Packing of chocolate beads in big bags

Processed bulk materials: chocolate beads

Storage in big bag

This customer is a world-renowned manufacturer and produces very fragile chocolate beads that are intended for packing (B to C).

In order to give consumers all the guarantees of quality, this customer wanted to take every precaution both on the non-contamination of his raw ingredients by a ferrous or non-ferrous foreign body (likely to come from the upstream process) and on the absence of "breakage" essential for a fragile product intended for a very large distribution.
In addition, the customer wanted to be able to fill both 1,000 liter big bags and 300 liter small containers..

The environment being constrained by strict hygienic standards, the user wanted a perfectly clean system with no retention areas.
Palamatic Process has developed a FlowMatic® 03 big bag filling system equipped with an upstream magnetic detector. This detector, whose sensitivity can be adjusted by means of a keypad, is provided with an ejection system.
If a foreign body is detected when the material passes through, a quick-acting cylinder then "bypasses" the inlet chute on the side to a waste collector.
The speed of the system ensures that product loss is minimal in the event of detection.
In order to avoid breaking the product on both filling levels, a jetty chute with baffles has been installed. This chute has been internally coated with an elastomer with a well-defined SHORE (confidential) hardness, as well as the angles given to the baffles.
The difficulty of adapting to the two loading heights (amplitude greater than 1 meter) while keeping the loading chute low enough (always to avoid breakage) was solved in the simplest possible way.
Two successive and opposite cylinders provide the necessary translation of the loading chute and allow the small container (300 liter container) to be mounted as close as possible to the outlet of the same chute.
The whole system is weighed with a inflight error management system to get as close as possible to the target weight.

Finishes:
In order to deliver a harmonious and perfectly cleanable unit, Palamatic Process made this station in 304L stainless steel with all ground welds, a meticulous passivation and a very fine microbeading of the unit in order to give a smooth and uniform appearance to this skid.
The load cells are raised and allow easy cleaning of the lower part of the system.
The metalwork has been specially designed to avoid right angles, sources of retention, as well as corners.

Big bag filling operating mode (1,000 litres):
The operator, after positioning his pallet on the reception tray, puts the loops of the flexible container on the tubular forks provided for this purpose. It then activates by push button the expansion of a inflatable joint ensuring the containment by clamping.
This station is also fitted with a big bag tensioning system to optimize its holding on its pallet and dynamically adjust the bulk material's drop height.

Container filling operating mode (300 liters):
The container is simply positioned on the receiving frame with centering devices on the structure of the IbcFill®01 container filling system.
The operator then pushes the lifting of this small container as close as possible to the filling mouth. As the container is filled, it gradually lowers according to the measured weight. 
The system is fully satisfactory both for its preservation features (no bulk material deterioration), its dosing accuracy and ease of cleaning as well as for its general appearance.