Serac develops compact accurate PET filling system

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Equipment supplier Serac has developed a machine with a neck
transfer system specifically developed for the filling of vegetable
oil into PET containers.

According to the company, the Canopy is specifically designed to meet the needs of the vegetable oil market. The development programme began three years ago, when Serac set about developing a new product that it felt would be more flexible and versatile, requiring limited floor space and containing simple and inexpensive mechanical and electronic sub-assemblies.

To achieve these goals, Serac applied radical functional and economic measures and broke away totally from the design form of the traditional rotary filling machine. The mechanical elements have been moved to the top section of the canopy, which renders them more easily accessible for maintenance work by placing them at eye height. This reduces the risk of fatigue and error.

In addition, there is no contact between the nozzle and the container during filling. Spillage is collected in a lower tray, which is easily accessible for cleaning.

Plant managers are concerned these days about achieving production efficiency wherever possible, and Serac claims that the Canopy uses almost half the floor space requirements of an equivalent standard machine. This enables the product to be equipped with a 810mm carrousel with 27 filling nozzles to obtain a work rate of 18,000 litre containers pre hour.

The Dynaflow filling system also enables plant managers to achieve greater control over the whole production process. The new innovation calculates the flow-rate directly in the containers in grammes-per-second; taring is therefore not necessary. And by dividing the target weight with the calculated flow-rate, the Dynaflow is able to establish the exact filling time and cut-off point.

Serac claims that this is the only system that takes full advantage of the three variables weight, flow-rate and time. The system remains unaffected by variations in physical characteristics, which normally influence flow-metering systems. It therefore takes the best aspects of flow metering and weight filling methods to achieve greater accuracy.

Taken all together, the neck transfer system, redesigned sensors and the new Dynaflow filling system have reduced the distance between filling nozzles, thus cutting down waste and making the whole apparatus much more compact and manageable. Serac​ believes that these features fit perfectly with current production needs.

Related topics Processing & Packaging

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