GB1251051A - - Google Patents

Abstract

1,251,051. Cigarette-making machines; testing cigarettes. HAUNI-WERKE KORBER & CO. K.G. 26 Sept., 1968 [9 Oct., 1967], No. 45711/68. Heading A2C. In an apparatus for measuring the filling factor of tobacco, a jet-like stream of gaseous medium is directed upon the wrapper of a wrapped tobacco rod to effect thereby a local elastic deformation of the rod against the pressure of the tobacco within the wrapper, and the magnitude of such elastic deformation of the rod is assessed. The filling factor is defined as the overall property or quality of a required feel or appearance of a wrapped tobacco article, and which is the result of a number of different factors. The invention utilises a ring measuring nozzle and with one form of ring measuring nozzle 102, Fig. 1, a cigarette rod 101 passes through a ring-shaped outlet opening 109 of a ring chamber 107, which chamber 107 also communicates with a duct 108 leading to a measurement connection 106. Compressed air is supplied through a connection 103. With another form of ring measuring nozzle 2, Fig. 2, a ring-shaped opening 11, adjacent the ring-shaped outlet opening of a ring chamber 7, leads through a duct 8 and a further ring chamber 12 to a measurement connection 6. As shown in Fig. 6, a continuous cigarette rod 301 passes through a ring measuring nozzle 306 supplied with compressed air through an adjustable restriction 327 and a laminar resistance 328. A pressure output signal from the nozzle 302 is fed via a connection 306 and a pipe 324 to a pneumatic control arrangement 322 to which is also fed compressed air by a pipe 323. The control 322 supplies compressed air along pipe 319 or pipe 321 as required in response to measured departures of the rod 301 from the required standard to actuate a reversible air motor 317 to raise or lower the cutter 316 of a trimmer mechanism 311 sited above a tobacco filler stream in a circumferential duct 309 of a suction forming wheel 308. In another embodiment, also shown in Fig. 6, the pressure output signal from the nozzle 302 is fed by a pipe 702 to a control arrangement 701 that adjusts the speed of the driving motor 305 of the distributor 303 that showers cut tobacco 304 onto the belt 307 that feeds the forming wheel 308. In a modification, Fig. 8 (not shown), the trimmer cutter is provided with a pneumatic piston drive in lieu of the air motor 317. A further embodiment, Fig. 5 (not shown), comprises a pneumatic computing arrangement following a ring measuring nozzle for automatically determining the deviation of the filling factor measurement values of cigarettes from an arithmetic mean value. Pneumatic computing devices for automatically determining the standard deviation of the filling factor measurement value of a cigarette rod, and for automatically determining the standard deviations from pneumatic signals which correspond to the difference between the measurement value and an average value, are also disclosed and illustrated.