Patent GB-880810-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to apparatus for processing comestibles in sealed containers
IPC: A23L3/04
Filed: 1959-10-29
Abstract: 880,810. Sterilizing &c. food in sealed containers. FOOD MACHINERY & CHEMICAL CORPORATION. Oct. 29, 1959 [Nov. 21, 1958, No. 36739/59. Class 49. [Also in Group XXX] An apparatus for cooking and cooling food in sealed containers includes a vertically extending tank 17 (Fig. 1), a vertical partition 21 arranged to divide the tank into a cooking chamber 18 and a cooling chamber 19 (the cooking chamber may be filled with water and the water therein heated and cold water may be sprayed in the cooling chamber), and a continuously driven container-constraining conveyer 28 which moves containers through the cooking chamber for a predetermined time sufficient to effect complete cooking of the food in the heated water and then through the cooling chamber, and has elongated container carriers 27 (Fig. 5) with hinged covers 227 extending lengthwise and arranged to be opened to receive or to discharge a line of containers and to be closed to constrain the line of containers within by means in the tank to hold the covers in the closed position. Sealed containers are discharged from a conveyer 156 (Fig. 1) into a shoot 157 which delivers them to the upwardly moving run 158 (Fig. 2) of an elevator 23. On reaching the top of the elevator, the containers are directed horizontally along a conveyer 159 to a feed conveyer 161 from which they are transferred by a push-off bar into open pockets P (Fig. 5) of the carriers 27; a container-arresting unit 164 and abutment pin (not shown in Fig. 2) control the movement of the containers whereby the possibility of them being partially out of the feed unit 26 on actuation of the push-off bar is eliminated. The desired heating in the chamber 18 is achieved by variation of the level of hot water below the inlet 111 through valved conduits 116 (Fig. 1). The processed containers are discharged into a conveyer 165 (Fig. 2) and return to the conveyer 156 through the downwardly moving run 170 of the elevator 23. The chains 176 of the conveyer 28 run within tracks 189 (Fig. 5) secured to the partition wall 21 between the chambers 18 and 19, and to horizontal angular members 151; except during the loading and unloading of the cans, the carriers 27 are retained in the closed position shown in Fig. 5 under control of actuating arms 229 held by a wear bushing 232 in cam tracks 233 fitted to each conveyer track 189. The carrier body 223 is approximately six feet long and preferably of die-cast aluminium. The body includes a container-supporting and coversupporting wall 224 and a J-shaped can-constraining wall 226; the elongated, semicylindrical carrier cover 227 is pivotally connected to the supporting wall 224 of the body by hinges 228. For loading containers into the carriers from off the conveyer 161, movable sections of cam track 233a (Fig. 6) and 233b (Fig. 4) are moved back to the position shown in Fig. 6, thereby opening a carrier 27; push-off bar 293 is pivotally rotated about a shaft 286 to push a charge of containers down an inclined ramp 296 into the opened carrier. The cam tracks are returned to their original positions to close the carrier and the series of operations is repeated each time a carrier 27 is within the movable sections of tracks. The containers are discharged by outward movement of sections 233c and 233d (Fig. 4) of cam track to the position shown in Fig. 8; the consequent movement of the semi-cylindrical covers 227 pushes the containers out on to the raised abutment surface 234 of the next following carrier;, from which they fall by gravity on to the conveyer 165. Continuous drive to an idler shaft 198 is provided by a motor 191 through a speed-reducing gear-box 192 (Fig. 1); a spur gear 203 keyed on the idler shaft meshes with a spur gear 204 keyed on a shaft 184 on which the upper sprockets 179 and 181 for the conveyer 28 are mounted and drives them clockwise as viewed in Fig. 4; the intermediate sprockets 182 for the conveyer are driven counterclockwise through a sprocket 207. The drive for the feed unit 26 and discharge unit 29 comprises a sprocket 346 keyed to the idler shaft and connected by a chain 347 to a sprocket 309 that is rotatable on a shaft 306. A sprocket 311, which is fixed to the sprocket 309, is connected to a sprocket 259, keyed on the cam shaft 251 of the feed unit by a chain 348 which drives the shaft in a counterclockwise direction as viewed in Fig. 4. A chain 349 connects a sprocket 258 to a sprocket 313, which sprockets are of the same size, and drives the cam shaft 306 of the discharge unit in the same direction and at the same speed as the shaft 251 and in timed relation with the conveyer 28. Once for each revolution of the shaft 306, a lobe 314a (Fig. 8) of a cam 314 engages a cam follower 322 causing a rocker shaft 316 to be pivoted; the motion is transmitted through an arm 323 and a crank arm 324 keyed on a shaft to the movable cam sections 233c and 233d (Fig. 4) which are thus pivoted outwardly. Similarly, the pivoting once during every revolution of the rocker shaft 251, of a cam 261 (Fig. 6) produces a backward pivotal movement of the cam sections 233a and 233b and consequent opening of a carrier 27. Shortly after this, the lobe 262a (see Fig. 6) of a cam 262 also keyed on the shaft 251 contacts a cam follower causing a rocker arm 281 to pivot in a counterclockwise direction, whereby the shaft 286 (Fig. 4) is pivoted in a clockwise direction causing the pusher bar 293 to move a line of containers off the conveyer 161, down the inclined ramp 296 (Fig. 6) and into the pocket P before the cover 227 closes; each of the carriers 27 is, in turn, filled in this manner. The number of container pushed off is regulated with the movement of the feed conveyer 161 and conveyer 28 (Fig. 15, not shown). An air cylinder 379 is first actuated to raise spring-loaded bars 374 (Fig. 10) which lock containers thereby raised off the conveyer 161 against an adjustable, resilient pad 384. After sufficient time has been allowed for a container disposed between the pad and an abutment pin 387 in an assembly 386 to move into the feed push-off station, a cylinder 418 is actuated to move the abutment pin assembly 386 (Fig. 13) downwardly; a container fortuitously dislodged from the pad will be checked from fouling the operating stroke of the pusher bar by the pin. The pin 387, which is prevented from rotation by being rigidly secured in a collar 388 anchored by a pin 392, is resiliently mounted within a cylinder 389 in case it should be lowered directly over a container rather than between spaced containers.