Apparatus for stripping ribs from tobacco leaves

摘要

In order to remove the main ribs from tobacco leaves, the tobacco leaves are passed to a loosening apparatus which consists of a shaft (15) with numerous vibrating flaps arranged therein. By means of this apparatus, the tobacco leaves are separated and introduced into an alignment channel (18a, 18b) which contains numerous substantially parallel grooves (22). The alignment channel is a vibratory conveyor by whose vibratory movement the tobacco leaves (24) are aligned in such a manner that their principle ribs lie in the grooves (22). The discharge end of the alignment channel (18a, 18b) is located above a take-off belt (26) which receives the aligned tobacco leaves and feeds them to a pair of cutter wheels (28, 29) where the tobacco leaves are cut into strips. One of these strips contains the main rib. Subsequently, the strips which contain the main ribs are separated by gravity separation from those strips which primarily contain rib-free leaf material. <IMAGE>