Parametric model of capsuling monoblock machines with synchronous axes

Today’s landscape of the winery manufacturing looks at the automation of the bottling lines as one of the most inspiring challenges with the objective to improve the production reducing the manufacturing time and costs. It is necessary to guarantee flexibility, modularity and sanitisation operations of the machineries and to improve the performance to satisfy the requirements of the customers. This is one of the most important objectives of the Robino & Galandrino S.p.A, leader company that designs, builds and sells capsuling machines. The company aims to re-project all its machines; the thesis activity deals exactly with this. The objective of the thesis is to develop a parametric lumped parameters mathematical model, starting from the existing “Zenith Capsuling Machine- 3column (3-4-5) E 2ZS 3/72 optic DCU”, in order to design a new machine prototype by reducing pure mechanical transmissions components. The purpose is to verify, through a modelling and simulation analysis, that the new prototype could work with autonomous axes, without the usage of pure mechanical motion transmissions, underling possible improvement of the functionalities that can lead to extending the study to all the machines of the factory. After having introduced an overall view in which is placed the Robino & Galandrino S.p.A., the operating principles of the Zenith Capsuling Machine and its peculiarities are shown. The machine has been subdivided into “Functional groups”, depending on the main functions carried out by the various components. The most important ones are the capsules suppliers to put the capsule over the bottle neck, the cochlea to properly outdistance the bottles and the carousel (including the manufacturing columns and the star mechanisms). Considering each functional group, motion laws have been computed through kinematic and dynamic analyses and through the usage of Autodesk Inventor Professional 2016® Software. To obtain a correct working behaviour of the machine, the various parts must be correctly synchronized. Since the phase shift among the various axes of the system is due to the load contribution, it has been carried out a study on the forces and torques applied on the axes. The new model implementation over RMatlab2016b® and Simulink® environments is later shown, underling the structure of the load of each machine axis. The new prototype is composed by four axes: the cochlea, two capsules suppliers and the carousel group; each one is supplied by a separate motor and a PLC controls the system. Results of the simulation over the existing machine have been collected, taking into account position, velocity, acceleration and torque curve trends. A collection of data related to the simulation of the system implemented in Simulink® environment is shown, given certain initial setting hypotheses. The results of the existing model have been compared to new prototype ones, analysing their properties. The conclusions underline the main features of the new machine prototype, showing the advantages and the limitations and underlining the possible future improvements.