Technology - Molders
Proper rollers for more
difficult and particular recipes
Even if we are talking about soft biscuits, hard biscuits or crackers, rotary
molders are essential tools for the industry. The Italian manufacturer
Padovani, which has been producing biscuit molders for all types of
machines on the market since 1969, talked to Biscuit World about what
the novelties and challenges are in the sector.
I
n terms of molders technological
breakthroughs, the most important
is the ongoing work to find new
materials that can enable the perfect molding, explains Roberto
Padovani, chairman of the board at
Padovani. A roller manufacturer is
always working towards finding better
quality materials to allow customers to
use more difficult and particular recipes.
In this respect, the company has recently announced that a new and
innovative plastic formulation “food
grade light blue”is used for the molders.
From trials carried out among the
customers, this plastic material revealed
to increase the mold lifetime by over
30%. Beyond a greater hardness, this
material has a higher dough release
capacity. This means that it is a really
good choice for sticky dough and those
with many abrasive inclusions.
THE PRODUCTION
CHALLENGES
From a technological and design point
of view, the main challenge consists in
turning the inquiries of the customers
into an executive project. Most of the
time, this is the outcome of an idea that
has to be developed and converted by
the technical department into a feasible
technical drawing, explains the expert
from Padovani. During this phase, the
technicians often face some difficulties
in terms of the practical realization of
the project. Therefore, they have to find
a compromise between what the customer wishes to create and the effective
feasibility of the product. This means
compromises at a graphical level and
regarding the dimensions, weight and
robustness of the final product.
On the other hand, concerning the real
manufacturing job of the rollers, the
main challenge is to improve the level
of precision. The bigger the dimensions
26
of the roller (diameter and width), the
highest accuracy the mold must have.
In terms of diameters for molders,
Padovani can manufacture rollers with
diameters of up to 500 mm and working widths of up to 2 mt. The rollers
with the biggest dimensions are generally used in plants with a very high
productive capacity, where rollers are
submitted to very hard working cycles,
both in terms of cycle duration (mostly
continuous: 24h and 7/7 days) and
speed (more than 40mt/min). Moreover, these rollers require greater manufacturing precision: dimensional
variations of only a hundredth of a
millimeter are allowed.
Another issue that has appeared over
the years is the demand for “special”
products with a high content of cereals
or other granular ingredients, which
are very abrasive for the plastic materials that are commonly used. “Our
available material range is very wide, so
it is possible to adapt bronze and
plastic materials to the different type of
dough that each customer uses,” Giulia
Biasio added.
Many customers prefer rollers with
interchangeable rings, as this system
allows changing the damaged ring/
rings in a very short time. This
procedure can be done by the
customer himself and for this
reason is very helpful. There is also
the possibility of using these
rollers to do trials on the
production line in order to
test new products, replacing
one or more rings
with trial rings.
the expert from
Padovani explains.
“Generally, the necessity of replacement
comes from the inquiries of the customer, i.e.,
for some customers, it is
necessary to replace the roller
when the weight of the biscuit exceeds
the target weight by some tenths of a
gram. For other customers, the limit is
not so rigorous and for others the final
weight is not so important, rather the
clearness of graphic elements,” says
Roberto Padovani.
The lifetime of a roller essentially depends on three parameters. First of all,
the dough type: as above stated, the
more abrasive it is, the more the roller
lifetime reduces itself. Then, the speed
at which the mold works: the higher the
speed is, the greater the wear down.
IMPROVING
MOLDER LIFE
What is important to notice is
that there is not a way to only
define the lifetime of a roller,
Spring 2016
• BISCUIT WORLD