The challenge of loading fruit and nuts
29 March 2011 – A Middle East based supplier of a mixed fruit and nut product required a means of loading 300kg batches into bulk bags with no damage. Their product contains whole walnuts that are particularly fragile. Spiroflow has a long history of developing its ranges of bulk bag fillers and dischargers to meet the needs of individual customers. As marketing manager, Keith Simpson, confirms, “This challenge was an excellent opportunity for us to apply our ingenuity and vast bulk materials handling experience. The result is a new ‘rise and fall’ model for our bulk bag filler range.”
To avoid fruit and nuts having to fall the full height of an empty bulk bag, the bottom of the empty bag is raised up to just below the outlet of the filling tube. The gap, between the end of the tube and the bottom of the bag, is just enough to allow the nuts to gently flow into the bag without damage. The bag is then lowered slowly to allow filling to continue. As anyone involved with dry particulate materials will readily appreciate: the lowering of the bag controls the flow of the fruit and nuts down the filling tube due to the ‘self-choking’ action caused by the natural ‘angle of repose’ of the product as it exits the tube and spreads out. Accordingly, the bottom of the bag is incrementally lowered until it is filled to the desired weight. Following gentle vibration, the bag is ready to be removed on a pallet by a forklift truck.
For this application, a total of six ‘rise and fall’ fillers were supplied. Four with load-cell weighing, to OIML standards, and gentle vibration to consolidate the bag contents. Two were supplied just with vibration but no weighing. Vibration not only makes the bags aesthetically pleasing but, more importantly, safe to handle, transport and store. The four fillers with the weighing capability were supplied with printers which generate labels indicating weight, date, time and batch number.
The new ‘rise and fall’ model can incorporate all of the standard ‘Spiroflow’ bulk bag filler options such as pallet dispensers, pallet delivery conveyors, bag inflation, weighing, displaced air filtration, vibration and automatic removal of filled bags.