RU2671900C1 - Device for cutting food products - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: food industry.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to the food industry, and more particularly to the field of automated equipment for cutting food blades into slices. Device comprises a drive device and a discharge device provided with actuators in the form of two conveyor lines, each line being composed of two conveyors mounted at an angle to each other. Cutting device includes at least two sickle-shaped cutting tools fixed to reciprocal movement with mutual intersection of the cutting edges. Between the two lines of the conveyors is placed a vertically oriented supporting flat ring on which the electric motor is fixed, connected by a gear transmission with a drive flat ring, mounted concentrically to the supporting flat ring. Cutting tools are evenly distributed and installed on the end face of the drive flat ring on the sleeves with the ability to rotate, and at the end of the supporting flat ring with the ability to rotate while rotating the drive flat ring. Device is further provided with a measuring unit located in front of the cutting tools above the conveyor line, including a laser source and a photodetector, as well as a computing unit, the computing unit being associated with conveyor drives, a laser source, a photodetector and an electric motor.

EFFECT: device provides increased productivity and improved cut quality of the product.

1 cl, 6 dwg

Description

The invention relates to the food industry, and more particularly to the field of automated equipment for cutting food products into slices with a blade, and can find application in enterprises of the fish and meat industries.

Currently, in the food industry during the mechanical processing of raw materials, the most common technological process is cutting with a blade of food materials in portions.

In this case, the raw material is fish, semi-finished meat products, vegetables, minced meat and other food materials. The finished product is slices intended for further packaging, cooling, transportation and sale to the consumer. The process of cutting food into slices with a blade has a significant impact on the quality and consumer benefits of the finished product. Manual cutting of food materials is a very time-consuming and traumatic process, and therefore appropriate technological equipment is required. Thus, the technological capabilities, efficiency and quality of the equipment for cutting food products into slices by a blade are of great importance.

The main problems in the implementation of the process of machine cutting into slices are the following:

- ensuring high precision cutting by the blade of the product into slices having different thicknesses, depending on the type of raw material, and attractive appearance;

- ensuring high quality of the cut surface without snagging of meat and bumps;

- ensuring high productivity of the cutting process.

When processing food products with a blade, two cutting modes are possible: normal and sliding. With normal cutting, the edge of the knife moves perpendicular to the surface of the product and at first significantly locally compacts the material, and then destroys it, and new cutting surfaces are formed. In this case, the surface of the product is rough, and often the formation of chips. When sliding cutting, the cutting edge of the knife moves tangentially to the surface of the product and creates a small compaction of the material, due to which a smooth cut surface is formed. This cutting mode is most preferred when processing food and provides the best quality of the finished product.

To ensure high productivity when cutting, automatic feed of raw materials to the cutting device and automatic adjustment of the cutting tool depending on the size of the raw material is required in order to form slices of the required thickness.

A device for cutting into slices of food products (RU No. 341460, IPC A22C 25/18, publ. 06/14/1972), consisting of a feed conveyor, a carriage with a cutting tool and a clamping mechanism. The cutting tool is made two-section, and the sections are located in different planes. The carriage is mounted with the possibility of reciprocating movement in accordance with the profile of the copier, and the clamping mechanism is kinematically connected with the carriage. The device allows you to cut food material oblique cut into slices of a given thickness.

The disadvantages of this device include the lack of a measuring unit that allows you to receive and process information about the size of the raw materials. In the device, the cutting is carried out with a blade knife in the normal cutting mode, as a result of which there are large forces of resistance to cutting, which adversely affects the quality of the product. The feed conveyor and cutting tool are controlled by a complex mechanism, including a copier, cam, roller, spring-loaded stem and ratchet wheel. This significantly reduces the performance and reliability of the device. Since the cutting tool makes a reciprocating movement, during the return of the knife (idle) useful work is not performed, which significantly reduces the efficiency of the device. As a result of this, the capabilities of the device for forming the required consumer qualities of the products are significantly limited; there are difficulties for the economical use of raw materials and energy.

A device for cutting fish fillet into slices (RU No. 1621834, IPC A22C 25/18, publ. 23.01.1991), including a loading device, a drum with cells and a knife shaft, recruited from circular knives installed with a constant pitch.

The decisive disadvantage limiting the use of this device is the cutting of the product into slices of only one predetermined thickness. The device performs only vertical cuts parallel to the plane of arrangement of the disk knives. To change the thickness of the slices, dismantling and replacing the knife shaft is required. In addition, the quality and cutting speed are low, since the fillets are pressed against the circular knives only under the influence of the weight of the fillet. The device does not measure the size of the raw materials.

A device and method for cutting meat, in particular fish (US No. 8968059, IPC A22C 25/18, publ. 03.03.2015), is known for cutting fish into pieces of a given thickness. The device comprises a cutting tool, a drive unit connected to a cutting tool for moving it from a starting position to a processing position, as well as a control device connected to a drive unit for controlling the cutting tool. The drive unit contains two pneumatic cylinders having separate control loops.

The decisive disadvantage limiting the use of this device is the lack of the possibility of inclined cutting of the product into slices. The device performs normal cutting, since the cutting tool moves perpendicular to the plane of movement of the raw materials. As a result, the quality of the finished product is low. The cutting tool cycle includes idling. There is no measuring device for obtaining product size information. In addition, the device has low productivity, which is due to the design of the drive unit and the low speed of the pneumatic cylinders.

The closest technical solution is a device for cutting food products (RU No. 1024047, IPC A22C 25/18, publ. 06.23.1983), containing a drive, a feeding device, a cutting device, including cutting tools mounted on holders. Cutting tools are made in the form of knives with curly cuts in the cutting edges, and one of the knives is made movable. The knives are placed one relative to the other with the mutual crossing of the protrusions from the cutting edges in places of curly cuts. In this case, one protrusion of one knife is in contact with the lower side, and the other protrusion is in contact with the upper side of the corresponding protrusions of the other knife. The feeding device is made in the form of ejectors and cams synchronized with the operation of the knives by means of a mechanical transmission.

The decisive disadvantage of the device is the operation of the knives in normal cutting mode. The edges of the knives move perpendicular to the surface of the material, which leads to significant local compaction in the meat and tissue breaks. In addition, at the beginning of cutting, sections are formed on the surface of the product, which do not touch the cutting edges of the knives, and into which the product is squeezed with meat deformation. This leads to poor quality of the finished product. When cutting chips are formed, there are losses of valuable raw materials. The feed to the knives is carried out under the influence of the own weight of the meat using vibration, which significantly limits the feed rate and productivity of the device. Measurement of the size of the raw materials and automatic adjustment of the thickness of the slices are not carried out, and therefore, manual adjustment by the operator is required.

The invention solves the problem of improving the quality of cut of the finished product by providing a sliding cutting mode with a reduction in cutting resistance forces and the ability to control the thickness of slices, as well as increasing productivity by increasing the speed of cutting the product with a cutting device while increasing the speed of movement of raw materials by the feeding device.

In order to achieve the desired technical result, in a device for cutting food products containing a feeding device and a retracting device equipped with drives, a cutting device including at least two sickle-shaped cutting tools fixed with the possibility of oncoming movement with mutual crossing of the cutting edges, a feeding and the discharge devices are made in the form of two lines of conveyors, and each line consists of two conveyors installed at an angle to each other to a friend. Between two lines of conveyors, it is proposed to place a vertically oriented support flat ring on which to fasten an electric motor connected by a gear transmission to a drive flat ring, which is proposed to be installed concentrically to a support flat ring. It is proposed that the cutting tools be distributed evenly and mounted rotatably on the end face of the drive flat ring on the bushings, and rotatably on the end face of the support flat ring when the drive flat ring is rotated. In addition, the device is proposed to additionally equip a measuring unit located in front of the cutting tools above the conveyor line, including a laser source and a photodetector, as well as a computing unit, and to connect the computing unit with conveyor drives, a laser source, a photodetector and an electric motor.

The cutting tools are made in a crescent shape. The movement of the blades with a drive flat ring ensures the movement of their cutting edges around the circumference. This achieves a sliding cutting mode. In this mode, the knife simultaneously moves both in the direction normal to its edge and in the direction parallel to the edge. Cutting is carried out by normal and lateral forces, and the tangential force causes a sliding movement of material particles along the blade. With sliding cutting, a kinematic transformation of the blade sharpening angle occurs. The actual material extension angle becomes much smaller than the design angle of the knife sharpening, which leads to a significant reduction in the friction forces at the edge and to improve the quality of the cut surface. Also, the specific load on the running length of the blade is reduced, which leads to a decrease in the loaded length of the blade and a decrease in cutting force. In addition, the edge of the blade has a sawing effect on the material, which leads to a decrease in the ultimate breaking contact stress of cutting.

To obtain a three-dimensional digital model of the processed product, triangulation laser scanning is used. The use of a laser with a high beam intensity allows you to confidently determine the shape of the laser line in conditions of water fog and pollution of the working area. Industrial studies show that the error in measuring the size of the product by the method of triangulation laser scanning is not more than ± 0.5 mm. The laser source radiation is formed in the form of a vertical line and is projected onto the product, and the laser line on the surface of the product corresponds to its profile. When the product passes at a constant speed under the laser source, the photodetector generates and transmits a set of measured product profiles to the computing unit. Thus, information is accumulated in the computing unit of the device to solve the triangulation problem and build a three-dimensional digital model of the product.

The presence of the computing unit allows you to create a three-dimensional digital model of the product and determine its size, shape and coordinates of the lines of rational cutting, as well as form control actions on the feed device and the cutting device. The program of the computing unit allows, on the basis of the received information about the size and shape of the product, to form, during the processing of each instance, an automatic setting of the feed rate and determine the required moments of turning on the cutting device.

The description of the invention is illustrated by the accompanying drawings, where:

FIG. 1 - the proposed device for cutting food products, a General view from the side of the computing unit;

FIG. 2 - the proposed device for cutting food products, a General view from the side of the cutting device;

FIG. 3 - cutting device in the open position, front view;

FIG. 4 - cutting device in an intermediate position, front view;

FIG. 5 - cutting device in the closed position, rear view;

FIG. 6 - sickle-shaped knife.

In the drawings, the following notation:

1 - supporting frame;

2, 3, 4, 5 - conveyor;

6, 7, 8, 9 - conveyor drive;

10 - bracket;

11 - measuring unit;

12 - laser source;

13 - photodetector;

14 - ring flat bearing;

15 - flat drive ring;

16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 - sickle knife;

23 - electric motor;

24 - a gear wheel;

25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 - sleeve;

32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 - the emphasis of a flat support ring;

39 - computing unit;

40 - groove of the support frame;

41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 - groove of the sickle knife;

48 - laser beam;

49 - laser line;

50 - product;

51 - a slice.

In the proposed technical solution, the introduction of the measuring unit allows you to transmit video information about the profiles of the product to build its three-dimensional digital model in the computing unit in order to calculate the size and shape of the product, as well as the parameters of rational cutting at a given thickness of slices. Improving the quality of the cut of the finished product is achieved due to the shape of the cutting tools, the cutting edge of which is made in the form of part of a circular arc. The cutting edges of the sickle-shaped knives move along the tangent lines to the surface of the material while immersing the blades in the meat. This ensures a sliding mode of cutting the material with each sickle-shaped knife, which eliminates the loss of raw materials for shavings, meat breaks and unevenness of the cut surface. The line of contact between the cutting edges of the sickle-shaped knives and the material smoothly tends to a circle whose diameter is reduced to through cutting the product. When cutting, knives act on the product from all sides, thereby completely eliminating the extrusion of meat and the formation of deformation sites. At the same time, the cutting resistance forces are significantly reduced, which creates optimal cutting conditions and improves the quality of the cut surface of the slices. The use of an electric motor to rotate the drive flat ring provides a high speed of movement of sickle-shaped knives and increases the speed of the cutting device. The use of conveyors for supplying raw materials to the cutting device allows to increase the productivity of the device. The location of the conveyors in pairs at an angle to each other ensures a stable position of the product during feeding and processing, which allows to increase the accuracy of cutting and increase the speed of movement. The required thickness of the slices is set by the moments of bringing the sickle-shaped knives into action due to the rotation of the drive flat ring by an electric motor. Using a computing unit that controls the feeding and cutting devices allows rational cutting of food products into slices of a given thickness with various sizes and shapes of raw materials.

In the proposed device for cutting food products on the support frame 1 in pairs at an angle to each other with the possibility of translational motion, conveyors 2, 3, 4, 5 are installed, connected to the drives 6, 7, 8, 9. A bracket 10 is fixed to the support frame 1, on which a measuring unit 11 is installed, including a laser source 12 and a photodetector 13. A groove 40 is made in the support frame 1, in which a vertically oriented support flat ring 14 is fixedly fixed, next to the support flat ring 14, a drive flat is mounted for rotation ring 15. On the drive flat ring 15 by means of bushings 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, sickle-shaped knives 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 are installed with the possibility of rotation, made with grooves 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47. The supporting ring ring 14 is provided with stops 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 under the grooves 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47. The electric motor 23 is mounted on the supporting a flat ring 14 and is connected by a gear via a gear wheel 24 to the drive flat ring 15. The stops 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 are in the grooves 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 of the crescent knives 16 , 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. A computing unit is fixed on the supporting frame 1 39, connected to drives 6, 7, 8, 9 of conveyors 2, 3, 4, 5, a laser source 12 and a photodetector 13 of the measuring unit 11, an electric motor 23. The measuring unit 11 is located in front of the cutting tools above the conveyor line.

Description of the device for cutting food

The operator includes the computing unit 39 and sets the desired thickness of the sliced product 50, for example, a bundle of minced fish, into slices. Computing unit 39 gives switching commands to drives 6, 7, 8, 9 of conveyors 2, 3, 4, 5 and a laser source 12. The operator places the product 50 in a recess formed by conveyors 2 and 3. Conveyors 2 and 3 move the product 50 under the measuring unit 11. The laser source 12 projects onto the product 50 a flat laser beam 48, forming on the surface of the product 50 a laser line 49, which is in the field of view of the photodetector 13. Information about the coordinates of the laser line 49 from the photodetector 13 is transmitted to the computing unit 39, which is a set Laz coordinates hydrochloric line 49 forms a three-dimensional digital model of the product. The computing unit 39 calculates the size and shape of the product 50, as well as the turning on times of the electric motor 23. The product 50 is suitable for the sickle blades 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, which are bred into the open position. At the time of the passage of the product 50 of the cutting plane, the computing unit 39 gives a rotation command to the electric motor 23. The electric motor 23 rotates the gear wheel 24, which rotates the drive flat ring 15 with crescent knives 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 fixed to it . Since the stops 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 are in the grooves of the crescent knives 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, the crescent knives 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 when turning the drive flat ring 15 are rotated on the bushings 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 and are reduced to the surface of the product 50. In this case, the sickle-shaped knives 16, 17, 18 , 19, 20, 21, 22 are immersed in the product 50, cutting it through from all sides in the sliding cutting mode. After cutting one slice 51 from the product 50, when the sickle-shaped knives 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 reach the closed position, the computing unit 39 gives a return command to the electric motor 23, which rotates in the opposite direction, and through the gear wheel 24 rotates the drive flat ring 15 to its original state. Crescent knives 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 are bred to the sides and returned to the open position. Since the motion of the sickle-shaped knives 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 is carried out at high speed, cutting the slice 51 occurs without stopping the conveyors 2, 3, 4, 5. The cut slice 51 falls onto the conveyors 3 and 4 and is removed by them. The cycles of turning on the electric motor 23 and the turns of the sickle-shaped knives 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 are repeated until the product 50 is completely cut into slices 51.

Thus, when using the proposed device, in comparison with the device described in the closest analogue, an improvement in the quality of sliced slices and an increase in the performance of slicing food products are provided. As industrial studies show, cutting performance increases by 3 times, energy consumption is reduced by 25%. The amount of marriage is reduced by 60%. This allows for resource saving in production.

The device provides high-quality cutting of food products into slices without the formation of chips, which eliminates the time-consuming manual processing operations, improves the consumer qualities of the finished product, and also reduces the number of personnel in the production.

Claims (1)

A device for cutting food products, mainly formed into a tourniquet, containing a feeding device and a retracting device equipped with drives, a cutting device comprising at least two sickle-shaped cutting tools fixed with the possibility of oncoming movement with mutual crossing of the cutting edges, characterized in that the feeding and diverting devices are made in the form of two lines of conveyors, and each line is composed of two conveyors installed at an angle to each other, I am waiting for two lines of conveyors to place an oriented vertically support flat ring on which an electric motor is fixed, connected by a gear transmission with a drive flat ring mounted concentrically to a support flat ring, and cutting tools are evenly distributed and mounted on the end of the drive flat ring on the bushings with the possibility of rotation, and on the end face of the support flat ring with the possibility of rotation during rotation of the drive flat ring, in addition, the device is additionally equipped with located Before the cutting tools above the conveyor line, a measuring unit including a laser source and a photodetector, as well as a computing unit, the computing unit being connected to the conveyor drives, a laser source, a photodetector and an electric motor.

Images