Food Technology Thielemann slices poultry fillets using LinMot
EDITOR’ S CHOICE PERFECT POULTRY SLICES
QUIN
Food Technology Thielemann slices poultry fillets using LinMot
The company- Food Technology Thielemann has developed a clever Vertical Slicer that can thinly cut the roasted poultry breast fillets while retaining their natural shape. Using slim, hygienic linear motors made of stainless steel from LinMot, the high-output vertical slicer has been kept simple in design for high energy efficiency and performance.
Meat is typically cut into strips by circular, sickle-shaped or oscillating blades but this is not suitable for poultry fillets. You need 14 blades acting in parallel to cut 10mm slides from a filet that averages 160 mm in length.
With circular blades, which are at least 2.5 mm thick, the total displacement would be 35 mm. The meat would get stuck between the blades or torn to bits.
Thanks to the LinMot linear motors, a precision linear cutting motion can be achieved with narrow blades resulting in a quality cut fillet.
The secret to maintaining the shape of the fillet while cutting thin slices is to hold the fillet in a carrier during cutting and transporting. The idea is based on the egg slicer which is the only way to successfully cut a hardboiled egg!
Thielemann found that the best way of cutting is to use linear oscillating blades. To drive them, mechanical
mechanisms would be large and complicated and pneumatic cylinders would be noisy and have very high energy consumption.
The best solution they have found is using linear electric motors from LinMot.
LinMot SSCP- Stainless Steel Linear motors. The machine builder’ s interest was piqued when LinMot introduced its new line of SSCP motors dedicated for use in the food products and pharmaceutical industries. They are made of 1.4404 stainless steel( AISI 316L), meet protection class IP69, and use FDA-approved polymer bearings.
The new motors include the variant PS01-23x160H-HP-SSCP-R20( stator), which Thielemann selected for his new machine due to its extremely narrow form factor and high drive force. A total of seven linear motors are mounted in two offset rows above the product level.
get 10 mm thick slices without any sort of linkage,” says the company’ s founder. There was even enough space to mount the motors in an enclosing metal tube.
Maintaining the shape to the consumer The chicken breast filet to be cut up is placed in a product carrier with slits for the cutting blades. This is used to transport the meat along a conveyor chain to the cutting unit.
Once it leaves the conveyor, the product carrier is covered with a packaging tray, flipped over, and fed into a packaging machine to be sealed. This sequence ensures that the natural shape of the poultry breast remains intact while it is cut up and packaged, up to the point of consumption.
“ Their small diameter of 28 mm made it possible to position the motors so close together that we
For further information, please visit www. quin. co. uk / linmot
32 PECM Issue 76