In the food and oil industry, where even small dosing inaccuracies affect quality and costs, Eurostar offers POWERFILL: an automatic rotary flowmeter filler for food products, including those of medium-to-high viscosity — olive oil, condiments, tomato-based products and other liquids, including more delicate ones such as dairy.
What is a flowmeter filler?
Unlike conventional fillers, a flowmeter filler measures the quantity of product dispensed into each container using a flow meter installed on every filling valve (or on groups of valves), rather than estimating it on the basis of level. The aim is to dose a precise volume regardless of small dimensional variations between bottles.
Two measuring technologies, two fields of application
Magnetic flowmeters are used for water, juices, milk and conductive beverages. They measure volume with no moving parts, with typical accuracy of around ±0.2%.
Coriolis mass flowmeters are instead suited to oils, spirits and viscous or high-precision products: they measure the mass of the product directly, with accuracy that can reach ±0.1%. Eurostar uses Endress+Hauser Dosimass flow meters.
The advantages over weight-based systems
Compared with conventional weight-based (gravimetric) filling systems, flowmeter technology offers several concrete advantages:
- the electronic components are installed in the upper part of the machine, protected from any contact with the product — in weight-based systems they sit beneath the containers instead;
- they are unaffected by the vibrations generated while the machine is running, which can interfere with the accuracy of load cells;
- the PLC directly controls the various phases of each valve — full opening, partial opening for controlled flow reduction in the final phase, feed pressure adjustment — offering greater flexibility in managing the cycle;
- they are easier to replace and repair, whereas a failed load cell generally has to be replaced entirely.
POWERFILL NC: features and range
The machine is designed for electronic filling, with product-contact parts in AISI 304 stainless steel (feed piping in AISI 316L), a fully washable and sanitisable circuit, and a “No Bottle – No Fill” system that prevents dispensing when no container is present.
The POWERFILL series can also be built in a monoblock configuration, integrating both the filling turret and the capping turret into a single structure. The range covers outputs from 1,000 to 24,000 bottles/hour, with fast format changeover and PLC management via touch-screen panel, as well as the option of integration with Industry 4.0 and 5.0 monitoring systems.
Typical applications
Thanks to its dosing accuracy and ease of sanitisation, POWERFILL is used in the food industry (milk and dairy products, tomato-based products, oil, vinegar, mayonnaise, ketchup) and in the chemical industry (detergents, cleaning products, personal care products). It is one of the most versatile solutions when the priority is repeatability of the dispensed volume, whatever the product being handled.
