuminate the imaging area of the video camera, and the illumination adjustment installed between the annular light source and the imaging area. An automatic sampling device for extruded granulated products, comprising a mechanism, a dust-proof positive pressure mechanism for keeping the video camera, the annular light source or LED light source, and the illumination adjusting mechanism in a positive pressure environment.