Description Prior art

The field of cutting blades, and especially the field of cutting blades for processing animal meat, offers a multiplicity of techniques that allow optimizing the use of the cutting blades. All the techniques currently known and patented, however, have the fault of using cutting blades that operate rigidly against the animal meat to be treated. In summary, according to the technique described in the prior art, the frozen animal meat that must be cut or ground is pressed, usually by means of a screw, against a plurality of blades which by impacting rigidly against the meat cut it and reduce it into increasingly smaller pieces. The cutting occurs in a conventional manner, however, i.e. by pushing the animal meat to be processed against the cutting blades which rotate supported by an extremely solid and rigid metal structure. The rigidity of the blades system, together with the consistency of the frozen meat to be processed, create high friction which in addition to causing the undesired heating of the meat, causes a significant consumption of the blades themselves which are therefore considerably worn, dispersing large quantities of the metals that constitute them within the processed meat itself. The wear of the cutting blades, the pollution of the processed meat with the metals constituting the blades and the heating of the meat itself with the consequent degradation of the proteins contained therein are problems that are still unresolved. Various approaches have been attempted to solve the aforesaid problems, but all of such solutions have always been directed only towards the creation of cutting apparatuses and systems that are increasingly rigid and provided with high-resistance blades. Such solutions have only marginally solved the problems, substantially increasing however the costs of said systems.

Description of the invention The present invention intends to resolve all of the aforesaid problems by describing an innovative cutting blades structure that prevents or at least drastically reduces the wear of the blades, the pollution of the processed meat with the metals constituting the blades themselves and the heating of the treated meat with the consequent degradation of the proteins contained therein. The attainment of all of these ambitious objectives is reached by approaching the problem in a totally new manner. At the base of the present invention, there is the innovative concept of rendering the cutting blades more elastic. In substance, the present invention intends to describe an innovative cutting system for animal meat that allows the constituent blades to slightly bend and deform when compressed against the meat to be treated. This controlled deformation allows drastically reducing the tip loads and hence the wear of the blades themselves as well as the pollution of the processed meat with the metals present in the blades. In addition, the present invention allows preventing the degradation of the proteins contained in the meat, considerably reducing the heating of the meat itself during the processing step. All these advantages are achieved due to the use of an innovative cutting blade provided with a V-shaped form. The innovative cutting blade, being hinged on its support only by the vertex of said "V", allows the two diverging cutting ends to acquire the elasticity necessary for solving all the aforesaid problems. In addition, in order to further increase the deformability of the blades, slits filled with a silicone plastic polymer are placed thereon, which also serve to increase the deformability of the system.

Brief description of the drawings

FIGURE 1 : shows the entire cutting system in which the following are observed:

the support structure 1 for cutting knives with the central hole 2 adapted to receive the rotation axis 10, the circular solid structure 4 peripheral to said central hole 2, the plurality of radial supports for knives 5 stably connected through the point of connection 15 to said circular solid structure 4, the semicircular groove 6 adapted to receive at its interior the circular portion 7 of the cutting knife 8, the V-shaped structure constituted by the two blades 12 and 12' stably joined to each other by said circular portion 7 and finally the slit 11, filled with an elastic plastic polymer that partially traverses the body of the blades 12 and 12';

FIGURE 2: is a further view of the support system 1 for cutting knives in which the slits 11 are clearly observed; such slits can partially or completely traverse the entire thickness of the blades 12 and 12';

FIGURE 3 : is a perspective view of the cutting knife 8 according to the present invention, in which the semicircular groove 6 is observed that is adapted to receive the circular portion 7. If one intends on modifying the consistency of the cutting knives 8 as a function of their distance from the circular solid structure 4, it is possible to progressively insert, within the semicircular groove 6, a plurality of knives 9 one after the other. It is also observed that each radial support 5 is stably connected with the circular solid structure 4;

FIGURE 4: is a front perspective view of some of the components of the present cutting structure in a particular embodiment thereof. More in detail, figure 4 shows the case in which the cutting structure is provided with at least one conical screw 13 to be inserted in a suitable housing 14 placed in the circular portion 7 joining the blades 12 and 12' of a knife 8, both in the case in which the latter defines a single body and in that in which said knife 8 is formed by the association of two or more knives 9. The insertion of the conical screw(s) 13 in the suitable housing 14 and its following screwing cause the opening of the blades 12 and 12', conferring to the latter a certain level of rigidity/flexibility, which may be requested for certain meat processing conditions. More in detail, figure 4 (a) shows that the insertion of the conical screw 13 occurs in the space portion in which the blades 12 and 12' define the acute angle. Figure 4(b) shows some of the possible locations of the housings 14 in the circular portion 7, in the case in which the latter constitutes a single body as well as in the case in which it can be modulated, as in the case of associating two or more knives 9. Observing the figure in question, it is observed that said housing(s) 14 can be found at the center of the circular portion 7 of each knife 8, or at the center of the joint(s) 16 present between two or more coupled knives 9, or at the center of the circular portion 7 of each knife 9.

Description of the preferred embodiments

The present invention will now be described in detail according to the preferred embodiments thereof, and in particular according to the embodiments that provide for the use of the aforesaid cutting system when applied to the processing of pork meat for obtaining mortadella. In a first embodiment, the entire support system for knives 1 according to the present invention is made to rotate due to the action of an axis 10 which, traversing the central hole 2 and being fixed to the circular solid structure 4 peripheral to said central hole 2, allows rotating the circular solid structure 4 to which a plurality, normally from four to twenty, preferably eight radial supports 5 for knives are connected. The radial supports 5 are stably connected to the circular solid structure 4 through the point of connection 15. Said radial supports 5 for knives are regularly and radially arranged around the circular solid structure 4 and are characterized by a triangular or trapezoidal section, provided on one side with at least one semicircular groove 6 which uniformly follows the entire length of each single radial support 5. Within said semicircular groove 6, the circular portion 7 of the cutting knife 8 is inserted. The insertion occurs from the distal end of the radial support 5, which is that opposite the point of connection 15. The cutting knife 8 is constituted overall by at least two blades 12 and 12' connected together for an entire side. This connection originates a structure with substantially V-shaped form, in which the vertex of the "V" represents the circular portion 7 which is inserted, being of slightly smaller diameter, within the semicircular groove 6. Naturally, the size of the semicircular groove 6 is such to perfectly receive the circular portion 7, allowing an easy insertion thereof and a just as easy extraction, when one intends to substitute the entire cutting knife 8. The particular characteristic of having at least two blades 12 and 12' connected together for one side, and given that said side is inserted in the radial support structure 5, allows having the two cutting blades 12 and 12' partially free. This freedom allows them to be able to be deformed as a function of the stresses that are created from time to time by the frozen meat to be treated. Naturally, the greater the distance between the circular portion 7, i.e. the distance of the vertex of the "V" that joins the two blades 12 and 12', and the cutting edge of said blades, the greater the elasticity and flexibility of the blades themselves and hence the lower the wear thereof during the cutting step. In order to further increase the elasticity and the deformability of the blades 12 and 12' on each blade, at least one slit 11 is provided, adapted to further dampen the impact between the meat and the blade itself. Said slit 11 can partially or completely traverse the blade 12 and can have a transverse, oblique or parallel progression with respect to the groove 6. In the case in which the aforesaid slits 11 completely traverse the thickness of the blade 12, the latter will thus be constituted by a plurality of blades made integral with each other only by means of the circular portion 7. Alternatively, each cutting knife 8, constituted by at least two blades 12 and 12' joined to each other by the circular portion 7, is composed of a plurality of cutting knives 9, superimposed and stacked by means of their circular portion 7 within the semicircular groove 6. The divarication angle and the thickness of the two blades 12 and 12' is selected at the time of attainment of the cutting knife 8 in order to optimize the yield as a function of the type of meat to be treated and as a function of the distance from the point of connection 15 in which the cutting knife 8 will be positioned. The support structure 1 according to the present invention can have the circular portion 7 of the cutting knife 8 locked within the semicircular groove 6 due to at least one common stop screw 3.

In another embodiment of the invention, still in order to enhance the flexibility of the blades 12 and 12' of the present cutting system, and its versatility according to the type and quantity of the meat to be treated, said cutting system comprises at least one screw 13 which allows regulating the opening of the blades 12 and 12' of each knife as well as their flexibility/rigidity. More in detail, in another embodiment of the present invention, the knives 8, both in the case in which they comprise a plurality of knives 9, and in the case in which they are formed by a single body, are provided with screws 13 to be screwed at suitable housings 14 placed on the circular portion 7 of the blades 12 and 12'. More in detail, said circular portion 7, both in the case in which it is in modulatable form and when it represents a single body, has at least one housing 14 and preferably three housings 14 accessible to the screws 13 from the space portion in which said blades 12 and 12' define the acute angle.

Still in more detail, in this embodiment the meat cutting system comprises conical screws 13 which, by virtue of their particular conical form, allow regulating the opening of the blades 12 and 12', as well as their rigidity/flexibility, when screwed into their housing(s) 14. As already mentioned, in this embodiment it is possible to encounter a single conical screw 13 to be inserted into a suitable housing 14 placed at the center of the portion 7 of each knife 8, or, in the case in which the blades 12 and 12' are formed by the association of two knives 9, to be inserted in a housing 14 placed at the center of the joint 16 between said knives 9, or in the case in which the blades 12 and 12' are formed by the association of three knives 9, it is possible to encounter two conical screws 13 to be inserted, one in a housing 14 placed at the center of a joint 16, the other in a housing 14 placed at the center of the remaining joint 16. Alternatively, three conical screws 13 can be encountered, to be inserted in suitable housings 14 placed at the center of the circular portion 7 of each single knife 9.