Design of the machine for the automatic cleaning of the chiffon cake tube pans

• Main Author: Chan, Yong Chien.
• Other Authors: Lee Yong Tsui
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/53553
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This project sets out to design a machine that cleans chiffon cake tube pans automatically so as to eliminate the use of manual labour. Upon weighing the pros and cons of various cleaning methods, the water jet system has been selected as the most suitable method for cleaning the tube pans effectively. Hence, it will be incorporated as the main device for cleaning the tube pans in the machine. The key concept of this machine is to have the tube pan spin in motion on a rotating platform while the water jet removes the cake bits from the tube pan during the spinning. To make the machine both simple and cost effective, the water jet is designed to act as the driver as well as the brake for this spinning motion instead of a motor. This design concept makes use of the principle of conservation of momentum from the moving water to generate the spinning motion as the water hits the tube pan. The tube pan will first be placed on a rotating platform that rotates freely on a thrust bearing. When the water jet is turned on, the jet stream strikes the tube pan at an angle to initiate a spinning motion. The water jet is then moved axially to clean the entire spinning tube pan. The cleaning process ends when the jet stream strikes the tube pan at its centre to stop the spinning motion. Experiments have been carried out on a prototype to demonstrate the feasibility of this concept. Results have proved that this concept is indeed a feasible idea. While the water jet is capable of removing most of the baked-on deposits, there are still small areas with burnt cake bits which cannot be cleaned entirely. This means that improvements have to be made to ensure that the machine can clean the tube pans completely. Further experiments have also been conducted to determine the optimal position for the water jet nozzle to optimize the cleaning process. While the concept has successfully been proven to work, further developments will need to be done before the actual machine can be proposed for fabrication. For future work, other areas of the machine such as the cleaning process for the inner tube pan and the dispensing system may be tested. Experiments on the increased power of the water jet, as well as the increased cleaning process time may also be tested to improve the effectiveness of the machine.