Food & Drink Spiroflow handles nuts with ease
A Middle East based supplier of a mixed fruit and nut product required a means of loading 300 kg batches into bulk bags with no damage. The company’s product contains whole walnuts that are particularly fragile. Spiroflow has a long history of developing its ranges of bulk bag fillers and dischargers to meet the needs of individual customers. As marketing manager, Keith Simpson, confirms: “This challenge was an excellent opportunity for us to apply our ingenuity and vast bulk materials handling experience. The result is a new ‘Rise and Fall’ model for our bulk bag filler range”. To avoid fruit and nuts having to fall the full height of an empty bulk bag, the bottom of the empty bag is raised up to just below the outlet of the filling tube. The gap, between the end of the tube and the bottom of the bag, is just enough to allow the nuts to gently flow into the bag without damage. The bag is then lowered slowly to allow filling to continue. As anyone involved with dry particulate materials will readily appreciate: the lowering of the bag controls the flow of the fruit and nuts down the filling tube due to the ‘self-choking’ action caused by the natural ‘angle of repose’ of the product as it exits the tube and spreads out. Accordingly, the bottom of the bag is incrementally lowered until it is filled to the desired weight. Following gentle vibration, the bag is ready to be removed on a pallet by a forklift truck. For this application, a total of six ‘Rise and Fall’ fillers were supplied. Four with load-cell weighing, to OIML standards, and
gentle vibration to consolidate the bag contents. Two were supplied just with vibration but no weighing. Vibration not only makes the bags aesthetically pleasing but, more importantly, safe to handle, transport and store. The four fillers with the weighing capability were supplied with printers which generate labels indicating weight, date, time and batch number.
Of course the new ‘Rise and Fall’ model can incorporate all of the standard ‘Spiroflow’ bulk bag filler options such as pallet dispensers, pallet delivery conveyors, bag inflation, weighing, displaced air filtration, vibration and automatic removal of filled bags.
Raised bag is lowered at a controlled rate
For more information contact Spiroflow on tel: +44 (0)1200 422525 or visit:
www.spiroflow.com
Belt weighing issues resolved
Based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, McCain Foods UK is one of the leading manufacturers of oven ready chips. Dedicated to maintaining the standards that have made them Britain's favourite chip manufacturer the company were keen to improve the process performance of their existing intake potato conveyor belt weigher.
Approaching Precia-Molen for advice and a solution to resolve its problem; it had already been identified that the existing belt weigher was not performing to its satisfaction and was unreliable with weight measurement not having functioned properly since installation.
Having identified and understood the problems associated with its client’s requirements Precia-Molen proceeded to carry out a detailed survey of the application, before presenting McCain Foods with a cost effective solution. The survey resulted in McCain Foods placing an order with Precia-Molen to replace the existing weigher with a new FX belt weigher and I 400 controller, which could be operated in conjunction with the plants own process control system. The project included the supply of a new FX Belt weigher, complete with twin load cells mounted on an adjustable frame to maximise the weighing accuracy of the machine. With McCain engineers preparing the site beforehand, the installation was completed over a single weekend when the plant was shut down; Precia-Molen engineers then commissioned and calibrated the new weigher before handing it over to McCain Foods to operate.
In order to achieve maximum performance the speed of the 18 Solids & Bulk Handling • March 2011
belt was established by measuring the belt speed at the conveyors tail end drum. This was slowed down to allow the weight of material on the belt to be increased to present a more accurate measurement of material passing over the belt scale. Final adjustment and fine tuning of the Precia-Molen I 400 controller was then completed to record and log key information. This information is managed and distributed using McCain’s on-site communication protocol to its process control room. The in-house automated control system allows the operator to set the desired weight they require for their process. This records the weight of material passing over the potato intake conveyor belt scale, passing the information to the automated controller. The automatic controller then adjusts the controlled belt speed to maximise potato intake demand and prevent over or under feeding to the process peelers, ensuring the plant is always operating at an optimum levels of efficiency, saving on energy costs whilst providing increased production performance.
The supply and installation has been a complete success for the McCain plant process. Tony Rudeforth - McCains senior technical shift engineer who worked closely with Precia-Molen engineers to ensure the best achievable outcome was achieved, commented: “We now have the confidence to operate the potato intake conveyor weigh scale in conjunction with our own production automated process which is something we could never have before.”
For more information contact Precia-Molen UK on tel: 01527 590320 or visit:
www.preciamolen.com
www.solidsandbulk.co.uk
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