US 4,363,448 A · Milling of cereals and the like

Abstract

A process and apparatus is disclosed for milling cereal in a milling plant having a control device, such as a computer device, for controlling various process elements of the plant and the operative parameters of those process elements, in which the characteristics of the material to be milled are established together with the characteristics of the required finished product and from those characteristics desired operating parameter values for one or more selected process elements are determined bearing in mind the characteristics of the process elements of the plant, and those parameter values are stored in the control device to be used as control signals for the process elements, and in which such control signals are determined and stored in groups associated with required combinations of material and finished product characteristics, and an appropriate group of parameter values is selected by means of the control device to provide process control signals for controlling the operative parameters of said process elements.

Claims30

Dependent claims

An improved method of operating a cereal or grain milling plant having a plurality of processing zones selected from cleaning, roller milling, moistening, sifting or silo storage for the production of a milled product to a given specification such as flour, semolina and ground flour from initial cereal or grain having given characteristics wherein at least some of said zones have a plurality of sensors arranged to give output values in response to operating conditions of said zones of said plant the improved method comprising the steps of;

optimally processing a plurality of types of grains and storing in a control device the output values from said sensors in association with the characteristics of the type of grain and the specification of the finished product during each of said optimal processings;
selecting one of said optimal processes to be performed on an incoming cereal or grain to be milled having regard to the type of grain and of the finished product to be produced from it;
associating each of the stored outputs of said sensors with said selected process in order to obtain a desired series of operating conditions;
outputting from said control device a plurality of signals to control operating conditions in each of said zones so that said sensors read in accordance with said desired series of operating conditions.

1 more element

A cereal milling plant, especially for the production of flour, semolina and medium ground flour, having a number of process zones for example selected from the group comprising cleaning, roller milling, moistening, sifting and (or) final products, in which at least one central control device, such as a computer device, is provided and arranged to provide control signals representative of a process parameter to control process apparatus in at least one such process zone, such process apparatus including servo-control means and means for interlocking its operation with other apparatus in the milling plant;

in which the servo-control means includes a manually adjustable set value generator for a process parameter of the respective process apparatus, an actual value sensor for that process parameter and comparator means with associated drive means to operate the servo-control means in a loop to maintain the parameter at a chosen value;
and in which switching means is provided so that the comparator means associated with such process apparatus in at least one of said zones may be connected to one of said central control device and the respective set value generator so that the servo-loop may operate selectively under the direction of one of said central control control device and the associated set value generator.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Milling of cereals and the like

Life of this patent

Milling of cereals and the like

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims30