Foods and beverages: apparatus – Means to treat food – Subdividing into plural products
Reexamination Certificate
2000-04-20
2001-05-29
Simone, Timothy F. (Department: 1761)
Foods and beverages: apparatus
Means to treat food
Subdividing into plural products
C099S542000, C099S545000, C099S564000, C099S591000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06237475
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a machine which is suited to perform automatically, and in a way which is industrially applicable, the following operations on pears:
external peeling;
flower removal;
complete removal of the core, including the elimination of the stem;
end cutting (on the stem side);
subdivision (splitting) into one or more segments.
2. Description of the Related Art
At present, no machine is known, which is suited to perform all the above operations on the pears, including their automatic loading and orientation control, without any intervention of the operator at various stages of the working cycle.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,435,238, corresponding to the closest prior art, discloses a pear processing method and apparatus including several mechanisms for properly orienting the pear prior to coring, peeling and seed celling. After being oriented by a pair of orienting rolls, the pear is held with its stem directed downwardly, and is dropped into a transfer cup.
Thereafter the pear is pushed out of the transfer cup, into a feed cup having three arms grasping and centering the blossom end of the pear.
Subsequently the pear is trimmed by blossom trim means. Then, the feed cup rotates by 90° in order to impale the pear on the coring tube.
On this tube the pear is rotated, the stem of the pear is severed, the peeling is performed, and finally the seed cell of the pear is severed by seed celling knife means.
In contrast to the present application it can be observed that the machine of U.S. Pat. No. 5,435,238 performs almost all operations on the pear while the latter is on the coring tube used to remove the central core. In the present invention, as will be seen by the following detailed description, splitting and seed celling is performed on a spindle which is not tubular.
Moreover, the machine of the present application splits the pear on the same spindle used for seed celling. Instead, the machine of the above mentioned US patent requires a separate slice cup means.
No conveyor is disclosed in the above mentioned US patent, which is used to lift each pear separately from the other pears contained in a storage basin.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,768,627 discloses an apparatus and method used only for orienting pears, wherein a trough support, which is inclined and has diverging walls, is employed.
The side walls of the trough are spaced apart at the bottom, to receive the upper stretch of a belt. If a pear has its bulb end uppermost, it continues to travel uphill and no effect is produced. If the pear has its stem end uppermost, while travelling uphill on the inclined trough, it is rotated. The result is that all the pears are discharged from the trough with their butt ends foremost.
No direct teaching can be obtained from this document in order to arrive at a conveyor which separately lifts the pears from a storage basin, as in the present application.
FR-A-2,533,807 discloses a machine for orienting and displacing pears. There are disclosed means to orient the pears vertically, and inflatable means to hold them firmly inside cups provided on a rotating drum. The rotation of the drum enables to move the pears to successive stations, in order to perform different operations thereon.
Said drum cannot be compared to the rotatable head of the present application, since it has no tubular tool to separate the core.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,211,201 discloses a machine which can perform pear stem end trimming, stemming, peeling, coring, and splitting.
This machine does not perform any orientation of the pears, since the latter are placed stem-end-down by the operator himself.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION
An object—even if not the only one—of the present invention, is to realize a machine allowing to perform automatically on the pears, from their feeding to the end-item, all operations required to obtain the end-item, so that the latter can be readily stored in a vase or the like, or used to prepare fruit-salads, etc. Said object is obtained by means of the automatized multiple station transfer machine of the present invention, comprising a plurality of stations, in each of which an operation is carried out, which follows the preceding one, and this being done from the feeding and orientation, until the final cutting into segments. The machine of the present invention is characterized in that it comprises the following principal elements:
a lifting and feeding device for the pears (FIGS.
2
-
3
);
a chain conveyor (
FIG. 7
) which is characterized by elements (FIGS.
4
-
5
-
6
) which translate, horizontally orient the pears, and maintain them in this position.
These elements are also adjustable in order to adapt them to the different “gauges” according to which the pears to be processed are subdivided.
special pliers (FIGS.
8
-
9
-
10
-
11
) which are suited to displace each pear, from said chain conveyor, to a device for the clamping and concentric locating of the pears (FIG.
15
), insuring a vertical position of the pears and an orientation in which the stem is downwardly directed;
said clamping and concentric locating device (
FIG. 15
) being also suited to insert each pear, one at a time, onto an appropriate element of a rotating head (
FIG. 16
) comprising four stations;
DESCRIPTION
Machine for peeling pears, removing their core, and cutting them into segments
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a machine which is suited to perform automatically, and in a way which is industrially applicable, the following operations on pears:
external peeling;
flower removal;
complete removal of the core, including the elimination of the stem;
end cutting (on the stem side);
subdivision (splitting) into one or more segments.
BACKGROUND ART
At present, no machine is known, which is suited to perform all the above operations on the pears, including their automatic loading and orientation control, without any intervention of the operator at various stages of the working cycle.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,435,238, corresponding to the closest prior art, discloses a pear processing method and apparatus including several mechanisms for properly orienting the pear prior to coring, peeling and seed celling. After being oriented by a pair of orienting rolls, the pear is held with its stem directed downwardly, and is dropped into a transfer cup.
Thereafter the pear is pushed out of the transfer cup, into a feed cup having three arms grasping and centering the blossom end of the pear.
Subsequently the pear is trimmed by blossom trim means. Then, the feed cup rotates by 90° in order to impale the pear on the coring tube.
On this tube the pear is rotated, the stem of the pear is severed, the peeling is performed, and finally the seed cell of the pear is severed by seed celling knife means.
In contrast to the present application it can be observed that the machine of U.S. Pat. No. 5,435,238 performs almost all operations on the pear while the latter is on the coring tube used to remove the central core. In the present invention, as will be seen by the following detailed description, splitting and seed celling is performed on a spindle which is not tubular.
Moreover, the machine of the present application splits the pear on the same spindle used for seed celling. Instead, the machine of the above mentioned US patent requires a separate slice cup means.
No conveyor is disclosed in the above mentioned US patent, which is used to lift each pear separately from the other pears contained in a storage basin.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,768,627 discloses an apparatus and method used only for orienting pears, wherein a trough support, which is inclined and has diverging walls, is employed.
The side walls of the trough are spaced apart at the bottom, to receive the upper stretch of a belt. If a pear has its bulb end uppermost, it continues to travel uphill and no effect is produced. If the pear has its stem end uppermost, while travelling uphill on the inclined trough, it is rotated. The result is that all the pears are discharged from the trough with their butt ends foremost.
No direct teaching
Ascari Carlo
Ascari Luca
A.B.L. s.r.l.
Simone Timothy F.
Young & Thompson
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