Inverting Station for Curved Snack Chips
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing methods for handling three-dimensionally shaped snack food chips, particularly triangular chips like tortilla chips, face inefficiencies and high waste due to the difficulty in aligning and inverting these chips for shingled assembly, leading to broken and spilled chips and inefficient production.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus involving a conveyor system with an inverting station using an arcuate endless belt to rotate and invert the chips, ensuring precise alignment and deposition onto a second conveyor for forming a shingled assembly, with controlled velocities to minimize breakage and waste.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If pneumatic air blower is used for flipping chips, then inversion is achieved, but production efficiency is low and product waste is high
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the pneumatic air blower system with a mechanical conveyor belt system that physically carries and inverts the chips through a controlled mechanical path. The conveyor belt with guiding surfaces provides reliable inversion while enabling continuous high-speed operation, thus improving both reliability and productivity simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs curved and arcuate surfaces in the conveyor system, including arcuate conveyor belts and curved guiding surfaces, to smoothly guide the triangular chips through inversion. The curved geometry naturally orients the chips during transit, ensuring reliable concave-face-down positioning while maintaining gentle handling to prevent breakage and enable continuous high-speed processing.
2Reliability
If pneumatic air blower is used for flipping chips, then inversion is achieved, but product waste in form of broken and spilled chips is high
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the high-impact pneumatic flipping mechanism with a gentle mechanical conveyor system that continuously and controllably inverts chips. The mechanical conveyor with supporting surfaces provides stable, low-impact inversion that prevents chip breakage and spillage, thereby reducing product waste while maintaining reliable inversion.
Solution Approach 2:
The conveyor system provides continuous support surfaces throughout the inversion process, preventing chips from being dropped or impacting harshly. The mechanical system cushions and controls the inversion motion, ensuring chips are handled gently from entry through inversion to deposition, minimizing breakage and spillage.
3Shape
If triangular chips are used, then snack food chip shape is achieved, but alignment and orientation for shingled assembly is difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs curved and arcuate conveyor surfaces that match the geometry of triangular chips. The arcuate conveyor belts and curved guiding surfaces naturally guide the triangular chips into proper orientation during transit, using the chips' own shape to facilitate alignment. This curved geometry work harmoniously with triangular chips to achieve automatic orientation and alignment for shingled assembly.
Solution Approach 2:
The conveyor system acts as an intermediary mechanism between chip production and packaging. It provides controlled interaction surfaces that mediate the orientation process, using guiding surfaces and arcuate belts to progressively orient triangular chips into the correct position for shingled assembly, making alignment easier and more reliable.
4Speed
If conventional conveying method is used, then chip transport is achieved, but shingled assembly formation is unreliable
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs arcuate conveyor belts and curved guiding surfaces that naturally guide triangular chips into proper orientation during transit. The curved geometry works harmoniously with triangular chip shapes to automatically align them, ensuring reliable formation of shingled assemblies while maintaining continuous high-speed conveying operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The conveyor system is designed to dynamically adapt to the chips throughout the conveying process. The arcuate belts and curved surfaces provide progressive orientation control, allowing chips to naturally settle into correct alignment as they move through the system. This dynamic guidance ensures reliable shingled assembly formation regardless of variations in chip shape or positioning.
Data Source
Figure 1~3
Figure 4
AI summary
An apparatus for handling three-dimensionally curved snack food chips, the apparatus comprising: a first conveyor extending along a conveying direction for conveying a series of the snack food chips on a first upper conveying surface of the first conveyor; an inverting station located at an output end of the first conveyor, the inverting station including an inverter comprising an internal concave surface having an upper portion and a lower portion, the inverter and first conveyor being arranged for sequentially transferring the snack food chips in the series from the output end of the first conveyor into contact with the upper portion of the internal concave surface, a drive system for the inverter, the drive system being arranged to move the internal concave surface of the inverter downwardly thereby to cause sequential movement of the snack food chips in the series downwardly from the upper portion to the lower portion of the internal concave surface; a depositing station located beneath the lower portion of the internal concave surface, the depositing station being arranged for sequentially depositing the snack food chips in the series downwardly from the lower portion of the internal concave surface; and a second conveyor having a second upper conveying surface for receiving snack food chips in the series at the depositing station and for conveying the snack food chips in the series away from the depositing station. Also disclosed is a corresponding method of handling three-dimensionally curved snack food chips.