Product category:
Second operation equipment
News Release from: C F Controls | Subject: High speed ultrasonic cutting system
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 22 November 2006
High speed ultrasonic system ensures
clean cuts
A high speed ultrasonic cutting system has replaced a static cutter that would leave the extrusion product with uneven edges and has increased output.
A high speed ultrasonic cutting system has replaced a static cutter that would leave the extrusion product with uneven edges and has increased output C F Controls have installed a high speed ultrasonic cutting system for Glanbia Nutritionals
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 3 Apr 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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This replaces a static cutter that would leave the product with uneven edges.
Operators can easily enter the required bar width and length or select a number of saved presets via a touch screen interface.
By dynamically measuring the width of the extrusion coming from the extruder, the system conveyor speed changes to ensure the product width is maintained.
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The ultrasonic cutter, mounted on a Festo single axis servo matches the conveyor speed and moves to the correct cutting position and follows the bar during the cutting cycle to achieve neat vertical sides.
The high speed ultrasonic cutter pulls the product from the extruder onto the food grade silicon high friction/non stick belt.
The system continually monitors the width of the product via a number of Baumer lasers, so that any deviation in the width of the product is instantly corrected by varying the conveyor speed.
The ultrasonic cutter mounted on the Festo single axis slide accurately matches the conveyor speed and ensures that the cut is exactly the length specified by the operator from the previous.
The ultrasonic cutter follows the product throughout the cutting process cycle before moving to the next cut position.
All variables are dynamically calculated and automatically updated within the system so that the operator need only press the touch screen interface once to change between predefine product settings.
The new system has made dramatic improvements to the production process at Glanbia Nutritionals in Middlesbrough, where production as been increased from a target of 3500 bars, to a production average of between 4500 and 5500 bars per hour.
The amount of reworked dough has dramatically fallen from 8% to less than 2%.
Although sold to Glanbia as a stand alone system, all C F Controls systems have the capability to interface with other C F products and/or customers SCADA networks to provide process monitoring capabilities.
During the commissioning stage operators were asked to force product through the extruder, a process that would have been too much for the previous cutter.
The high speed ultrasonic cutter matched the extruder speed with ease.
What was once the bottle neck in the production process has now been removed, and now the bottle neck is the loading conveyor has it cannot keep pace.
Glanbia have therefore asked C F Controls to provide an automatic loading conveyor for feeding the downstream enrober.
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