SPECIAL PRINT CPI 01/15 - PENTA AUTOMAZIONI INDUSTRIALI srl

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Concrete Plant International
Worldwide English Edition
SPECIAL PRINT | CONCRETE PRODUCTS & CAST STONE
Aging plant offers an innovative, reliable quality control system
with its fully automatic handling and packaging system
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CPI 01/
FEBRUARY
2015
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CONCRETE PRODUCTS & CAST STONE
Penta Automazioni Industriali srl, 40062 Molinella (Bologna), Italy
Aging plant offers an innovative, reliable quality
control system with its fully automatic handling
and packaging system
Hessit Works Inc. has enjoyed a reputation for producing top quality paving stones in the Midwest US since 1988. To consolidate its position
as a market leader and the keep pace with customer demands, the company has recently added a modern aging system from Penta. Hessit
Works Inc. chose Penta Automazioni to supply their need for a fully automatic handling system, to repackage their aged product offerings
and to enhance quality control operations. Penta’s challenge was to build an automatic plant with production up to 190 m²/ h or 2040 Ft2/h,
able to handle multi-size pavers and to perform reliable quality control.
Hessit Works Inc. with its headquarters in
Freedom (Indiana) produces high quality
concrete products spanning the last four
decades offering a broad range of segmental concrete products in their modern
production facilities.
The most demanded products are their
aged pavers, produced in different shapes,
dimensions and colors. In response to this
market trend the company owners Fredrich
S. Naether and Idella Naether chose Penta
Automazioni Industriali srl as their reference
partner. Penta has over twenty-years experience in designing and building aging and
handling systems for the concrete products
industry.
and the selection system, respectively,
where both quality control and paver
selection are performed.
A high definition laser scanning system
measures each single block accurately, so
that the quality control can be performed.
In order to assure reliable measurements,
an automatic separating bench performs a
separation that creates a space between
the blocks. The scanning process takes only
two seconds for a 2 meter long line of
blocks which determines the following information:
• dimensions of each block;
• position of each block on the line;
• identification of possible broken
blocks;
• the location of the any breakage and
the information whether it is on the
visible side or on the underside;
• Recognition if the top surface is facing
up or if it is facing down.
This unique system is able to identify and
classify pavers with differing shapes and
build packs made of blocks with different
The Caleidos automatic aging and stacking
system, has been installed by Penta in more
than 100 factories all over the world and
can accommodate both single-size and
multi-sized production with the ability to
rebuild product packages automatically.
Driven by its customers’ requests, and in
order to satisfy a constantly changing market, Penta offers a complete line of automated aging and handling systems with high
production capacity. Moreover, the machine developed for Hessit Works Inc. features
an optical scanning device that is able to
carry out a variety of tasks to enable reliable quality control of aged products.
System performance and reliability and the
willingness to adapt equipment to suit specific customer requirements were among
the attributes that persuaded Hessit Works
Inc. to choose the Penta solution.
Aging is performed using a standard tumbling cylinder. The Penta handling system collects the pavers from the cylinder and with
a rotating table, called “the centrifuge”,
aligns the stones into one tidy single lane,
which then accumulates the products and
transfers them toward the selecting area.
Figure 2 and 3 show the sorting gripper
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Figure 1: Machine layout
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CONCRETE PRODUCTS & CAST STONE
Figure 2: Selecting gripper
Figure 3: selection and control of materials
shapes and sizes. The system can recognize the structured surfaces,
turn over the upside down pavers and build packs with all the visible faces facing up. In addition to the dimensional analysis the
Penta system performs a reliable quality control, namely it recognises
the broken corner both on the lower and on the upper surface. As
a consequence, only the pieces with broken corners on the visible
surface are rejected; the user can choose parameters which will
retain or reject the pavers based on the amount of damage and
where the breakage may be located.
Penta’s systems can be fully customized to meet a customer’s
demands. The user can select the dimensional control or the quality
control or both. Moreover, for each product it is possible to select
an allowance of breakage to accept the piece. The production
chain is completed with a slat conveyor which provides for the automatic rejection of any broken pavers.
The selecting gripper picks up the analysed blocks and puts them
into 4 different lines according to their shapes and sizes, or in case
of single size pavers, all the lines are filled homogeneously. These
four lines serve as accumulation for the following packing gripper.
The tidy rows are transferred to the stacking area where a 4 axis
gripper picks up the pavers to build the packs. The gripper can pick
up from 1 to 4 rows of pavers based on availability; an optimization
algorithm allows the building of the required package and assures
the required production output. The finished packs are finally transferred along the out-feeding line to the storage area.
Figure 6 shows the performance of the automatic Penta machine in
building packs with complex geometric paver shapes. Both grippers
used in this plant are high-speed pneumatic devices, with 48 or 24
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CONCRETE PRODUCTS & CAST STONE
Figure 4: Stacking area
Figure 5: stacking gripper
independent fingers (selecting and packing
gripper respectively), and are able to pick
up every individual pavers. The high speed
and highly precise movements are carried
out using brushless servo motors.
Hessit Works Inc. found Penta Automazioni
Industriali to be the ideal partner for designing and constructing their new aging and
handling machine. The twenty-year experience of Penta made possible the installation
of a very innovative, reliable and efficient
plant.
Penta’s research and development department works continuously with customers in
order to improve the performance of their
machineries, to adapt them to the needs of
the customers and to keep all the machineries up-to-date with the constantly changing
segmental concrete paving industry.
Continuous improvements and ambitious
development of new technologies have
helped Penta Automazioni Industriali S.r.l.
to become an important partner for the concrete product industry providing a mix of
flexibility, product quality and reliability.
The business tradition of designing custom
made plants allows Penta machines to be
extremely flexible, and to suit individual
processing needs of the customer not only
concerning the aging plants.
Penta’s wide range of products includes
fully-automated handling systems which are
becoming indispensable for the production
of quality concrete products. Penta links its
proven skills in designing handling system
following the specific requirements of the
customer with the achievement of the most
economical and efficient production processes. Aging plants as well as all other
processing machines like shot-blasting
plants, splitting and pitching plants, can be
integrated with innovative robots, to complete the range of products and services
offered by Penta. The core business of the
stone processing machines includes the production of single machines or complete
lines for the surface treatments of pavers,
building blocks and natural stone. Whether
the customer purchases a complete plant or
a single unit, it always marked the start of a
long lasting relationship with Penta that supports its customers with an after sale service
for both spare parts and technical assistance
and support.
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FURTHER INFORMATION
Penta Automazioni Industriali srl
Via Aldo Moro, 32
40062 Molinella (Bologna), Italy
T +39 051 880550
F +39 051 881386
[email protected]
www.penta-automazioni.it
Hessit Works Inc.
Manufacturer of Concrete Paving Stones
4181 South US Hwy 231
Freedom, IN 47431, USA
T +1 812 8296246
F +1 812 8293974
[email protected]
www.hessit.net
Figure 6: examples of materials and packs
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