When you invest in industrial equipment, you need it to be as accurate as possible. In addition, when you create processes that utilise your equipment, you need to ensure that your employees are accountable for safety standards as well as accuracy. Hi! My name is Neil, and this blog is going to look at industrial equipment and supplies, and in particular, I plan to write about accuracy and accountability. I am a proud dad of two little boys. Currently, I work part-time while they are in nursery, and my beautiful wife is the full time worker in our home. I love our arrangement, and I especially enjoy that it gives me time to create things like this blog. I hope that you enjoy reading my posts.
Plant operators whose work entails handling dry bulk and granular material are familiar with problems such as rat-holing, caking and the formation of the stable arch. These problems not only introduce delays in the plant's materials handling processes, they also expose the plant operators to dangers associated with clogging and mechanical failure. However, there are several flow aids intended to make the flow of these materials easier in bins, chutes and other containers. They include:
1. Mechanical flow aids – these are the most commonly used aids in solving material flow problems affecting plants that use dry bulk and granular material. They come in various forms, but the most dependable are vibrating bin dischargers, agitators and vibrators. Recent developments have resulted in additional methods that rely on augers such as the travelling auger un-loaders and gyroscopic steel whips. The later method is used in cases that involve very fine granular matter, which usually responds poorly to vibration-dependent methods.
2. Pneumatic flow aids – these are less common than the previous flow aids, but they find use in food processing plants that deal with very fine materials such as baking flour and spices. One reason this type of flow aid is common among food processing plants is the poor response that chutes and bins handling fine food-grade materials have for vibration. The common pneumatic agents used are nitrogen or purified air depending on the material being handled.
3. Chemical flow aids – these come into play when dry bulk materials do not respond at all to either mechanical or pneumatic flow aids. The most common chemical flow aids used for dry bulk material are fumed silica and magnesium stearate. They interfere with the bond between the material's particles causing them to break apart and move easily. However, the use of these flow aids depends on the intended use of the dry bulk material meaning that food processing plants and pharmaceutical companies do not usually depend on this flow aid technology.
4. Freeze conditioning agents – this type of flow aid is the least used in dry bulk or granular material. Freeze conditioning is mainly used in plants that change the physical properties of their dry materials through freezing before defrosting, baking and crushing for use later. The flow aids depend on manipulation of temperatures between individual particles of the material to enable the creation of slush instead of a single block thus enabling easier movement. Afterwards, the material are baked and crushed into a dry granular form.
Share8 June 2016
