Radial Cheese Slicing Device with Split Rotating Platform
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing devices for cutting cylindrical cheese wheels struggle to produce uniform radial slices, often leading to product deterioration, inconsistent slice thickness, and difficulty in maintaining the half-wheel during cutting, especially with cheeses of varying densities or low cohesion.
Innovation Solution
A device with a support plate that splits into two parts, allowing for angular rotation of up to 180 degrees, combined with motorized conveyors and a bevelled cutting blade, ensures stable cutting and consistent slice thickness, using upper rollers for additional support and motorized components for precise control.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a single support platform is used to hold the half-wheel during cutting, then the device structure is simple, but the holding stability is insufficient for cheeses with low cohesion or holes
Solution Approach 1:
The support platform is divided into two separate coplanar platforms. The first platform holds the half-wheel during cutting, while the second platform receives the cut slices. This segmentation allows each platform to be optimized for its specific function, improving holding stability without excessive complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The first support platform acts as an intermediary between the cutting blade and the cheese wheel. It provides a stable base that can be independently positioned and tilted to accommodate cheeses of various densities and cohesions, ensuring reliable holding during the cutting process.
2Manufacturing precision
If the support platform rotates to adjust slice thickness, then slice uniformity can be controlled, but the movement mechanism becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The first support platform is made dynamically adjustable through rotation around a horizontal axis, allowing the operator to change the tilt angle to control slice thickness. This dynamic adjustment provides precision control over slice uniformity while using a relatively simple rotational mechanism rather than complex mechanical systems.
3Ease of operation
If slices fall by gravity onto a conveyor, then the evacuation process is simple, but low-cohesion cheeses lose integrity during the fall
Solution Approach 1:
The second support platform serves as an intermediary surface that receives cut slices directly from the cutting blade. It provides a gentle transition zone where slices are deposited without sudden drops, preserving the integrity of low-cohesion cheeses while still enabling easy evacuation to the conveyor system.
Solution Approach 2:
The two support platforms are positioned coplanarly and at the same height, creating an equipotential surface for slice transfer. This eliminates height differences that would cause slices to fall or drop during transfer, preventing damage to delicate cheeses while maintaining simple gravitational evacuation to the conveyor.
4Adaptability or versatility
If the support platform is fixed, then the device structure is simple, but slice thickness and weight cannot be adjusted
Solution Approach 1:
The first support platform is designed to rotate around a horizontal axis, transforming it from a fixed structure to a dynamic one. This rotation capability allows continuous adjustment of the platform angle, enabling variation in slice thickness and weight while maintaining a relatively simple mechanical configuration.
Solution Approach 2:
The rotatable first support platform serves multiple functions: it provides stable holding for the half-wheel, enables adjustment of slice thickness through angle variation, and facilitates the cutting process for cheeses of different densities. This multi-functionality increases adaptability without proportionally increasing device complexity.
Data Source
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AI summary
This device for cutting into slices or radial sectors (16) a food product having an overall cylindrical shape, comprises: - a support platform adapted to receive said product previously cut along a plane passing through its axis of revolution into two parts, and receiving the sliced face resulting from this separation into two parts, said support platform being capable of rotation around a horizontal axis; - a motorized cutting blade (8), the direction of action of which is oriented in the direction of the axis of rotation, so as to induce a cut of said product in a radial direction.The support platform consists of two parts, coplanar before the start of the cutting phase of said product: - a first part (5) mobile in rotation relative to a horizontal axis, according to an angular amplitude capable of reaching and even exceeding 180 degrees, - a second part (6, 7) partially mobile in rotation relative to the same axis and whose angular value of rotation corresponds to the desired shape of the slices or sector.