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Delaere mobile Bigbag and Octabin filling station equipped with a liner heat sealing system

Delaere mobile Bigbag and Octabin filling station equipped with a liner heat sealing system

Delaere supplied a mobile FIBC/Octabin filling station for a PA-6 producer in Germany. This machine is equipped with a motor driven mobile frame which is moving in a straight line, over 1 rail, under a line of silos and this over a distance of approx. 50 meters.

The filling machine is a 3-position machine. The first position is an infeed station for empty pallets or empty octabins with liner. An empty pallet is positioned on the line in case bigbags must be filled. Next to the operator platform of the machine, a lay down level for empty bigbags is installed.

In the center of the machine, the filling station is located. This filling station is able to fill both bigbags and octabins. The linear hook system which pneumatically pushes the rear hooks towards the operator platform enables the operator to ergonomically attached the bigbag.

The third and last position of the mobile machine is the liner heat sealing station. Polyamide is a hygroscopic material, which means that its performance or quality are modified or reduced considerably in case of contact with moisture. This heat sealing system includes double welding bars and a vacuum system including vacuum pump and probe. On this last position, the filled bigbag or octabin can also be removed from the machine by means of forklift.  

The challenge

A first major challenge was the complexity of the liner heat sealing station. The system must be able to heat seal both PE and aluminium liners and therefore heat sealing must be possible at different temperatures.  Moreover both bottle-shaped and large open mouth liners are used. This is requiring a spreading system to properly “stretch” the liner before welding. Another variable is the height of the bigbags and octabins that can vary. The heat sealing station is height adjustable by means of an electrical spindle system that can move the welding bars up and down.

A next challenge was the outlet height of the silo discharge pipes. These silo discharge pipes are positioned at a lower elevation compared to the guard rails of the upper platform of the mobile filling machine. To avoid a collision between one of the silo discharge pipes and the guard rails of the upper platform, a portion of the guard rails can be pneumatically lowered. The machine is programmed as such that the mobile can only be moved when these guard rails are lowered and filling only can start when these guard rails are put again in their “upper” position.

Hydraulics on the machine were not allowed by our customer. To overcome this issue, Delaere modified the design of the lifting systems of both the filling station and the liner heat sealing station. These are standard equipped with a hydraulic system but this was replaced by an electrical spindle system with variable speed drive for very precise positioning of the filling head and liner heat sealing system in relation to the height of the FIBC or Octabin.

The result

The result is a high performant mobile filling machine enabling our customer to fill both FIBC’s and Octabins with different dimensions and different liner types and hermetically seal these liners directly after filling to prevent product degradations during transport or storage

Thanks to the heavy duty mobile frame with electrical motor, this high performant filling system can be used under several silo discharge pipes and this over a stretch of approx. 50 meters.