Meat Shredder With Interleaving Rotors And Pegs
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing meat shredding machines often leave chunks of meat unshredded, requiring multiple passes or manual finishing to achieve the desired texture, which increases food preparation time and reduces efficiency.
Innovation Solution
A meat shredding apparatus with a clamshell hopper and rotating rotor assemblies featuring stainless steel pegs and fingers, where the pegs and fingers interleave to provide a tearing action from non-aligned angles, ensuring thorough shredding with a combination of stationary and moving components.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If conventional meat shredding machines use simple rotor designs, then the device complexity is reduced, but the shredding completeness deteriorates leaving chunks of meat unshredded
Solution Approach 1:
The shredding system is segmented into multiple functional components: upper and lower rotor assemblies with fingers, stationary pegs on front and back walls, arranged in specific vertical spacings. This segmentation allows each component to contribute to different aspects of the shredding action, achieving thorough shredding without excessive complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The invention introduces vertical spacing dimensions between rotor assemblies and pegs (0.75 inch spacing specified) to create a three-dimensional shredding zone. This dimensional approach allows meat to be shredded from multiple angles and positions simultaneously, improving completeness while maintaining reasonable device complexity
2Manufacturing precision
If multiple passes through the shredder are used to achieve complete shredding, then the shredding completeness improves, but the food preparation time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The shredding system performs continuous shredding action in a single pass through the combination of rotating rotor assemblies with fingers and stationary pegs arranged in multiple rows. The meat product continuously engages with both moving and stationary elements, ensuring complete shredding occurs during one continuous operation rather than requiring multiple discrete passes
Solution Approach 2:
The shredding process is segmented into multiple simultaneous actions: upper rotor shredding, lower rotor shredding, front wall peg action, and back wall peg action all occurring concurrently in a single pass, achieving what would otherwise require multiple sequential passes
3Ease of operation
If the hopper structure is made fixed and sealed, then the cleaning accessibility deteriorates, but the operational hygiene improves
Solution Approach 1:
The hopper back wall is designed to rotate between a closed operational position and an open cleaning position. This dynamic configuration allows the hopper to maintain hygiene during operation while providing easy access for cleaning when needed, resolving the contradiction between sealed structure and cleaning accessibility
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 apparatus efficiently shreds meat in a single pass, reducing preparation time and eliminating the need for manual finishing, while being easy to operate and clean, with the unique peg and finger arrangement providing optimal shredding force and texture.
Implementation Method 1
The product to be shredded is dropped into the shredding region where the clockwise-rotating upper rotor assembly pushes the product into the upper back row of pegs. This action mostly shreds the product
Implementation Method 2
The meat is shredded by a combination of stationary stainless steel pegs and the moving stainless steel fingers within the shredding region
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus for shredding meat with a hopper and a frame. The hopper has upper and lower rotor assemblies mounted to rotate horizontally within a shredding region. Each rotor assembly is composed of an arbor and fingers arranged in paraxial rows around the arbor. Four rows of pegs extend horizontally into the shredding region. A front row and a back row are each 0.75 inch above and below, respectively, the upper rotor assembly. A back row and a front row are each 0.75 inch above and below, respectively the lower rotor assembly. The hopper is suspended in the frame, which houses the drive mechanism that rotates the rotor assemblies in opposite directions. The upper rotor assembly pushes product dropped into the shredding region into the upper back row to shred the product. The lower rotor assembly pushes the shredded product into the lower front row to further shred the product.