The peculiar MATRIX curing system with automatic circulation of racks is designed to guarantee:

-    Maximum production flexibility (several different tile profiles and colours);
-    Perfect control of curing conditions;
-    Ease of profile change;
-    Smooth handling of products for any velocity up to 120 tiles per minute;

Flexibility and curing control are granted by the independence of each chamber that contains about 50 minutes of production and is insulated by 2 automatic doors.
The front-rear loaders and rack’s dimensions have been studied to allow maximum flexibility when managing different profiles and to minimize shocks undergone by the wet products during automatic handling, keeping into consideration racks speed during their transfer in the whole curing system.

In its standard configuration, the MATRIX system consists of 7 curing tunnels, each one containing 10 steel racks of 700 tiles/each. Any arrangement being multiple of 7.000 is then possible.
In order to fit the system into an existing building or to meet different requirements, the quantity of racks in each chamber can be changed.
The capacity can be easily expanded in the future by adding new tunnels.

The steel racks coming from the curing tunnels, moved along the cross rack-conveyor, pass through the racker-deracker, where the dry tiles are unloaded and fresh tiles are loaded. Once full of wet tiles the rack is given on board of a trolley that transfer it into the selected tunnel, moving of one step all the racks inside, till it will be full of wet tiles. During this phase, at the opposite side of each tunnel, the extraction device takes out of the tunnel the racks containing dry tiles and loads them over the “dry-side” transfer trolley, that brings them back to the racking-deracking area, closing in this way the cycle. In this way the circulation of racks is based on a First In - First Out logic. When finally a tunnel is filled with wet tiles, the doors are closed and the pre-set curing cycle is started.

Depending on plant lay-out, the 2 trolleys can work in front of the same tunnel as well as in front of different ones. The whole system has been designed to minimize movements and number of racks out of the curing tunnels so to optimise curing time.

The curing system, including temperature and humidity controls, can achieve a curing cycle of 7 hours. Each tunnel is equipped with 4 heat exchangers with fans to perform a vertical circulation of hot air and reduce at minimum the difference of temperature among lower and upper tiles.