Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2017
24th ABCM International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Design of a Low-Cost Automated Control Device for Chocolate Moulding Process
Submission Author:
Suzana Nature Silveira Nunes , MG
Co-Authors:
TAMES MARIANO, Neylor Makalister Ribeiro Vieira, Eduardo Lima II, Antônio Maia, Suzana Nature Silveira Nunes
Presenter: Suzana Nature Silveira Nunes
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2017.COB17-5396
Abstract
The process of melting and moulding chocolate is a technical challenge, especially when conducted in large scale. The complexity comes from the fact that the substrate is a solution composed of different cocoa fats that require one specific polymorphic form to retain the shape, appearance and texture expected in the final product. Each fat has its own melting, crystallization and degradation temperature. To achieve the desired polymorphic form the substrate must undergo a tempering process. In this process the temperatures are controlled both during the heating and the cooling in a way that the correct crystallization order happens and the solidification happens has expected. Small deviations in the temperatures during the tempering process can turn entire batches of substrate unusable. That leads to the need for an automated temperature control system. The traditional food industry uses several automated controllers for theirs production, the most commonly used automatic controller in the industry is the Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller. The algorithm has sufficient flexibility to produce excellent results in a wide variety of applications.In recent years we have been seeing a great number of small industries joining this market, but this small producers do not have access to the same control solutions as the traditional producers once they are of high prices and usually not accessible to small plants. To solve their problem a cheap and robust solution needs to be developed. This solution can be achieved by using low value accessible microcontrollers with easily customizable settings. This work presents an accessible PID temperature solution for small chocolate industries with computer and mobile interfaces.
Keywords
PID control, microcontroller, Thermodynamic system, Crystallisation, Cocoa butter
