Automatic industrial shredders: a case study

Sorgato self-loading industrial shredders are safe and efficient. Now one of the projects our technical team is working on, in response to a customer’s request, aims to make them even more flexible.

To be precise, there are three objectives: to adapt the operation of the shredder to the treatment of waste with larger dimensions than usual, to ensure maximum operator safety, and to reduce maintenance costs.

How are we working to achieve the required results? We talk about it in this article.

The customer’s request: shredding larger waste safely

For Sorgato, research and development also mean studying solutions in response to requests that come directly from client companies in the tissue and converting sector. Evolutions and improvements in our products often arise in this way: starting from a concrete need to be satisfied.

This is also what is happening for our shredders. A customer from the United States contacted us asking us to work on an industrial shredder capable of shredding waste products with a larger format than that normally handled by this type of machinery.

As we have already seen in a previous article, the industrial self-loading shredders for the tissue sector are an exclusive Sorgato. In this case, however, the client company needs a modification to adapt the performance of the shredder to specific needs in the treatment of waste.

To give a more concrete idea of the demand, it is a matter of designing and manufacturing industrial shredders capable of grinding cylindrical logs with a diameter larger than that of common rolls of kitchen towels or toilet paper.

As we said at the beginning, the client’s objectives are threefold:

• Adapt the machine’s functionality to new needs, as already illustrated;
• Increase safety and reduce risks, thanks to an automatic shredder that does not require the constant presence of an operator;
• As a result, reduce the labour costs associated with the loading of the scrap to be shredded.

In the next paragraph we will see in detail the features of the automatic shredder we are developing.

Sorgato’s answer: adaptable automatic industrial shredders

Our technicians are well aware of the requests made by the company and are working in two directions:

• Study and development of the new shredder. Starting from the machinery already designed and manufactured by Sorgato, the new industrial shredder will be able to automatically manage waste with a diameter of up to 350 mm. The grinding product, once expelled from the machine, will have a size that allows it to be pneumatically conveyed into the usual transport ducts;
• Automatic adjustment. The shredder will automatically adapt to paper logs of different diameters, small or large. The automatic adjustment will make the operation of the machinery more flexible, ensuring that the shredder can be applied to the waste management phase in an elastic way;
• Development of a solution that solves the difficulties related to dragging and, in particular, to the management of the last part of the shredded log. This element is a value-added feature especially in the case of logs with large diameters.

This last point represents the real design challenge that our team is focusing on. The largest logs, in fact, are the most problematic and delicate to manage in order to obtain an optimal shredding process that avoids clogging and transport problems along the pipes.

Obviously, as in all Sorgato industrial shredders, automatic operation does not require the fixed presence of an operator. As a result, the risk of injury and manpower is reduced, and the safety of operations is safeguarded.

As we have seen, the shredder we are working on has basic features that make it extremely adaptable: precisely for this reason, the machine lends itself well to further developments.

In fact, it can also be useful to other companies that have the same needs for security, flexibility and optimized workforce management. As a result, our goal is to conduct an industrialization process for the production of a line of new self-loading industrial shredders with the same characteristics.

The case study we presented illustrates well the way in which the Sorgato team works: from the search for solutions for concrete operational needs, new or improved products are born.

Are you a company in the tissue and converting sector and do you have a need to meet for your dust extraction systems, waste management, air purification?

Contact our team and let’s talk about it: we will make our experience available to find the most suitable solution for your company.