Improving a coffee capsule machine’s capacity and performance using multibody simulation

Improvements achieved by optimizing laws of motion governing machine components

Capacity is the most important feature of an automatic packaging machine since it defines its main competitive advantage. OPEM’s designers are constantly looking for new solutions to increase the capacity of their machines without compromising costs, size and efficiency. This project focused on a machine for the production of coffee capsules. The main objective was to increase capacity by 25% without affecting the architecture and size of the machine. The machine’s operations can be divided in two main areas: 1) Stationary operations 2) Moving operations

The filling and sealing of capsules are “stationary operations”. During these operations, the capsule must remain stationary for a prescribed amount of time. The forward movement of the capsules, and the feeding, cutting and transport of the sealing film are “moving operations”. Stationary operations were not addressed by this project (i.e. the time constraint resulting from these operations remained the same). As a result, the cycle time for performing the moving operations was reduced by well over 25%.

To achieve the desired objective OPEM partnered with EnginSoft to optimize the laws of motion governing different mechanisms. The optimization process was supported by multibody simulations performed in RecurDyn to verify the dynamic behavior of systems subject to these new and highly demanding laws of motion.