The Multicracker Edge

The heart of the MULTICRACKER® machines are the unique cone-shaped cracker discs made of an extremely hard steel alloy which offers a very high level of wear resistance. By bringing in cutting spirals on the conical section of the cracker discs the intake behaviour is excellent, opposite to the cut by a pair of scissors. Crushing the material this way requires less force and energy input compare to cutting by knives and much less compared to conventional mills. A similar technique is used by the Great White Sharks to quickly and safely kill its prey. Depending on the design of the profile, they can not only cut but also defibrate, separate, homogenize, granulate, flaking and also agglomerate.

The arrangement of the conical cracker disks mounted on two cracker shafts (so-called cracker set) inside the cracker unit increases the length of the grinding gap and thus the capacity by a factor of 3 compared to a roller mill with the corresponding roller length. Moreover, much lower bearing loads occur due to the fact that the axial and radial forces neutralize each other. The cracker unit can be quickly removed from the machine as a whole and replaced by a spare or resharpened unit. Optional stainless-steel cracker units are available, on demand prepared for “Cleaning-In-Process” (CIP) to meet highest standards in hygienics and corrosion resistance in the food industry.

The cracker shafts are movably mounted in the cracker unit and pre-stressed fixed using spring packs. This allows both a precise stepless setting of the grinding gap, as well as a foreign object protection by moving the cracker shafts apart from each other hence let foreign objects larger than the grinding gap pass harmlessly. For more versatility, instead of a cracker set rollers or crusher can be used.

The grinding gap of the MULTICRACKER machines can be set steplessly. This is done by positioning the cracker shafts in the cracker unit manually by handwheel as standard or optionally motorized, controlled by PLC.

The machines are driven by either one or two motors. The power transmission is carried out by V-belts. Therefore the best decoupling of motors and cracker unit in terms of vibration is given, together with easy and quick installation and removal of the cracker units when it comes to servicing. ATEX-compliant motors, along with the ATEX-certified grinding unit allows the operation even in sensitive environments. For the North-American market NEMA-certified motors are available as well.

As standard the machines are equipped with a colour coated steel housing green (RAL 6018) and light gray (RAL 7035). Housing panels can be easily unmounted/mounted to provide good and fast accessibility of the machine inside components. For applications with high hygienic requirements, stainless steel housings are available as well.

The machines have inlet and outlet chutes for the material to be ground. Apart from standard dimensions, customized sizes and/or stainless-steel chutes are available.