Food Extruder Substream Segmentation for Color Variety
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for producing diverse colored and flavored RTE cereals result in unusable scrap material, require large batch collection, and lead to deterioration of product properties due to admixing processes, resulting in inefficiencies and quality issues.
Innovation Solution
A food processing apparatus that directs product mass substreams into static mixers and then through a die port to create multiple streams with distinct colors, flavors, or additives from a single extruder, ensuring even mixing and minimizing waste.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If individual color runs are made sequentially and then admixed to form blends, then diverse colored and flavored cereals can be produced, but unusable scrap material is generated during color transition and steady state establishment
Solution Approach 1:
The single extruder output is segmented into multiple substreams (first, second, third substreams) that can be independently colored and flavored. Each substream is processed separately through individual color injection systems, allowing continuous production of diverse products without stopping or transitioning between color runs, thereby eliminating scrap generation during color changes.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables continuous production of multiple colored and flavored cereal streams simultaneously from a single extruder. By maintaining continuous operation with multiple parallel color injection points, the process eliminates the start-stop nature of sequential color runs, preventing both transition scrap and steady-state establishment scrap while maintaining continuous useful action.
2Adaptability or versatility
If colored pieces are collected in large batches for later admixing, then diverse blends can be formed, but product properties deteriorate over the storage period
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple colored and flavored substreams are merged immediately after extrusion through a manifold system that combines the first, second, and third substreams into a single homogeneous blend. This immediate merging eliminates the need for batch collection and storage, allowing diverse blends to be formed continuously without the deterioration that occurs during extended storage periods.
3Adaptability or versatility
If sequential color runs are used to produce diverse cereals, then product variety is achieved, but the process requires stopping and restarting the extruder
Solution Approach 1:
The extruder output is divided into multiple independent substreams, each capable of receiving different color injections simultaneously. This segmentation allows the extruder to run continuously at full capacity while producing multiple color varieties in parallel, eliminating the need to stop and restart for color transitions.
Solution Approach 2:
The system maintains continuous extrusion and coloring operations by implementing multiple color injection points that operate simultaneously on different substreams. This continuous operation eliminates the productivity losses associated with stopping and restarting the extruder during sequential color runs, maintaining full production efficiency while achieving color variety.
4Loss of substance
If a single extruder produces multiple colored streams, then waste is reduced, but the mixing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
A manifold system serves as an intermediary device that receives the extruder output and automatically divides it into multiple substreams. This intermediary component simplifies the overall mixing complexity by providing a structured, passive division mechanism that requires no active control, while still enabling multiple colored streams to be produced and combined efficiently.
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
This approach allows for the production of multiple streams with non-homogenous properties from a single extruder, reducing scrap generation and maintaining product quality by enabling continuous, efficient mixing and processing of diverse cereal doughs.
Implementation Method 1
directing first and second product mass substreams into first and second channels each having subpassages directing the first and second product mass substreams into a static mixer
Implementation Method 2
providing a continuous stream of extrudable food material
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
An apparatus (10) for forming an extrudable food stream such as a cooked cereal dough into differently colored and/or flavored dough streams is disclosed including an extruder (12) having screw augers (15) for advancing a plastic food mass, a head or manifold (118) for dividing the food mass into a plurality of sub streams each in turn in fluid communication with a plurality of sub-divided dough passageways, and a die head (30) having a plurality of die ports (40). Each subpassage is separately supplied an additive and has disposed therein in-line static mixer elements (59) to admix the additive into the plastic food mass before passage through the die ports (40). In a preferred form, first and second sub streams are intermixed in a non-homogenous manner before reaching the exit ports (40). The extrudates are severed into pieces (158) by a rotary cutter (36).