Foods and beverages: apparatus – Edible laminated product making apparatus – Means forming or reshaping plural sheets or webs
Patent
1996-01-29
1997-11-18
Simone, Timothy F.
Foods and beverages: apparatus
Edible laminated product making apparatus
Means forming or reshaping plural sheets or webs
99353, 994501, 1986891, 1988035, 198811, 198955, 414416, 414790, 4147908, 4147931, 426496, 426512, A21B 318, A21C 900, A21C 904, A23P 100
Patent
active
056876416
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for handling stretchable sheet material, and is particularly, although not exclusively, concerned with the handling of dough sheets in the manufacture of biscuits or other baked foodstuffs.
BACKGROUND ART
In the case where biscuits are manufactured by baking multi-layer dough sections, such sections can be formed automatically using an arrangement of first and second conveyors. A continuous dough sheet is fed to the first conveyor. This sheet is cut to individual leaves, and these leaves are then dropped one on top of another in overlapped disposition on to the second conveyor to form a multi-layer stack. The stack is passed through treatment rollers and sections are cut out for baking.
Conventionally the two conveyors are arranged at right angles in L-shaped conformation whereby stacking is achieved by depositing the leaves off the end of the first conveyor onto the second conveyor. This is a convenient mode of achieving stacking but various disadvantages arise. Thus, the L-shaped layout may be inconvenient to accommodate. Also, it is difficult to ensure that the leaves drop precisely in alignment; there is a tendency for skewing to occur because the second conveyor is in motion whilst each sheet is deposited which gives rise to local variations in stack thickness. Moreover, deposition of leaves is monitored to synchronise the cutting of the continuous dough sheet and it can be difficult to achieve accurate monitoring and cutting control; sensor fingers are normally used to detect the positions of the deposited leaves when in the formed stack and this may result in inaccurate monitoring, especially where deposited sheets are offset or skewed, and also the response is slow and is difficult to perform during start up and stopping since it is applied to the formed stack and there is a considerable time delay between the dropping of the sheet and the measuring of the stack edge positions.
Further, conventional edge sensors are positioned to measure the complete stack of sheets, so the one sheet in perhaps six that is protruding most from the stack is measured--all the others are missed by the sensor.
Further, the manner in which the leaves are transferred between the conveyors, especially in so far as this involves an uncontrolled or slack dough loop, may disrupt or adversely affect the dough characteristics bearing in mind the sensitivity to stretching and relaxation thereof.
It is also known to use suction in the transfer of materials between conveyors in the production of baked foodstuffs.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,620,826 describes the transfer of flexible dough products, namely tortillas, from a supply conveyor to a stack on a further conveyor. Transfer is effected by means of an overhead suction surface defined by the bottom run of a perforated belt running beneath a suction box. As discussed in this patent there is the problem of ensuring positive release from the suction surface such as to prevent wrinkling of the tortillas. The patent describes the use of a blocking plate which is moved down by a piston and cylinder to penetrate and block the perforations in the suction surface thereby to allow an underlying tortilla to drop from the surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,877,592 describes the use of an overhead suction belt to remove loaves of bread from pans on a first conveyor and then transfer these loaves to a second conveyor. The belt runs beneath a suction box and has perforations leading to flexible suction cups on its outer surface for suction contact with the loaves. The loaves are relatively heavy and therefore can be readily detached from the suction cups for deposition on the second conveyor.
DE-A-3919794 describes the use of a rotor with palettes which is divided into four suction chambers. Biscuit wafers are inverted to make a cream sandwich by passing from a top conveyor to a bottom conveyor around the rotor. The suction is sequenced in the suction chambers to pick up, hold and then deposit the wafers.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVEN
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Baines Leslie Theophilus
Williamson Mark
Kleinberg Marvin H.
Lerner Marshall A.
Ram Michael J.
Simone Timothy F.
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