The new paradigms are related to the design and construction and to the operation of food equipment, respectively. In the project, they will be selectively applied to the field of machines and plants for bottling and for thermophysical treatment plants and machineries. The final goal is the creation of a set of elements called "demonstrator" that exemplifies concretely the technical and economical benefits.
The demonstrator for paradigm 1 "Design and manufacture by new technologies" includes the following elements:
I) a rotary manifold used in filling machines, that will be made by assembling stainless steel and bulk ceramic materials to achieve optimal solutions from the structural, functional, hygienic and economical point of view. To this purpose, additive manufacturing on the metal side and Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) on the ceramic side will be the leading technologies to be applied;
II) an isolator for the reduced laminar flow tunnel in filling machines, where adhesive bonding and/or friction stir welding are applied to reduce lead time / cost / distortion;
III) a pipe section, where the outer surface is physically structured by means of ultrashort pulsed laser in order to limit fouling and to facilitate cleaning.
The demonstrator for paradigm 2 "Process control by processed food properties" includes a series of elements represented by:
I) scraped and/or corrugated and/or curved surface heat exchangers and twin-screw pasta extruders with optimized thermo-fluid dynamics performance;
II) homogenizer with a new control logic based on the continuous monitoring of the physical characteristics of the processed food.
