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AUTOMATIC PIZZA CUTTING MACHINE
Atif Saeed
Lecturer, Department of Mechatronic Engineering, SZABIST,
Karachi, (Pakistan).
E-mail: m.atif@szabist.edu.pk ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1551-4314
Saud Sattar
Postgrad student, MSc Electronics Engineering Management, University of York,
(United Kingdom).
E-mail: saud.sattar@yahoo.com ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2477-0838
Andrew Ferguson
Strategic Project Manager/Principal, Careers & Placement, University of York,
(United Kingdom).
E-mail: andrew.ferguson@york.ac.uk ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3146-9330
Recepción:
03/02/2020
Aceptación:
07/04/2020
Publicación:
30/04/2020
Citación sugerida Suggested citation
Saeed, A., Sattar, S., y Ferguson, A. (2020). Automatic pizza cutting machine. 3C Tecnología. Glosas de
innovación aplicadas a la pyme. Edición Especial, Abril 2020, 181-193. http://doi.org/10.17993/3ctecno.2020.
specialissue5.181-193
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ABSTRACT
The objective of this research is to determine the need of an automated pizza cutting
machine in food industry and to design a machine that would cut a pizza into even slices
by a single press. The need of the product has been determined by the surveys that were
collected from various pizza vendors. From the survey it was concluded that market will
welcome the product as it would overcome several issues like unequal slice cut and lower
productivity.
This machine is designed to cut a pizza of any size in less than 30 seconds; increasing
the overall productivity. The pneumatic system and round cutting tools are used to create
basic structure in this project to get the pizza cuts into even slices with better precision and
accurate shape. The stress and motion analysis conducted as part of design procedure and
their results are also discussed.
KEYWORDS
Mechatronics System, Pizza Industry, Productivity, Sustainability, Reliability, CAD
Simulations.
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1. INTRODUCTION
In today’s world as many new technologies have overshadowed mankind’s work and as
population is increasing day by day. Our needs for products and usage is increasing and
everyone wants to get the best of everything as quick as possible. The mission of this
project is to design an automatic pizza cutter which cuts pizza into equal number of slices.
Optimally each pizza will cut in less than 30 seconds. The aim of this design is to provide
an automatic machine in households and in restaurants. As an actuator, pneumatic system
is used with a round cutting tool. The cutting tool contains blades, this tool works as a die
to cut a pizza.
Knifes and rollerblades often used for cutting purposes in households, industries and meat
shops. The process of cutting uses multiple tools, that are operated manually or automatically.
The cutting process which uses hands or non-motorized are manually operated tools and
the one which are motorized, electrically, hydraulically or pneumatically driven cutting tools
are known as automatic or machined tools. There are dierent types of knives which are
available in the market. Daggers of dierent lengths, width, sizes and weight are available
depending on which type of materials or properties we want to cut. Simple single dagger is
used in cutting pizza linearly. Multiple dagger can be used to cut pizzas in equal divisions in
one single process. This will ensure highest cutting precision. Cutting can be done by round
multiple stainless blades (Astakhov & Davim, 2008).
Metal cutting instruments often have two cutting edges, both oriented to the cutting
direction and the tilt continually diers in round-necked instruments. In right-angled
cutting, the cutting edge of the work piece is always at the correct angles. When the blade
is in the direction of motion it is known as oblique cutting. The slice-push ratio of the
blade’s velocity or displacement is parallel to the cutting corner displacement and velocity is
perpendicular to the cutting corner which makes the cutting easier. The ratio of slice-push
is achieved when right-angled blade is driven obliquely as well as inferior (Atkins, 2006;
Kurin & Surdu, 2017).
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Automated cutting devices are commonly used in the processing of various sheets and rolling
materials. The materials are cut by a knife, laser, waterjet, plasma or ultrasound controlled
by a computer. The most ecient means of cutting textiles are fully automated knife cutting
systems. For single-ply and multiply cutting procedures, they guarantee adequately high
quality and precision (Deokar et al., 2017; Gracia et al., 2009).
This product aims to increase the speed and eciency of preparing takeaway and restaurant
pizzas globally.
In an article by The Guardian, at the end of 2019 it was noted that Dominos generated a
revenue of 339.5 million pounds i.e. 5.5% more than their sales in 2018. the average market
analysis, since 2010 till 2019, shows that this market has an upward trend in turnover and
prot (Jolly, 2019). Another article suggested that on average every American spends 23
pounds each year just on Pizza (Links, 2019). Same article on The Guardian quoted that
Dominos sold 500,000 pizza solely in UK on Christmas Eve 2019 (Jolly, 2019). In another
article it is statistically forecasted that North American pizza market would grow to 10% in
the next 5 years (Littman, 2018). The Economist in an article discussing the pizza industry
gave statistics that 83% of consumers eats pizza at least once a month and as per 2018
industry census, 60.47% of the respondents reported to increase in sales comparing to their
sales of previous year. It also forecasted the growth of 10.7% in upcoming 5 years (The
Economist, 2015). So, any business analyst or entrepreneur can clearly see the potential of
this growing market and could readily opt for the machines that could help making things
easier for customer facing sta charged with supplying ever increasing numbers of pizzas to
customers with increasingly demanding tastes.
The goal of this project is to design and fabricate the automated pizza cutting machine that
would function on specic design goals. These design goals were:
• to cut the large pizza up to 12n into 8 equal slices within 20 seconds,
• to cut the 21-inch pizza into 12 equal slices,
• to implement the safety mechanism on blades so that it shall stop functioning if
something is near the blades.
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The project was specically designed to complete its task in a timely manner and to ensure
that slices were of equally distribution so that both the productivity could be increased,
and human error of not cutting the slices equally can be overcome. Also, the blades were
designed to be covered with butter paper to assure that none of the harmful substances of
carbon plated steel could harm food. This coating needs to be replaced after specied cycles
in order to assure proper hygiene.
2. MATERIALS & METHODS
2.1. TURNING IDEAS INTO REALITY
Firstly the sense, feeling, plans, concept and design have been delivered on the piece of
paper. It is the main process in which the whole idea and the theme of the project is based
on and hence it takes ample amount of time in getting everything on the right track.
2.2. RUGGED DRAFT INTO ENGINEERING DESIGN
Once the rugged drafts and basic designs have been nalized, the whole project goes into the
engineering territory and solid modeling have been made. The basic positions, calculation,
dimension and placements are considered and get completed in this area of territory.
2.3. CHOOSING THE RIGHT MATERIAL
Dierent shops and markets are there to purchase the specic and appropriate materials for
the structure and components of the project. Choosing the right kind of material depends
on the application of the material, the environment in which the prototype is tested and the
factor of safety of the device.
2.4. DESIGNING STRUCTURE
The wooden sheets are carefully dimensioned, cutout, holed and surface is smoothed. The
joining of parts has been done by screws
2.5. MAKING OF BLADE
The long metals sheets are cut into equal number of sizes shapes and length. All are joined
at an angle of 30 degrees between each metal sheets and they are then covered by a thin
metal sheet circularly to prevent blades from injuring anyone.
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2.6. ASSEMBLY OF PARTS
After designing and production of all parts. The transformation of individual parts into
singular device takes place. All the parts are xed according to their desired geometry and
solid model design.
2.7. PLACING OF PNEUMATIC SYSTEM
The pneumatic system is placed right into the center of the plate so it will linearly displace
along the y axis and cut the pizza evenly from all sides.
2.8. PLACEMENT OF GAS CYLINDER
The gas cylinder is placed after all the work is done. It is positioned into the rectangular
box. And the pipes are connected to the pneumatic system. The face of the box is closed.
2.9. CLEANING AND MAINTENANCE OF BLADES
The system is designed to use a stainless-steel blade which will be nonstick. The device will
be easy to handle like any other blender or general use equipment. It is recommended to
wash and clean the machine after every 500 cuts. As the blades will be rust free there is no
harm in washing them with a standard dishwasher.
The system breakdown is shown in the gure below:
Power
Machine
Energy Supplied
to electronics and
mechanical
components
Incorporate safety
feature
Control through
Arduino
Have a detachable
tray to remove
pizza after being
processed
Don’t allow material harder
than pizza to be cut
Prevent operation when
hand is in cutting area
Send to Central Processor
Power Machine
Energy Supplied to
electronics and mechanical
components
Incorporate safety feature
Control through Arduino
Have a detachable tray to
remove pizza after being
Don’t allow material harder
than pizza to be cut
Prevent operation when
hand is in cutting area
Figure 1. Project Layout.
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Figure 2. Final Design.
3. RESULTS
3.1. DIMENSION AND MATERIALS
The dimension of each parts and materials used are mentioned as follows.
Table 1. Dimensions of each material
S.no Name Material Dimension
1. Pneumatic cylinder Aluminum 40mm*150mm
2. Wood Balsa 8” * 4”
3. Screw Metal 1”
4. Blade Steel 11”
3.2. STRESS ANALYSIS
The stress analysis was conducted on medium sized element i.e. not too much ne or
coarse. The reason of such mesh selection is the material i.e. wood in this case. The wood
which will be used for the prototype is balsa that has high inll density. The load of 5lbf
was applied to the pizza dish that pneumatic system will apply to cut the pizza. The yield
for the material is 2x10
7
Kpsi whereas the analysis showed the induced von-mises stress of
7x10
5
Kpsi i.e. below our yielding point. This analysis showed that with given amount of
force needed to cut the pizza, the pizza tray wouldn’t go for yielding.
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Figure 3. Stress Analysis Results.
3.3. STRAIN ANALYSIS
Figure 4. Strain Analysis Results.
The maximum strain of the project is around 1.74e
-4
.it show that it can bear that amount
of force. The factory of safety of that system is 27.
3.4. FACTOR OF SAFETY
Figure 5. FOS Analysis.
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The factory of safety of this system is 27. This shows it is safe because the plate will start to
break when it reaches to 2.9*e
6
. It is used as a dene factor or as a factor purpose.
3.5. DISPLACEMENT ANALYSIS
Figure 6. Deection Analysis.
Designers are often given scenarios where there is a displacement limit in the design, but
they either need to nd the amount of force needed to reach that displacement or the
displacement limit and force is known, but the design needs to be optimized to work within
the specic requirements. The maximum displacement of this system is 1.9*e
3
.
3.6. MOTION ANALYSIS
Figure 7. Velocity of cutter prior to contact with pizza.
The cutter puts stress on the plate where the pizza is placed and hence it is the most critical
region in our project. The velocity of the system remain contants.
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Figure 8. Velocity of cutter after contact with pizza board.
We have seen a linear displacement when we put the motor in the system and study that in
motion analysis. The displcaement increases with increase in time.The pneumatic cylinder
is linearily diplaced in y direction and cuts the pizza into even slices.
The system can bear more amount of weight if the material is steel or any other type. But
the cost factor will also increase with that.
4. DISCUSSION
This automatic pizza system can perform specic tasks with better eciency. The results
which we have obtained through our simulation analysis are very close to our expected or
practical results. We have put dierent amounts of pressure and compared the ndings
with our simulation results. The pneumatic cylinder can provide 150psi pressure. We keep
changing the amount of pressure and observe the result obtained. As we can see the stress,
strain, displacement and factor of safety in the gures. The plate that we have used for pizza
placement contains the most critical region, hence it will not break if we use the pneumatic
pressure fully around 150psi.The dimensions and area of the project provide more strength
to the system. The system will break if we use a heavier pneumatic system with a higher
pressure. Because of this, the system will last longer and will be more ecient as compared
to other available systems.
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4.1. SURVEY ANALYSIS
As a part of this research, a survey was conducted so that the market need of product could
be determined. The survey was forwarded to more than 20 Pizza vendors of dierent brands.
Out of them, 20 pizza vendors responded. The survey consisted of several questions that
helped us identify their requirements and expectancy towards this solution. The questions
asked are given below.
• Do you face any issues to cut pizza equally?
• Does the unequal pizza slices aects the quality of pizza?
• Do you face any diculties to serve large number of guests for dine-in and takeway at a time?
• Is their any gap in market to welcome a product that would help the server cutting pizza slices into
equal pieces?
• Do the customers complaint regarding the inconsistency of the cut?
Mixed response to this survey were received but most of the responders agreed to the need
of such product. Almost, 70% of the respondents agreed that they normally face issues in
cutting the pizza slices equally while 83% of them agreed that an inconsistent cut aects the
overall quality of pizza. Around 78% of the responders agreed to the fact that during festive
seasons they face severe issues in serving the pizza on time that leads to a bad impact on
overall companies’ image. Also, on an average 73% of responders agreed that the market
will welcome such product that would help the industry in serving their clients better in
lesser period of time. This survey clearly yields the need of such product; hence the result
of these survey motivates us to move further on to the designing phase.
5. CONCLUSION
The automatic pizza cutter can cut the slices into dierent sizes up to 21 inches. This will
help the restaurants to perform tasks quickly and will reduce the cost and time and will
add to the precision. Although this project can be considered as a luxury but once used this
makes their life easy and be a major factor in reducing time hence turning it into a necessity
rather than a luxury.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Dr. Tony Ward from the Department of Electronics Engineering. University of York for his
constant support.
Dr. Noel Jackson from the Department of Electronics Engineering, University of York for
his guidance.
All the pizza companies that volunteered to do the survey.
SZABIST Karachi for providing us labs to do the research.
University of York for nancially supporting the research.
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