Patent ID: 8231441

Claim:
A stuffing apparatus comprising: a stuffing nozzle for discharging a stuffing material from a discharge port into a casing; a stuffing pump for feeding the stuffing material into said stuffing nozzle; a casing pushing device which has a fluid cylinder having a cylinder, a piston, and a rod with one end thereof coupled to the piston and another end thereof projecting from an end portion of the cylinder in a direction of forward movement of the piston and has a casing pusher provided forwardly of the other end in the direction of forward movement of the piston and adapted to forwardly move in synchronism with the forward movement of the piston, said casing pushing device being adapted to cause a trailing end portion of a shirred casing which is yet to be stuffed and is in a shirred state to be pushed during stuffing in a direction toward the discharge port of said stuffing nozzle in a direction in which the stuffing material is discharged from the discharge port, by forward movement of said casing pusher abutting against the trailing end portion; a braking member which is disposed around said stuffing nozzle and is abutted by a leading end portion of the shirred casing which is located closer to a side of the discharge portion of said stuffing nozzle than the trailing end portion of the shirred casing abutted by said casing pusher; and movement stop detecting means for detecting stoppage of said casing pusher in the course of its forward movement, wherein the forward movement of said casing pusher is forward movement toward said braking member together with the trailing end in a state in which said casing pusher abuts against the trailing end portion of the shirred casing whose length is being decreased while the stuffing material is being stuffed into a deshirred casing, in a case where said casing pusher has stopped in the course of its forward movement together with the trailing end portion of the shirred casing which stopped in the course of the forward movement owing to the occurrence of a casing breakage, the stoppage of said casing pusher in the course of its forward movement is detected by said movement stop detecting means so as to stop said stuffing pump, and said movement stop detecting means is provided in a passage communicating with said fluid cylinder which is at a standstill in a state in which said casing pusher abuts against the trailing end portion of the shirred casing which stopped in the course of its forward movement, so as to detect a state of a fluid in said passage.