Know pet food packaging technology and mechanical equipment
Modern pet food packaging is basically completed by packaging machinery. Packaging machinery is a machine that completes all or part of the packaging process.
Types of pet food packaging machinery
Pet food packaging process operation and requirements are different, roughly classified as follows.
1. According to different functions, it is mainly divided into: filling machine, filling machine, wrapping machine, sealing machine, labeling machine, printer, collecting machine, cleaning machine, multifunctional packaging machine, etc.
2. According to the degree of automation, it is divided into semi-automatic packaging machine and automatic packaging machine.
3. According to the different range of packaging adaptation, it can be divided into special type, multi-purpose type and general packaging machine.
Filling machine
Modern high and new technologies such as computer, laser, photoelectric and other technologies are widely used in pet food packaging machinery and equipment to make pet food packaging towards high-speed, linkage, bacterialization, intelligent direction.
The basic composition of pet food packaging machinery
Pet food packaging machinery is generally composed of packaged food delivery system, packaging material or container delivery system, main delivery system, packaging operation execution system, finished product output system, packaging machine power and transmission system, control system and fuselage bracket, etc.
Pet food packaging machinery selection of general principles
1. Meet the requirements of pet food packaging technology, have good adaptability to the materials and containers used in pet food packaging, and ensure the requirements of packaging quality and packaging production efficiency.
2. Advanced technology, stable and reliable work, less energy consumption, convenient use and maintenance, good versatility, can adapt to a variety of pet food packaging needs.
3. Meet the hygiene requirements of pet food, easy to clean, do not pollute pet food; There are reasonable and reliable control devices for the conditions required by pet food packaging, such as temperature, pressure, time, measurement, speed, etc., and automatic control is adopted as far as possible.
4. Long-term production of single products, the selection of special machinery; The production of multiple varieties, the same type, multi-specification products choose multi-functional machinery, one machine can complete a number of packaging operations, improve the efficiency, save labor and reduce the floor area.
5. Improve workers’ working conditions and reduce labor intensity.
02 Pet food filling technology
filling is an important process of pet food packaging. It refers to filling pet food into packaging containers according to certain specifications and quality requirements, which mainly includes measuring and filling of pet food. Because of the variety of pet food, form and liquidity are different; Packaging containers are also multi-type, different materials, so the formation of the complexity of filling technology and wide application.
According to the different accuracy requirements of pet food measurement methods, pet food filling technology can be divided into weighing filling, volumetric filling and counting filling.
01 Weighing pack
Weighing and filling method is suitable for measuring materials that are easy to absorb moisture, easy to caking, uneven particle size and unstable bulk density. Commonly used weighing devices are lever scale, spring scale, hydraulic scale, electronic scale. According to the different weighing mode can be divided into intermittent and continuous two types.
(1) intermittent weighing device. There are two kinds of net weight filling method and gross weight filling method.
a. Net weight filling method: that is, the material is first weighed and then filled into the packaging container. Since the weighing result is not affected by the change of tare weight of the container, the weighing precision is very high. Such as puffed pet food, etc.
b. Gross weight filling method: the difference between gross weight filling method and net weight filling method is that there is no measuring bucket, the packaging container is put on the scale to fill, and the feeding is stopped when the specified quality is reached, so the weight is weighed as gross weight, and the measurement accuracy is greatly affected by the change in the quality of the container, the measurement accuracy is not high, therefore, in addition to the free flow of pet food materials, Or for a qualitative material measurement filling.
(2) continuous weighing device. Using electronic belt scale to weigh can fundamentally overcome the signal sent by lever scale and the material has been sent out of the measurement error problem, but also greatly improve the speed of measurement, to meet the requirements of high speed packaging machine.
02 Volume filling
The volumetric filling method is used to measure and fill by controlling the volume of pet food materials. It requires the volume and quality of the materials to be filled to be stable, otherwise large measurement errors will be generated, and the accuracy is generally ±(1.0% ~ 2.0%), which is lower than that of weighing and filling. Therefore, in filling, vibration, agitation, vacuum and other methods are used to compacted the filled materials and maintain a stable volume mass.
There are many methods of volume filling, but from the principle of measurement, it can be divided into two categories, that is, to control the flow and time of filling materials and to use a certain specification of measuring cylinder to measure filling.
(1) Timing vibration filling method. A vibrating tray feeder is connected to the lower part of the storage hopper. The feeder vibrates at a specified time to fill the material directly into the container. The measurement is controlled by the vibration time. This method has the simplest results but the lowest measurement accuracy.
(2) Spiral filling method. When the feeding spiral shaft rotates, the agitator in the storage hopper mixes the material evenly, and the spiral surface compels the material to the required density. Each turn can output a certain amount of material, and the number of turns can be controlled by the clutch to achieve the purpose of measurement. If the bag is filled, a turntable can be installed under the screw feeder to cut off the dense material and then air is mixed with it to form a free flowing material. After filling, the bag is vibrated and the loose material is compacted. The spiral filling method can obtain higher filling measurement accuracy.
(3) heavy カ a metering cylinder filling method. The lower part of the storage hopper is provided with two or more measuring cylinders, which are evenly distributed on the rotating horizontal round plate; There is no expansion chamber on the measuring cylinder, so that it can expand up and down and adjust the volume. When the measuring cylinder is selected under the feeding barrel, the material falls into the measuring cylinder by its own weight. When the measuring cylinder is transposed to the discharge port, the material enters the packaging container through the discharge pipe. In order to make the material flow into the container quickly, the container is sometimes vibrated.
(4) Vacuum – metering filling method. A measuring cylinder runner with adjustable volume is provided under the storage hopper; The measuring cylinder is distributed uniformly along the radial direction of the runner and connected with the center of the runner through a pipe; There is a ring vacuum in the center of the runner and an air main for vacuuming and air intake. The material falls into the measuring cylinder from the storage hopper. After being vacuumed, the material is evenly packed. The transport belt continuously sends the container to the bottom of the runner. Vacuum one-meter filling method is often used to fill large and small bottles, bags, cans, etc. The filling capacity ranges from 5 mg to several kilograms, and the general measurement accuracy is 1%.
With high working speed and simple device structure, volume filling method is widely used for measuring fluid, semi-fluid, powder and small particle pet food, but it is not suitable for materials with unstable bulk density.
03 Counting and filling
Counting and filling method is a filling method that fills pet food into the packaging container after quantification. It is often used for the metering and filling of granular pet food and strip, block and flake pet food, requiring that individual pet food has the same specifications directly. The counting and filling method has simple equipment and operation process, which can be operated manually, semi-automatically and automatically. It is suitable for a variety of packaging methods, such as heat shrink packaging and bubble cap packaging. From the amount of counting, there are two kinds of packaging methods: single packaging box set packaging.
(1) Length counting device. Make the articles have a certain regular arrangement, according to its certain length, height, volume out, to obtain a certain number. This device is relatively simple, by pushing plate, conveyor belt, baffle, contact switch four parts. Often used in lumps of pet food. Due to the shape rules of this kind of pet food, it has a definite geometric size and a definite value. It can be calculated by properly adjusting the push of the push plate.
(2) photoelectric counting. The photoelectric counter is used to complete the items in the conveyor belt through the photocell one by one, the light from the light source because of the passage of the items and show through and blocked two states, by the photocell signals into electrical signals into the counter for counting, and display the number in the window.
(3) rotary disc counting device. Especially suitable for the shape, size of regular spherical and round flake food count. The selection of solid material filling method should be comprehensively considered according to various factors. The first thing to be considered is the material characteristics and filling accuracy of the filled material. In addition to the accuracy of the device itself, the filling measurement accuracy is also affected by the physical and chemical properties of the material, such as unstable bulk density, easy moisture absorption, easy flying and difficult flow. In order to improve the filling speed and accuracy, the mixture of volume filling and weighing filling can be used. In coarse feeding, the volume filling can be used to improve the speed, and in fine feeding, the weighing filling can be used to improve the accuracy. Generally speaking, high value pet food requires high precision measurement.
