Aug 7 2007
LF Latersiciliana SpA operates a brick and ceiling block plant on its Collesano site in Sicily, Italy. In order to increase the output of the unloading plant a Keller HCW pack unloading with additional layer loading system has been installed and commissioned.
Regular investments and modernisations have ensured that the Fauci group, to which LF Latersiciliana belongs, has become one of the most successful brick manufacturers in Italy. Therefore, over the last few years, many modernisations have been carried out on different sites. On the Collesano site a new kiln from Keller HCW was delivered and successfully commissioned shortly before the turn of the new millennium. The increase in output also required an increase in the output of the kiln car unloading and packaging system.
The new kiln car pack unloading is positioned directly in front of the existing kiln car layer unloading. Depending on the product being produced, either one or the other unloading system is used. The existing tunnel kiln car transport plant was reconstructed and the control connected to the existing plant.
The empty pallets, interlocked in stacks up to two metres high, are fed with fork lift trucks onto the empty pallet storage chain. A pallet gripper takes two pallets from the stack and deposits them onto the chain conveyor leading to the pallet loading. Then the pallet gripper moves and picks up the top pallet, turns it by 180° and sets it down onto the empty chain conveyor position. Both empty pallets are then conveyed into the pallet loading position.
The tunnel kiln car to be unloaded is positioned, adjusted by the tunnel kiln car adjusting device and afterwards unloaded. The double unloading gripper moves into the firing gap and comes in from the side. Because of the small firing gap, the inside gripper bars are not installed back to back but interlocked one inside the other. The fired pack openings at the top are detected by means of four lasers. The lasers signal whether the line for the gripper bar is clear or whether corrections are required. The grippers have a floating mount and are therefore able to adapt to the position of the firing pack during gripping.
After removing the load from the kiln car, the gripper is readjusted. Both half firing packs are moved and deposited onto two prepared pallets or onto a belt conveyor for the additional layer loading system. For most sizes, one half firing pack corresponds to one dispatch pack. In this case half firing packs are deposited and the packs are directly fed to the packaging. However, this is not applicable for several sizes. Here the half firing packs have to be complemented by an additional layer, which corresponds to a firing pack layer.
The completion of the pack is effected immediately behind the pallet loading. Using a turning layer gripper, a layer is taken off the firing pack which has been fed via the belt conveyor. The layer is then turned as required and deposited onto the dispatch pack. Behind the additional layer forming, or completing position, the film hood machine is installed with the shrink frame behind that and then the dispatch pack transfer position or doubling position. The dispatch pack transfer position or doubling position consists of a double sided tooth gripper, which removes the ready-prepared dispatch pack from the chain conveyor and deposits it on the bars of the magazine conveyor or on top of a dispatch pack already standing on the chain conveyor. The efficient fork lift truck then removes six packs from the magazine conveyor and deposits them either in the storage yard or onto the truck.