GB2508229A

GB2508229A - Re-orientating Articles

Info

Publication number: GB2508229A
Application number: GB201221257A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Patrick Thomas
Original assignee: WHITBY SEAFOODS Ltd
Current assignee: WHITBY SEAFOODS Ltd
Priority date: 2012-11-27
Filing date: 2012-11-27
Publication date: 2014-05-28
Also published as: GB2510461B; GB2508249A; IE20130358A1; IE20130357A1; GB201303508D0; GB2510240A; GB2510240B; GB201320948D0; IE86760B1; GB2510461A; GB201320950D0; IE20130359A1; GB2510460A; GB201320949D0; IE86643B1; GB201221257D0

Abstract

The present invention re-orientates wrongly orientated crustacea such as small lobster or langustine along a channel in a downwardly inclined conveyor before peeling in rollers 20. Air is passed through jets 26 to cause the tails of the small lobster that face up the conveyor to flip over. The conveyor is vibrated to cause the small lobster to rest on their shells and to assist in moving the small lobster along the conveyor.

Description

REORIENTATING ARTICLES

The present invention relates to apparatus and methods for reorientating wrongly orientated articles. The present invention is particularly, although not exclusively, applicable to reorientating wrongly orientated Nephrops norvegicus.

It is known to remove the shells on tails of Nephrops norvegicus by placing the tails to rest on the shell and with the end of the tails leading the way on a conveyor. The tails are advanced towards two opposed drive rollers. As the tails pass between the rollers the shells move forward between the rollers and the meat is squeezed off the shells to fall into openings in the conveyor in advance of the opposed rollers.

The tails are placed within the shell and the ends of the tails leading by a manual operation. This is time-consuming. Further, the tails are floppy and they are difficult to handle and orientate, thus further increasing the time to effect the alignment.

It is an object of the present invention to attempt to overcome at least one of the above or other disadvantages.

According to one aspect of the present invention, apparatus is arranged, in use, to reorientate the direction of wrongly orientated articles comprising a conveyor arranged to, in use, pass articles over a jet such that the jet is arranged to cause wrongly orientated articles to be impacted by the jet to cause the wrongly orientated articles to flip over such that they are correctly orientated.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a method of orientating wrongly orientated articles to a correct orientation comprises conveying the articles over a jet with the jet causing the wrongly orientated articles to flip over to such that they are correctly orientated.

The present invention is further defined in the claims and elsewhere in the specification.

The present invention can be carried into practice in a number of ways and one embodiment will now be described by way of example and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a schematic perspective view of a machine 10 arranged to align Nephrops norvegicus such as small lobster and to separate the shells from the meat; Figure 2 is a perspective view of part of a conveyer 12 used in Figure 1.

As shown in Figure 1, the machine 10 includes a hopper 14 arranged to convey small lobster 16 from the hopper onto a conveyor 12. The conveyer 12 supplies the small lobster onto a transporter 18 that feeds the small lobster through opposed driven rollers 20 that strip the meat off the tails in a known manner. The conveyor 12 includes a channel that is narrower in width than the lengths of the small lobster. The shells of the small lobster passes through the rollers which shells are later dispersed of. The meat is squeezed off the shell and passes through openings 22 in advance of the rollers for subsequent processing.

The conveyor 12, which may be a conveyor inclined downwardly at an angle of between 10° and 30° as shown at 17 for instance towards the transporter 18, may be vibrated to orientate the small lobster such that the small lobster rests on its shell 40 with the meat 42 facing upwardly. The vibration effects this orientation as a result of the heaviest part of the small lobster being in the shell region of the small lobster. The vibration is effected by an eccentric drive 24. The vibration may be continuous or periodic. The vibration assists in causing the small lobster to move down the conveyor.

Some small lobster on the conveyor will have the tails 44 facing forwardly. Other small lobster will have the tails facing rearwardly. In order to ensure that all of the small lobster leaves the conveyor with the tails facing forwardly, a jet, such as an air jet which may be an air knife, is supplied through the base 26 of the conveyor from a pump 27. The air may be continuously or periodically supplied. The period of air supply may correspond to the period of vibration of the conveyor. There may be more than one such air jet which is spaced from the first air jet.

The rate of flow of air supplied may be between 2 L/M and 16 L/M and is preferably 4 LIM for the trailing air jet and 10 L/M for the leading air jet.. The bases 26 of the conveyor may include between 20 and 120 openings 29 and is preferably supplied through 10 openings. The diameter of at least some of the openings may be between 4 mm and 0.2 mm and is preferably 1 mm. At least one or some of the openings may be forward facing such as at an angle of 45° to the base of the conveyor in the direction of travel of the lobsters. Alternatively or additionally the or each air jet may comprise an air knife slit which may be longer than it is wide. The air through such slits may enter at an inclusive angle to channel of less than 600 such as 30°. The air through such slits may have a different pressure and or volume of air at different locations along the slit which may assist in altering the orientation of products.

Either as a result of the end of the tails being lighter than the rest of the small lobster or as a result of the end of the tails having a greater cross-sectional area than the remainder of the small lobster, the tail end regions of the small lobster are caused to be raised as the small lobster passes over the air jets. When the end of the tail leads the small lobster over the jets, the ends of the tails may rise up slightly. However, as the conveyor is inclined downwardly, this raising of the ends of the tails is not sufficient to cause the tails to flip over. However when the ends of the tails face upstream on the conveyor, the raising of the ends of the tails is sufficient to cause the ends of the tails to flip over and to reorientate the tails with the ends leading. This is assisted by the downwards inclination of the conveyor which makes the flipping more readily able to occur. When there is more than one air jet and the tail is facing the wrong way the tail end will lift to bring the tail end into the move concentrated part of the air flow. This brings the other end of the lobster touches the channel causing friction which allows the combination of the two slightly spaced apart air knifes to turn the tail over. There may be a local constriction in the width of the channel in the lower region of the channel on the trailing end of the slit of the upstream slit or the downstream slit or both to assist in the friction effect.

Such a local constriction may also assist in allowing different sized products such as the lobster tails to be turned over when required.

Attention is directed to all papers and documents which are filed concurrently with or previous to this specification in connection with this application and which are open to public inspection with this specification, and the contents of all such papers and documents are incorporated herein by reference.

All of the features disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), andlor all of the steps of any method or process so disclosed, may be combined in any combination, except combinations where at least some of such features and/or steps are mutually exclusive.

Each feature disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings) may be replaced by alternative features serving the same, equivalent or similar purpose, unless expressly stated otherwise. Thus, unless expressly stated otherwise, each feature disclosed is one example only of a generic series of equivalent or similar features.

The invention is not restricted to the details of the foregoing embodiment(s). The invention extends to any novel one, or any novel combination, of the features disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), or to any novel one, or any novel combination, of the steps of any method or process so disclosed.

Claims

Claims 1. Apparatus arranged, in use, to reorientate the direction of wrongly orientated articles comprising a conveyor arranged to, in use, pass articles over a jet such that the jet is arranged to cause wrongly orientated articles to be impacted by the jet to cause the wrongly orientated articles to flip over such that they are correctly orientated.
2. Apparatus as claimed in claim 1, comprising means to periodically operate the jet.
3. Apparatus as claimed in claim 1 or 2 in which the jet comprises an air jet.
4. Apparatus as claimed in claim 3 in which the air jet is an air knife.
5. An apparatus as claimed in claim 4 in which the air knife is longer in the direction of travel of articles on the conveyor than in a direction transverse to that direction.
6. An apparatus as claimed in claims 4 or 5 which air at different pressure and or different volumes is arranged to be emitted at different locations of the air knife.
7. Apparatus according to any preceding claim in which the jet is applied through a plurality of openings in the conveyor.
8. Apparatus as claimed in claim 7, in which the diameter of at least some of the jets in between 0.2 mm and 4 mm, and are preferably 1 mm.
9. Apparatus as claimed in claim 7 or 8 in which there are between 20 and 120 openings and preferably there are 70 openings.
10. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim in which at least some of the air jet is directed upwardly and forwardly with respect to the direction of travel of the articles.
11. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim including a plurality of air jets spaced from each other each of which is arranged to impact the articles.
12. Apparatus as claimed in claim 11 in which both air jets are arranged to act simultaneously on an article.
13. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim in which the conveyer is inclined downwardly in the direction of intended travel of the articles.
14. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim in which the conveyer included a channel along which articles, in use, are arranged to pass.
15. Apparatus as claimed in claim 14 in which the channel includes a constriction in the region that the articles are caused to flip over.
16. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim including vibration means arranged in use, to vibrate the conveyer.
17. Apparatus as claimed in claim 16, in which the vibration means are arranged to cause all of the articles to lye on the conveyer with the same part of the article facing downwards.
18. Apparatus as claimed in claim 16 or 17 in which the vibration means are arranged to at least partially assist in moving the articles along the conveyer.
19. Apparatus as claimed in any of claims 16 to 18, in which the vibration is arranged to occur periodically.
20. Apparatus as claimed in claim 19 when dependent on claim 2 or any claim when dependent on claim 2 in which the periodic vibration of the vibration means is arranged to occur at the same time as the periodic operation of the jet.
21. Apparatus as described in any of claims ito 20 comprising Nephrops norvegicus orientation apparatus.
22. A method of reorientating wrongly orientated articles to a correct orientation comprising conveying the articles over a jet with the jet causing the wrongly orientated articles to flip over to such that they are correctly orientated.
23. A method as claimed in claim 22 comprising conveying the articles along a downwardly inclined conveyor and applying the jet to all of the articles with the articles being irregular in form whereby wrongly orientated articles are caused to flip over with correctly orientated articles not flipping over.
24. A method as claimed in claim 23 in which the cross-section area of the one end region of wrongly orientated articles is greater than the cross-sectional area of at least some of the remainder of the articles such that the force exerted by the jet is greater on the end region whereby the force exerted by the jet assists in causing the wrongly facing articles to flip over.
25. A method as claimed in claim 23 or 24 in which the weight of the wrongly orientated articles is greater towards a leading region of the article than it is towards a trailing region to assist in causing the jet to flip over the wrongly facing articles.
26. A method as claimed in any of claims 22 to 25 in which the force exerted by the jet on correctly orientated articles is not sufficient to flip the articles over.
27. A method as claimed in any of claims 22 to 26 comprising vibrating the conveyor to cause the articles either to remain lying on a first side on the conveyer or to turn the articles over to lye on a first side on the conveyor.
28. A method as claimed in any of claims 22 to 27 comprising conveying the articles along a channel with the width of the channel being less than the length of the articles.
29. A method as claimed in any of claims 22 to 28 comprising reorientatirig wrongly orientated Nephros norvegicus.
30. A method as claimed in any of claims 22 to 29 when using apparatus as claimed in any of claims Ito 21.