JPH1085578A - Method and device for additive liquid feed control for tumbling granulator - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To measure the water content of a powder not changing its color by using an additive liquid so that the color does not change, since in the case the color does not change in a powder to be granulated by its water content, the water content can be measured by measuring the color change while in the case the color does not change by the water content, it is difficult to measure the water content from its outer appearance. SOLUTION: In a granulating machine 1 for feeding powder and adding liquid respectively onto an inclined bread-shaped granulating pan 3 and granulating by rotating the granulating pan 3 while controlling the feed of the additive liquid, a material to be granulated is sampled, photographed by a CCD camera and image processed and its volume is measured based on the average grain size diameter of the material to be granulated and then the average weight of particles is measured, and the particle gravity weight is measured from both of the above-referred measurements, and the particle gravity is compared with a reference data to measure the excess and deficiency of the water content and the feed amount of the additive liquid is controlled.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for controlling the supply of an additive liquid to a tumbling granulator, particularly a bread granulator.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The above-mentioned tumbling granulator supports a pan-shaped granulating dish at an angle, and a powder and an additive liquid (for example, water or an appropriate coagulant or heavy metal fixing agent, etc. are added thereto). ) Is supplied, the granulation is performed by lifting the granulation dish with rotation and falling downward by its own weight to granulate, grow to a predetermined size, and then discharge by overflow. is there. At this time, the powder is generally supplied in a fixed amount by a screw conveyor, the amount of the supplied powder is measured, and the above-mentioned measurement is performed so as to control and maintain the ratio between the supplied powder and the additive liquid at a preset ratio. A method has been proposed in which the amount of the additive liquid to be added is regulated based on the value (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 5-
237358).

[0003] In this case, the allowable range of the supply amount of the additive liquid is extremely small, and when the amount of the additive liquid is large, the granulated material becomes excessively large and the liquid content of the granules is limited. Excess liquid is accumulated in the dish and becomes muddy, making granulation impossible. When the amount of liquid is insufficient, the granulated particle diameter becomes small, and finally the amount of liquid for granulation becomes insufficient, and granulation becomes impossible. For this reason, the present applicant measures the moisture on the surface of the granules to be granulated first, thereby accurately adjusting the amount of the liquid to be supplied, and the rolling molding that enables automatic continuous operation of the bread granulator. A method and an apparatus for controlling the supply of an additive for a granulator have been proposed (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-194960). The outline is shown in FIG.

In FIG. 1, a pan-shaped granulator 1 has the above-mentioned pan-shaped granulating dish 3 attached to one end of a drive shaft 2 and is rotated at a predetermined speed by a drive motor 4. The drive shaft 2 is mounted on the mounting table 5 at an angle.
At the other end, a lifting screw rod 8 is attached to adjust and hold the granulating dish 3 at an arbitrary angle. 10 is a hopper for storing processed powder,
Reference numeral 11 denotes a screw conveyor, 12 denotes a drive motor of the conveyor, and 13 denotes a discharge pipe. The powder in the hopper is supplied to an appropriate place of the granulating dish 3 at a substantially constant speed. Reference numeral 14 denotes an injection nozzle provided to face the granulation dish 3, and reference numeral 15 denotes a supply liquid regulating valve provided in an additive liquid supply pipe 16 connecting the nozzle and the pump P.

Reference numeral 50 denotes an additive liquid supply control circuit, which includes a moisture measuring device 51 for the granules to be granulated and an arithmetic circuit 52 for adjusting the amount of water jetted from the nozzle 14 in accordance with the detected moisture content of the granules. . The moisture meter 51 detects a change in contrast (usually a change in black and white) according to the moisture of the granules, that is, a camera (hereinafter referred to as a CCD) equipped with a CCD type solid-state imaging device (pixel) that facilitates image information processing. Camera 54). The camera detects the color contrast of the particles to be imaged, measures the area of the white portion or the black portion, and detects an excess or shortage of water.

In some cases, the CCD camera 51 may be provided at a position 51a in the figure to measure the water content of the granules discharged from the granulation dish 3. Reference numeral 53 denotes an additive liquid supply command circuit that sets the additive liquid supply amount according to a command from the arithmetic circuit 52.

[0007]

However, in this case, as a powder, for example, as described above, ash or the like generated from an incinerator of municipal garbage has a white color or a color close thereto, and changes in color depending on the water content. For those that produce, by measuring the color change, the water content can be measured, for example, dust generated from an electric furnace or the like that dissolves old iron is mainly iron oxide and has a black or similar color, The color change due to moisture hardly occurs, and therefore, it may be difficult to measure the water content from the appearance. In view of the above, the present invention measures the water content of a powder that does not cause a color change due to the above-mentioned additive liquid, regulates the supply amount of the additive liquid, and always keeps the required moisture content. The purpose is to perform the graining operation reliably.

[0008]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for controlling the supply of an additive to a rolling granulator, wherein the powder and the additive are supplied to an inclined pan-type granulating dish. Sampling the granulated material, photographing it with a CCD camera, performing image processing, measuring the volume from the average particle size of the granular material,
Subsequently, the average weight of the particles is measured, the particle density is measured from both, and this is compared with reference data to measure the excess or deficiency of the water content, and the supply of the additive liquid is controlled.

A second aspect of the present invention relates to an apparatus for performing the above method, wherein the powder and the additive liquid are supplied to an inclined pan-type granulating dish, and the supply of the additive liquid is controlled. In a granulator that rotates and granulates, a sampling mechanism for sampling the granulated material, a shape measuring unit equipped with a CCD camera for photographing the collected sample, a comparison between the sample weight measuring unit and the reference data Circuit, the granulated particles are sampled, photographed with a CCD camera, the number of samples and the volume of the unit sample are measured, the weight of the unit sample is measured by the weight measuring unit, and the basic data is compared with the basic data in the comparison circuit. The method is characterized in that the amount of the additive liquid contained in the sample is calculated by comparison, and the supply amount of the additive liquid is controlled.

When the method and the apparatus for controlling the supply of an additive for a tumbling granulator according to the present invention having the above-described structure are used, the granulated material is sampled, the sample is photographed by a CCD camera, and the number of samples and the cutoff thereof are measured. Calculate the volume when spherical from the area, measure the weight of the sample by the weight measuring unit, calculate the density of the sample from these, compare it with the basic data in the comparison circuit, calculate the amount of additive solution contained, The excess or deficiency is calculated, and the supply amount of the additive liquid is regulated based on this.

[0011]

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention. The bread granulator 1 has the same structure as that shown in FIG. 4, and the same components are denoted by the same reference numerals and description thereof will be omitted. Reference numeral 20 denotes an additive liquid supply control device, which includes a sampling mechanism 21 for sampling the granulated material W discharged from the granulation dish 3 at regular intervals, and a shape for measuring the shape and size of the extracted sampling. Measuring unit 22
A weight measuring unit 23 for sampling, a comparison circuit 25 for comparison with preset basic data 24, and a liquid amount adjusting circuit 26 for adjusting the amount of added liquid.

The sampling mechanism 21 includes a sampling take-out spoon 30 and an air cylinder 31 for moving the spoon 30 forward and backward. The spoon 30 is advanced at regular intervals by the operation of the air cylinder 31, receives the granules W discharged from the granulation dish 3 (about 20 pieces), retreats and falls down, and places the sample w on the chute 32. This is supplied (an embodiment is shown in FIG. 2).

The shape measuring section 22 includes a photographing device 33 for photographing the sample w on the chute 32. At this time, the above-mentioned CCD camera is used as the photographing device 33. Thereby, the sample w which sequentially falls on the chute is photographed, and the average diameter and average volume when the sample is assumed to be spherical are calculated from the number of supplied samples, the projected area of each sample or the length of the outer circumference. Is calculated by The numerical value calculated by the arithmetic unit 34 is applied to the comparison circuit 25.

The sample weight measuring section 23 is provided with a hopper 35 for receiving the sample supplied from the chute 32.
And an electric weighing device such as a load cell 36,
The total weight of the sample supplied to the hopper 35 is measured, and the weight of the unit sample is calculated by the calculation unit 37 based on the number calculated by the calculation unit 34, and is applied to the comparison circuit 25. Numeral 40 denotes a discharge conveyor in which the sample after the measurement is returned to an appropriate place.

In the above configuration, the sampling mechanism 21 is attached to the granules discharged from the granulation dish 3 at regular intervals.
Is moved forward, and for example, about 20 samples are taken out and supplied onto the chute 32. The sample w on the chute is photographed by the CCD camera 33, and the arithmetic unit 34 calculates the diameter and volume when the sample is formed into a sphere from the number of the falling samples and the projected area thereof, and compares the numerical value with the comparison circuit 25. To enter.

Next, the sample on the chute is put into the hopper 35 of the weight measuring section 23, and the weight is transferred to the load cell 3.
Measure according to 6. The measured value is input to the calculation unit 37, and the number of samples is input from the calculation unit 34,
The weight of the unit sample is calculated and input to the comparison circuit 25.

The comparison circuit 25 compares the input values from the operation units 34 and 37 with the basic data 24. The comparison circuit 25 calculates the ratio (density) between the input sample volume and weight and compares it with the basic data 24. FIG. 3 shows an example of this basic data. In the figure, the reference density G of the basic data is a graph of the ratio of the volume of the granulated particles, the volume change (diameter change) of the particles and the weight of the standard liquid content (for example, a water content of 7%), that is, the density. The optimum basic data is set in advance based on empirical rules such as experiments, and allowable ranges a and b are set above and below the basic data, and the measurement results are compared with these. However, when the diameter of the sample w is larger than the maximum allowable range GX of the basic data, the liquid content is excessive, and the supply liquid amount is immediately reduced or stopped. If it is less than the minimum allowable range GM, the amount of the additive liquid is insufficient, and a command to increase the amount of the additive liquid is issued.

Based on the measurement result, the liquid amount adjusting circuit 26
To regulate the amount of the liquid supplied to the granulating dish 3 by the supply liquid adjusting valve 29. As the regulation of the supply liquid amount, simple ON / OFF control may be used, but it may be severely controlled by adjusting the opening degree of the supply liquid adjustment valve 29.

[0019]

As described above, according to the present invention, the granulated material is sampled, and the size of the granulated material is optically measured, that is, CC.
Photographed by a D camera, image processed, the volume is measured from the average particle size of the granular material, then the average weight of the particles is measured to grasp the mass, that is, the density of the particles, and contained by comparing with the basic data. Since the amount of added liquid is measured, the amount of added liquid of granulated particles can be reliably measured.
Because the supply amount of the additive liquid is controlled by this,
The granulation operation can be performed automatically and unattended and satisfactorily.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall explanatory view of a method for controlling an additive liquid supply amount of a tumbling granulator of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic explanatory view of an additive liquid supply amount control mechanism.

FIG. 3 shows a graph of basic data.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory view of a conventional method for controlling the supply amount of an additive liquid in a rolling granulator.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Rolling granulator 3 Granulating dish 20 Additive liquid supply control device 21 Sampling mechanism 22 Shape measuring unit 23 Weight measuring unit 24 Basic data 25 Comparison circuit 33 CCD camera

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A granulating machine for supplying a powder and an additive liquid to an inclined pan-type granulating dish and rotating the granulating dish to granulate the granulated material, and photographing the granulated material with a CCD camera. Then, image processing is performed, the volume is measured from the average particle size of the granular material, then the average weight of the particles is measured, and the particle density is measured from both, and this is compared with the reference data to determine whether the water content is insufficient or insufficient. And controlling the supply of the additive liquid by controlling the supply of the additive liquid. 2. A granulator for supplying a powder and an additive liquid to an inclined pan-type granulating dish and controlling the supply of the additive liquid and rotating the granulating dish to granulate. A sampling mechanism for sampling an object, a shape measuring unit having a CCD camera for photographing the collected sample, a sample weight measuring unit and a comparison circuit with reference data are provided, and the granulated particles are sampled. Take a picture with a CCD camera to measure the number of samples and the volume of a unit sample,
A tumbling granulator characterized in that the weight of a unit sample is measured by a weight measuring unit, the amount of additive liquid contained in the sample is calculated in a comparison circuit with basic data, and the supply amount of additive liquid is controlled. Liquid supply control device.