To Design an Automated Cake Plastic Dispenser Bachelor of Science (Hons) Process Plant Technology– Level 8

Students Name: Daniel Howard

Supervisors Name: Mr Niall Morris

Introduction

• I have been working in coloration with Silver

Pail Dairy Ireland's largest Ice Cream

manufacturers today.

• Silver Pail have been producing Ice Cream

cakes for the company “Baskin Robbins” to be

shipped world wide.

• Today Silver Pail are producing on average up

to 2,500 cakes per day.

Solution Testing

Objective Operation Of The Rig Conclusion

)

Developing this rig:

•Will cut 6 operators down to 1 operator

• Increase production dramatically

• Reduce spoiled cakes

• Save a substantial amount of money

•Reduce waste and waste costs

References

Problem: Removal of plastic

moulds from ice cream cakes

• 7 seconds to peel a cake manually

• €30 per cake.

• 150 cakes are wasted per day due to

damage or mishandling when peeling

the plastics off them.

• Loss of €4000 per day, every day.

Figure 1 Cakes Plastic Manually Removed

• Produce an automated rig to remove the plastic off the ice cream

cakes in seven seconds or less.

• This is to ensure there would be no gaps in the production line and

achieve maximum efficiency throughout the day.

Solution: Silver Pail were doing experiments and found that

when the frozen cake was dipped into liquid nitrogen, the

extreme cold broke the bond between the plastic and the cake.

• Rig was designed accordingly

• Little or no contact with the ice cream

was a necessity

• Orders in the past have been rejected due

to excess bacteria on the cakes.

• Problem sourced from the manual

peeling process which leads to contact

with the ice cream.

• Rig is easily accessible

• Cakes can be inserted and removed with

ease. Figure 3 Cakes sitting waiting to be peeled

• Forces required to

remove plastic mould

= 19 Newton's of force.

• Tests were carried out on inventor to

apply the max forces applied on the rig.

• The rig was able to take these forces

with ease.

Cylinder Operation

Cylinder A will rise up, Bernoulli gripper will attach to the base of the cake

Cylinder C will rotate around 180°

Cylinder B will move down and the four suction pads will attach to the plastic

mould.

Cylinder B will then retract to its home position, thus removing the plastic mould

Finally Cylinder C will return home and a blower will turn on discarding the plastic

into a bin

Along with a blower coming on in the Bernoulli Gripper and Cylinder A retracting

to its home position releasing the cake base.

• Safety feature: Rig

operating behind

safety fencing.

• Pneumatic Programme

designed to model the

operation of the rig.

Figure 2 Cake mould removed

Figure 4 Automated Cake dispenser rig

Figure 5 Rig in operation after removing the mould

Figure 7 Forces applied to the rig during operation

Figure 6 Test the force to remove the mould (Newton's)

Figure 8 Cakes on the production line after mould is removed

Figure 9 Cake decorated and ready to be boxed and frozen

•Sean Egan ,2014.– Research and Development Manager of Silver Pail Dairy

•Turner, I. C. 1996. Engineering applications of pneumatics and hydraulics. Arnold: Butterworth Heinemann.