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Press Release
November 2005

The Ibstock Birtley factory gains an economic advantage by fully automatic pack unloading with following packaging plant

[November 2005] The article describes the mode of operation of the fully automatic brick pack unloading with following packaging line. The new plant, built by KELLER HCW, replaces the former monorail plant, therefore ensuring the future prospects at the Birtley Plant by technological modernization.

Overview

With the development and realization of the equipment described below, the unloading output of effectively 14.500 bricks per hour could be successfully reached. Thanks to good cooperation between Ibstock-Birtley and KELLER HCW, the required preconditions for the modernization of the plant had already been created in the preliminary stages of the project. By means of a new setting proposal a convincing final concept could be achieved.

Functional description

By means of the existing transport equipment the loaded tunnel kiln cars are transported to the unloading position. A programme-controlled crane trolley, with special pack gripper, moves to the removal position to remove a complete pack from the kiln car. Since the removed kiln car pack consists of twelve separate layers and the final dispatch packs must comprise only eight layers, a technical solution had to be found for the formation of dispatch packs.

In standard cases three dispatch packs can be formed from two tunnel kiln car packs.

In this cycle the first pack, consisting of twelve layers, is set down on the first intermediate table, on which the complete pack is separated by the integrated separating device if the bricks are sticking. Afterwards, eight layers, i.e. one dispatch pack, are removed by the gripper to set them down on a special conveying chain, which is indexed to the pack-forming equipment. Then a further pack with twelve layers is removed from the tunnel kiln car by means of the gripper and is transported to the second intermediate table with integrated separating device. If required, the pack must also be separated. Afterwards, a dispatch pack with eight layers is removed by the pack gripper and set down on the bar chain conveyor to transport it to the pack-forming equipment. The pack gripper then moves to the intermediate table No. 1 to remove the remaining pack of four layers and to transport it to intermediate table No. 2, in order to form a new dispatch pack with eight layers from the two remaining packs. The newly formed dispatch pack is set down on the feeding device of the packaging line to finish this cycle. Now, a new kiln car pack can be unloaded by the unloading trolley and the cycle will start again.

In parallel to this procedure it is possible to feed the kiln car packs to a bypass line on which the products of the pack are checked for damage and can be sorted out manually. The high quality standard can then be assured, particularly for specials.

As soon as a tunnel kiln car has been completely unloaded, the empty car is transferred to an existing kiln car cleaning device, after which they are transported to the loading equipment. The formed dispatch packs are transported to the following equipment by the bar chain conveyor:

• moving vertical strapping equipment,
• horizontal strapping equipment
• and automatic film hood machine.

As soon as the packs are ready for dispatch, they are transferred by the pack gripper to a magazine conveyor making them available for removal outside the factory building.

Further information can be found under the following links: