Design of the driving system of an automatic vacuum packer using functional virtual prototyping

The main objective of this study was to model and simulate a reduced three-dimensional (3D) model for designing the driving system of an automatic vacuum packer. The 3D reduced model consisted of a pressing board sub-model, a taping sub-model, and a vibrating board sub-model. The reduced 3D model was parameterised using the variable of pouch thickness. The sub-models were driven by three virtual motors. To fulfil the required processing capacity of 6 pouches min(-1) (pouch size of 45 cm by 35 cm; 5 kg(-1) pouch) of the vacuum packer, three rotational motions for the motors were properly designed. When sub-models were driven according to the developed motions, the rated powers of the motors were estimated to be 100, 25, and 90 W, respectively. A real prototype of the vacuum packer was manufactured and controlled according to the developed motions to validate the simulation results. The motors determined by simulating the reduced 3D model drove the three units of the real prototype successfully. The developed motions of the motors satisfied the required operating sequences of the vacuum packer with a processing capacity of 6.7 pouches min(-1). Vacuum-packaging tests showed that the success rate of the vacuum packer was 92.6%. (C) 2004 Silsoe Research Institute. All rights reserved.