Design and application effects of automatic conveying and directional slicer for jujube

In the course of deep processing of jujube, the drying time of jujube slice is shorter than that of the whole jujube, resulting in lower energy consumption and higher added value. So, cutting jujube into slices is an important process after the storing process, but the manual production mode suitable for small workshop is still adopted in most enterprises at present, and it is difficult to meet the large seasonal market demand of jujube due to low efficiency, high labor cost, uneven slice thickness, higher breakage rate, poor sanitary conditions and poor safety. In order to solve the above problems, based on a lot of comprehensive investigations and analysis of the present equipments, a kind of directional slicing machine with automatic conveyor for fresh oblong jujube was designed by using modern design and manufacturing technology, food processing technology and controlling technology after analyzing and researching on the processing of jujube. The device was mainly composed of transmission system, transmission orientation mechanism, protecting plate device, cutting device and etc. The jujube was placed in the hopper above the roller at first, when the roller conveys the jujubes, the roller will revolve on its own axis driven by the action of friction plate, and the rotation of the roller will lead to the rotation of jujubes, and make the axis of jujube parallel to that of the roller, and realize the automatic orientation of the jujube. Following, when the jujube was conveyed to the slicing device on the right end of the equipment, it will be cut into slices with the thickness of 5-6 mm under the driving of feeding wheel. The main technical parameters of the equipment were determined based on the design calculation of the key components, and the structures of the transmission system, protecting plate device and slicing device were discussed, the effect of blade force, blade tilt angle and other factors on breaking rate were analyzed. The calculation and analysis showed that the cutting effect was better with the inclination angle between the blade and the horizontal direction of 27o, and the breakage rate was 2.7%~3.6% with 10 to 22 r/min of the feeding wheel speed .The production efficiency in actual enterprise produce exceed 300 kg/h, and the yield rate exceed 96%.