Arcuate Blade Slicing Wheel for Soft Food Products
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing cutting wheels struggle to slice very soft food products like bread dough and fresh meat consistently, often resulting in deformities such as tails due to tearing instead of clean cutting.
Innovation Solution
A slicing wheel assembly with a hub, annular rim, and arcuate blades that provide a slicing action by having an arcuate cutting edge with radially offset innermost and outermost extents, combined with a gated shear edge assembly for stabilization, allowing for a gradual slicing action that reduces deformation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If a conventional cutting wheel with radial knives is used to slice soft food products, then the cutting speed is high and productivity is improved, but the food product deforms and develops tails due to tearing instead of clean cutting
Solution Approach 1:
The cutting wheel is segmented into multiple arcuate blades spaced around the periphery, each blade independently contributing to the slicing action. This segmentation allows the cutting action to be distributed across multiple points, reducing the tearing effect on soft food products while maintaining high cutting speed.
Solution Approach 2:
The blades are designed with arcuate cutting edges that follow a curved path during rotation, and the blades themselves are positioned at arcuate orientations rather than purely radial. This curvature enables a gradual slicing action through the food product, creating clean cuts without deformation or tail formation.
2Ease of manufacture
If radial knives are used in a cutting wheel, then the structure is simple and ease of manufacture is improved, but the cutting action causes deformation of soft pliable food products
Solution Approach 1:
The blades are positioned asymmetrically relative to the wheel center, with their cutting edges oriented at arcuate angles rather than purely radial positions. This asymmetric arrangement creates an optimized cutting path that gradually slices through soft food products, maintaining uniform shape while preserving manufacturing simplicity.
Solution Approach 2:
The cutting edges are designed with arcuate curvature that matches the rotational path, and blades are positioned along arcuate trajectories. This curved geometry provides a gradual slicing action that prevents deformation of soft food products while keeping the overall wheel structure simple and manufacturable.
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus and method for slicing food products, and particularly soft, pliable food products susceptible to being deformed to the slicing process. The slicing apparatus includes a slicing wheel assembly and device for stabilizing the food product as it is being fed through the slicing wheel assembly. The slicing wheel assembly includes a hub, a rim circumscribing the hub so as to define an annular space therebetween, and arcuate blades extending between and removably attached to the hub and rim. The hub, rim, and blades lie in a cutting plane of the slicing wheel assembly. Each blade has an arcuate cutting edge on a convex portion thereof, with radially innermost and radially outermost extents of the blade that do not lie on the same radial of the slicing wheel assembly.