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GE Additive optimises design for brewing equipment by AM The team at GE Additive’s Customer Experience Center (CEC) in Munich, Germany, has worked with brewing equipment manufacturer Kaspar Schulz GmbH, Bamberg, Germany, in the development of a racking blade used in a lauter tun during the production of beer. On redesigning the racking blade, the goal of Kaspar Schulz was to improve the filtration effect of the spent grain bed in the vessel in order to rinse it more thoroughly, saving time and increasing efficiency. “We were very pleased that GE Additive approached us,” stated Jörg Binkert, head of R&D at Kaspar Schulz. “We were already familiar with 3D modelling and making designs with CAD, but Additive Manufacturing was something new for us.
According to Dr Matthew Beaumont, GE Additive’s CEC Munich site leader, “the design team was quickly able to come up with a design to efficiently loosen the spent grains and inject water, throughout the bed, during rotation. The design of a thin blade that has internal channels to distribute water evenly is only achievable using Additive Manufacturing.” Dr Benedikt Roidl, advanced lead engineer at GE Additive, added “Together with Mr Binkert and his team, our specialists CEC in Munich evaluated how to improve the lautering process and we came up with the idea of dynamically loosening the spent grain using an induced swirling flow field.” Beamont added that, “We set the goal of achieving a first design in time for this year’s Oktoberfest, and we
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The racking blade incorporates internal channels to distribute water evenly (Courtesy GE Additive) were able to do simulation analysis, complete the design and perform basic functional tests before now.” “What still lies ahead of us, though, is the final use verification in the complete brewing process. We want to verify the benefit via chemical analysis of an actual batch of wort – and of course a taste test by the project team!” www.ge.com/additive www.kaspar-schulz.de
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Vol. 5 No. 3 © 2019 Inovar Communications Ltd
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