Dispensing – Snap-acting outlet element – Axially movable tube – sleeve – or apertured cap
Patent
1981-12-29
1984-06-05
Abercrombie, Willie G.
Dispensing
Snap-acting outlet element
Axially movable tube, sleeve, or apertured cap
17 33, 222 18, A22C 1106
Patent
active
044519540
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
DESCRIPTION
This invention relates to apparatus for consecutively metering discrete amounts of a divisible mass, particularly sausage meat, including feeding means for said mass adapted to be actuated in time with the metering step and followed by a power-operated cutoff device, the control element of which is adapted to be controlled by a metering device also effective to control the control element of said feeding means in analog relationship to the mass flowing therethrough.
Apparatus of this type is generally employed in the field of food packaging not only for sausages and the like, but also for other pasty masses as well as ham and the like. Within the apparatus, the mass is pressurized by a stuffing pressure source, and dispensed in individual portions of substantially constant size.
Particularly suitable for stuffing or filling operations of this type are known metering pumps having metering cavities of predetermined size for volume metering. It is customary to employ piston pumps for instance of the type described in DE-PS No. 1,180,151, having a bigger feeding piston followed by a smaller metering piston performing successive metering strokes of constant magnitude. Since such pumps are effective to sealingly close the outlet, it is possible to achieve very accurate metering even at sufficiently high operating speeds, although these pumps are of a rather complicated structure.
It is further known to replace the power-operated metering piston pump by a metering valve which in most cases is arranged to be manually controlled and comprises a piston valve member adapted to be shifted between two end positions by the pressure of the mass to be metered (DE-PS No. 966,488).
Although it is also possible in this manner to achieve a certain degree of closure of the outlet, the metering accuracy is rather insufficient due to various irregularities during filling and dispensing, and in the case of stuffing sausages, the stuffing material and particularly the sausage envelope are subjected to considerable loads due to sudden pressure variations. In other metering devices such as auger pumps, rotary vane pumps and the like equipped with an intermittently operated metering element it is impossible to achieve a secure closure of the outlet. Even if the metering element is accurately stopped at predetermined positions, there will always occur an undeterminable amount of after-leaking caused by the relatively large cavities downstream of the metering element, in which the pressurized and usually elastically deformable stuffing mass is able to expand in response to pressure variations.
Apparatus of the type described in the introduction has become known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,207,368. This known metering apparatus comprises a pump for the stuffing mass operated by a hydraulic drive motor; attached to the pump shaft is a perforated disk for sensing the rotation of the pump shaft, said disk being connected to a pulse counter. Downstream of the pump there is provided a cutoff valve having a closure piston adapted to be pneumatically actuated under the control of an electromagnetic control valve itself controlled by the pulse counter. The hydraulic drive motor is controlled by an electromagnetic four-way valve likewise controlled by the pulse counter. On energizing the hydraulic motor driving the pump, the stuffing mass is displaced through the opened cutoff valve. During rotation of the pump shaft, the pulse counter counts the revolutions of the shaft; upon reaching a pre-set number of revolutions, the counter causes a counter relays contact to be closed, so that the control elements connected in parallel thereto simultaneously cause the cutoff valve to be closed by the electromagnetic control valve, and the operating fluid supply to the hydraulic motor to be interrupted by closing the associated control valve.
It is an object to improve an apparatus of the type set forth in the introduction in such a manner that a correct control and coordination of the movements of the cutoff device and of the feeding means is positiv
REFERENCES:
patent: 3207367 (1965-09-01), Anderson
patent: 3207368 (1965-09-01), Runge
patent: 3769657 (1973-11-01), Muller
patent: 4191309 (1980-03-01), Alley et al.
Muller Johann
Staudenrausch Georg
Abercrombie Willie G.
Albert Handtmann GmbH & Co.
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