Production line with long products
Posted: Thursday 09 June, 2011 - 14:24
Hi,
So I need to model a production line which consists of conveyors that are 4 meters long each. Between these conveyors there are usually some type of servers. The products that go through this production line vary in length from 2 meters to 10 meters. Now my question is, how would model this in a way that prevents the products from colliding each other?
In real life, of course, the products could move with very little space in between them, but so far from what I've managed to figure out, I have 2 options: 1) "reserve" the conveyor for one product, only freeing it after it has completely left the conveyor. The downside of this is that the gap between two products can get very long. 2) form the conveyors from 1 meter long pieces and open and close these as the product moves. This, however, probably gets very very hard to maintain if the length of the conveyors is anything more than 10 meters.
The easiest way to clarify this problem is by having 2 conveyors of 5 meters each, and set the first conveyor to a much higher speed than the second one. Now when you let the source pump up products of say 7 meters, the faster conveyor will "push the second product through the first one". This is obviously not how the line works in real life.
So is there some kind of way to prevent the collision, even when the products are longer than the conveyor (ie. the "end" of the product is still on top of the previous conveyor even when it is moving on top of the next one)?
So I need to model a production line which consists of conveyors that are 4 meters long each. Between these conveyors there are usually some type of servers. The products that go through this production line vary in length from 2 meters to 10 meters. Now my question is, how would model this in a way that prevents the products from colliding each other?
In real life, of course, the products could move with very little space in between them, but so far from what I've managed to figure out, I have 2 options: 1) "reserve" the conveyor for one product, only freeing it after it has completely left the conveyor. The downside of this is that the gap between two products can get very long. 2) form the conveyors from 1 meter long pieces and open and close these as the product moves. This, however, probably gets very very hard to maintain if the length of the conveyors is anything more than 10 meters.
The easiest way to clarify this problem is by having 2 conveyors of 5 meters each, and set the first conveyor to a much higher speed than the second one. Now when you let the source pump up products of say 7 meters, the faster conveyor will "push the second product through the first one". This is obviously not how the line works in real life.
So is there some kind of way to prevent the collision, even when the products are longer than the conveyor (ie. the "end" of the product is still on top of the previous conveyor even when it is moving on top of the next one)?