Open Profile Packaging Machine Frame with Stiffening Lugs
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Solution Overview
Problem
Packaging machines face challenges in meeting stringent hygiene requirements due to difficult access and visibility for cleaning and inspection, as their frame profiles are typically U-shaped and closed, making it hard to clean and inspect from beneath.
Innovation Solution
A packaging machine frame with an open profile partially closed by stiffening lugs, featuring a longitudinal web on the underside, bent and welded for increased rigidity and accessibility, allowing easy cleaning and visual inspection, and produced using profiling installations like punching, rolling, and welding.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If a U-shaped closed profile is used for the frame, then structural integrity and rigidity are improved, but accessibility for cleaning and visual inspection deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The closed U-shaped profile is segmented by introducing stiffening lugs that create openings in the profile structure. These lugs divide the continuous closed profile into sections with accessible openings, allowing cleaning tools and inspection to reach internal surfaces while maintaining overall structural integrity through the distributed lug configuration.
Solution Approach 2:
The profile structure is modified locally by adding stiffening lugs at specific positions rather than changing the entire profile design. The lugs are strategically placed to provide localized reinforcement and create cleaning access points where needed, while other regions maintain the closed profile configuration for structural strength.
2Stability of the object's composition
If a U-shaped closed profile is used for the frame, then structural rigidity is improved, but visibility for visual inspection deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The closed profile is segmented by stiffening lugs that create visual openings, allowing inspectors to see through the profile structure to the other side. This segmentation provides multiple viewing points along the frame length, enabling visual inspection of internal surfaces and connections without compromising the overall rigid structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The stiffening lugs act as intermediary elements that simultaneously provide structural reinforcement and create visual access points. These lugs serve as mediators between the conflicting requirements of structural rigidity and inspection visibility, allowing both functions to coexist in the same profile design.
3Strength
If stiffening lugs are added to the open profile, then mechanical loading capability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The stiffening lugs are merged with the longitudinal web of the open profile, with lugs extending from the web to provide reinforcement. This integration combines the longitudinal web structure with the transverse lug elements into a unified profile design, achieving enhanced mechanical capability without requiring separate components or complex assembly procedures.
Solution Approach 2:
The stiffening lugs serve multiple functions simultaneously: they provide structural reinforcement for mechanical loading, create cleaning access openings, and enable visual inspection points. This multi-functionality reduces the need for additional separate components, thereby limiting the increase in device complexity while achieving multiple performance improvements.
Data Source
AI summary
The invention provides a packaging machine support device having a frame with side walls and feet which bear the latter, and having at least one workstation borne by this frame, the side walls being in profile form. The packaging machine support device in accordance with the invention is suited to comply with the increasingly stringent hygiene requirements for packaging machines. This is achieved according to the invention by providing a frame profile (7) that is essentially open at the sides.