Poultry Breast Fillet Cutting With Breastbone Pre-Centering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing devices for cutting breast fillets from poultry carcasses often result in faulty cuts due to crookedly mounted or grown breastbones, leading to reduced yield and inefficiency, while attempts to prevent faulty cuts through controlled cutting knives or centering plates can cause breast fillets to detach too early, making semi-automatic processing impossible.
Innovation Solution
A device with centering elements that guide the breastbone centrally between separating knives, ensuring precise alignment by moving from a waiting position to a centering position, using curved profiles and spring-loaded elements to securely capture the breastbone before cutting, and allowing for adjustable gaps between knives and centering elements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If controlled cutting knives or centering plates are used to prevent faulty cuts, then cutting reliability is improved, but breast fillets detach too early making semi-automatic processing impossible
Solution Approach 1:
The centering elements perform preliminary centering action on the breastbone before it reaches the separating knives. By positioning the breastbone centrally in advance, the system prevents faulty cuts without requiring the breast fillets to remain connected to the carcass during the cutting process, thus enabling semi-automatic processing.
Solution Approach 2:
The centering elements act as an intermediary mechanism between the breastbone and the separating knives. These elements guide and center the breastbone without directly participating in the cutting action, allowing reliable cutting while maintaining fillet connection for semi-automatic processing.
2Manufacturing precision
If the gap between separating knives is reduced to prevent faulty cuts, then cutting precision is improved, but crookedly mounted breastbones cannot be processed
Solution Approach 1:
The centering elements perform preliminary centering action on crooked breastbones before they reach the separating knives. This preliminary correction allows the gap between knives to remain small for precise cutting while still accommodating and processing crookedly mounted breastbones.
Solution Approach 2:
The centering elements serve as an intermediary that corrects the positioning of crooked breastbones before the cutting action. This mediator enables both small knife gaps for precision and the ability to process varied breastbone orientations.
3Manufacturing precision
If centering elements are positioned close to separating knives, then cutting accuracy is improved, but risk of premature fillet detachment increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the centering and cutting functions into separate stages. Centering elements perform alignment in one zone, while separating knives perform cutting in another zone. This segmentation allows precise centering close to the knives without the centering elements themselves causing premature fillet detachment.
Solution Approach 2:
The centering elements act as an intermediary that provides precise positioning without directly interfering with the fillet-carcass connection. By mediating the positioning action separately from the cutting action, the system achieves cutting accuracy while maintaining fillet stability.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to a device (10) for cutting breast fillets (14) that are connected to one another on a poultry (13) carcass (12), wherein the breast fillets are cut along the breastbone (11), comprising a transport device (15) for transporting the poultry (12) along a transport path, a retaining device (19) arranged on the transport conveyor (18) for retaining the poultry (12), a blade assembly (20) arranged along the transport path and having a pair of cutting blades (21, 22) for cutting the breast fillets (14) along the breastbone (11), wherein a respective cutting blade (21, 22) is arranged on both sides of the transport path, wherein the blade assembly (20) is assigned a centring means (32) for pre-centring the breastbone (11) and having two centring elements (33, 34), each of which can be moved from a stand-by position in which the centring elements (33, 34) are positioned outside the transport path, into a centring position in which the centring elements (33, 34) are positioned in the transport path, and back again, wherein, in the centring position, the centring elements (33, 34) lie at least partially in front of the two cutting blades (21, 22).