Colored Wear Tiles for Optical Sorting
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Solution Overview
Problem
Standard white wear tiles used in sorting machines are inadequate for optical sorters, as they do not exhibit sufficient optical differences from materials like white rice, leading to difficulties in separating chipped tiles from the desired product.
Innovation Solution
Colored wear tiles with distinct colors and lightness values are used, which are different from the material being sorted, allowing optical sorting systems to distinguish and separate them from the desired product.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If white wear tiles are used in sorting machines, then wear protection is provided, but optical sorting systems cannot distinguish chipped tiles from desired product
Solution Approach 1:
The wear tiles are manufactured with a colored coating (such as black, blue, or red) applied to their surface. This color change creates sufficient optical contrast between the wear tiles and the desired product (e.g., white rice), enabling optical sorting systems to reliably detect and separate chipped tiles from the product stream while maintaining wear protection functionality.
2Duration of action of stationary object
If wear tiles are used to protect sorting machine surfaces, then machine part service life is extended, but chipped tiles mix with material and cannot be separated
Solution Approach 1:
By applying a colored coating to the wear tiles, the invention creates visual contrast that enables optical sorting systems to identify and separate chipped tiles from the desired product. This resolves the contamination issue by allowing the sorting system to distinguish and remove tile fragments, preventing them from mixing with the final product while the wear tiles continue to protect machine surfaces.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The colored wear tiles effectively prevent wear on sorting machine surfaces and improve sorting performance by ensuring that chipped tiles can be accurately separated from the desired product, enhancing the operational life of the machines.
Implementation Method 1
optical and/or physical properties of the material are monitored and used as the basis for separation. In these cases, material is normally sorted with optical scanning systems that employ cameras, lights, and sensors of various kinds to monitor or detect certain properties of the material for example, size, color, transparency or opacity, reflectivity, infra-red absorption/reflectivity
Implementation Method 2
The wear tiles have a color sufficiently different from a color of the desired product such that the wear tiles, or portions or pieces thereof, that may mix with the material are sorted by the implement from the desired product
Implementation Method 3
optical properties of the material are monitored and used as the basis for separation. In these cases, material is normally sorted with optical scanning systems that employ cameras, lights, and sensors of various kinds to monitor or detect certain properties of the material for example, size, color, transparency or opacity, reflectivity, infra-red absorption/reflectivity
Data Source
AI summary
The present subject matter provides colored wear tiles for use in optical sorting apparatuses and related methods that separate an associated material into a desired product and an undesired product. The colored wear tiles have a color and/or lightness value that permeates the entire body of the wear tile and sufficiently differs from the color and/or lightness of the associated material in order to allow the colored wear tile, or portions or pieces thereof, that may mix with the associated material, to be separated from the desired product by the sorting apparatus.