Dough kneading and feeding system of dough processing machine

Abstract

A dough kneading and feeding system includes a dough barrel that defines a dough handling space in which a screw shaft is provided to extend through a shaft hole and a discharge opening of the dough barrel. An ejection nozzle is coupled with the discharge opening. The screw shaft includes a blade for driving a dough material toward the discharge opening located at the front side to be discharged through the ejection nozzle. At least one assisting screw is arranged, in combination with a bearing, to be parallel with the screw shaft in the dough handling space. The assisting screw includes at least one helical blade, which is rotatable to drive the dough material in a direction opposite to the direction of the dough material driven by the screw shaft and also to drive the dough material toward the screw shaft in a radial direction of the screw shaft.

Claims

1. A dough kneading and feeding system for use in a dough processing machine, comprising at least: a dough barrel, which comprises and defines a dough handling space, at least a shaft hole and a discharging opening penetrating through the dough barrel, wherein the discharging opening of the dough barrel is coupled with an ejection nozzle; a screw shaft, which extends through the dough handling space of the dough barrel, the screw shaft being provided with a left-handed blade, which drives a dough material inside the dough barrel in a direction toward the discharging opening located at a front side, the screw shaft being extended into the ejection nozzle; a first assisting screw and a second assisting screw arranged in the dough handling space to be parallel to the screw shaft, the first assisting screw and the second assisting screw each being provided with three helical blades, the three helical blades of each assisting screw being rotatable in a rotation direction that drive the dough material in a direction opposite to the direction of the dough material driven by the screw shaft and also drive the dough material toward the screw shaft; and wherein the first assisting screw comprises three left-handed helical blades and the second assisting screw comprises three right-handed helical blades.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the present invention.

(2) FIG. 2 is a top plan view showing the present invention in an assembled condition.

(3) FIG. 3 is a front view of the present invention.

(4) FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a first assisting screw.

(5) FIG. 5 is a schematic view demonstrating an operation of the first assisting screw in a barrel according to the present invention.

(6) FIG. 6 is a schematic view illustrating a known kneading and feeding system of a dough processing machine.

(7) FIG. 7 is a schematic view demonstrating a drawback caused by the known kneading and feeding system during the operation thereof.

(8) FIG. 8 is another schematic view demonstrating a drawback caused by the known kneading and feeding system during the operation thereof.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

(9) The following descriptions are exemplary embodiments only, and are not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configuration of the invention in any way. Rather, the following description provides a convenient illustration for implementing exemplary embodiments of the invention. Various changes to the described embodiments may be made in the function and arrangement of the elements described without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.

(10) Referring to FIGS. 1, 2, 3, and 5, the present invention at least comprises:

(11) a dough barrel 10, which comprises and defined a dough handling space 11, a shaft hole 12 and the discharge opening 13 being provided in the dough handling space 11, a bearing 52 being provided at the shaft hole 12, a feeding hopper 60 being provided above the dough barrel 10; and

(12) a screw shaft 20, which extends through the shaft hole 12 and the discharge opening 13 of the dough handling space 11 of the dough barrel 10, and is coupled to an ejection nozzle 30 at the discharge opening 13, the screw shaft 20 being provided with a blade 21 which is a left-handed or a right-handed blade-, which drives a dough material toward the discharge opening 13 that is located at a front side to be ejected and discharged through the ejection nozzle 30.

(13) Referring to FIGS. 1, 2, 4, and 5, a first assisting screw 40 and a second assisting screw 40′ are provided, in combination with bearings 52, in parallel with each other in the dough handling space 11. The first assisting screw 40 and the second assisting screw 40′ are each associated with a shaft hole 41 and is driven by a rotary transmission axle 43. The first assisting screw 40 and the second assisting screw 40′ each has a surface that is provided, in a circumferentially arranged manner, with, but not limited to, three helical blades 42a, 42b, 42c. The helical blades 42a, 42b, 42c are arranged to rotate in a direction that drives the dough material in a direction toward a rear wall 101 of the dough handling space 11, namely in a direction that is opposite to the direction of dough driving of the screw shaft, and simultaneously feeds the dough material toward the screw shaft. Taking the illustration of FIG. 1 as an example for description, the first assisting screw 40 that is located at the right-hand side of the drawing sheet is arranged as a left-handed screw, and the second assisting screw 40′ that is located at the left-hand side of the drawing sheet is arranged as a right-handed screw. This arrangement is completely different from the prior art and a major feature of this is that dough material is caused or driven to move toward the rear wall 101 of the dough handling space.

(14) Although the first assisting screw 40 and the second assisting screw 40′ are structured to include three helical blades 42a, 42b, 42c as a preferred embodiment, in actual operations, the dough material may be fed with different speeds and, as an alternative, the number of the helical blades 42a, 42b, 42c may be reduced to one or two (not shown), or increased, to achieve the same or desired effect.

(15) Referring to FIGS. 1, 2, 3, and 5, to use the present invention, dough 93 is deposited through the feeding hopper 60 into the dough handling space 11 of the dough barrel 10. Firstly, the first assisting screw 40 and the second assisting screw 40′ are driven to rotate in opposite directions to push and depress the dough 93 downward. Due to the directions of rotation of the helical blades 42a, 42b, 42c, the dough material is driven toward the rear wall 101 of the dough handling space 11 (as shown in FIGS. 1 and 5), so that portions of the dough 93 on two opposite sides of the screw shaft 20 inside the dough barrel 10 are moved in moving directions m1, m2 toward the rear wall 101 of the dough handling space 11 to make dough 92, while the screw shaft 20 drives the dough 92 in a moving direction m3 toward the ejection nozzle 30 of the dough handling space 11. This arrangement provides the present invention with the following advantages:

(16) (1) In the dough handling space 11 of the dough barrel 10, the first assisting screw 40 and the second assisting screw 40′ push and knead the dough 93 toward the rear wall 101 of the dough handling space 11 to make the dough 92, and the screw shaft 20 pushes and kneads the dough 92 in a direction toward the ejection nozzle 30 of the dough handling space 11, while at the same time, the first assisting screw 40 and the second assisting screw 40′ further pushes and kneads the dough 92 in a downward direction to provide more better performance of kneading of the dough 92. This is an advantage of this invention.

(17) (2) when the screw shaft 20 drives the dough 92 in a direction toward the ejection nozzle 30, the dough 92 is accumulated at a location just in anterior to the discharge opening 13 of the dough handling space 11. The present invention provides a novel feature of the first assisting screw 40 and the second assisting screw 40′ that function to knead and push the dough 92 in an opposite direction so that the dough 92 can be made in a more leveled condition inside the dough barrel 10. This is another advantage of the present invention.

(18) (3) Following the description provided above, when multiple pieces of the dough 92 are successively fed into the dough barrel 10, due to the unique feature of the first assisting screw 40 and the second assisting screw 40′ provided in the present invention, the dough 92 can be driven in a direction toward the screw shaft and also toward the rear side, as a measure of filling up, so that previous dough 92 and next dough 93 can be efficiently mixed together to reduce the chance of occurrence of a gap therebetween. This is a further advantage of the present invention.

(19) It will be understood that each of the elements described above, or two or more together may also find a useful application in other types of methods differing from the type described above.

(20) While certain novel features of this invention have been shown and described and are pointed out in the annexed claim, it is not intended to be limited to the details above, since it will be understood that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation can be made by those skilled in the art without departing in any way from the claims of the present invention.