Rotary airlock feeders are essential components to efficient material handling processes. Whether you’re handling free-flowing powders, wood pellets, or other materials, your system will depend on your rotary airlock feeders correctly functioning.
You’ll also want maximum longevity for your rotary airlock feeders to decrease their total cost of ownership.
Keeping rotary airlock feeders in proper working condition involves taking care of the mechanisms and surfaces, to reduce wear and tear and decrease the potential for breakage. Here’s what you can do to increase the lifespan of your feeders.
Apply Protective Coating
Abrasive materials can wreak havoc on the interior of an airlock feeder over time. The more abrasive the material, the higher potential for causing damage through gradual wear.
One way to mitigate damage is to apply a protective coating to the interior bore. These coatings come in a variety of materials. Perhaps the most abundant is chrome, which also happens to be inexpensive. You can also apply something like ceramic lining, which is more expensive but offers better protection and dramatically extends the live of a valve.
Add a Wear Bar
A wear bar is a supplement that, true to its name, helps reduce wear and tear on the apparatus. Use bolt-on wear bars to supplement your rotary airlock feeders, and regularly replace the wear bars as they wear down so that you have maximum protection available for your system.
Protect the Rotor
One of the most effective things you can do to extend the lifespan of rotary airlock feeders is to protect the rotor. You can apply protective coatings to the rotor itself that help to guard against abrasive materials that can otherwise eat away at the surface of the rotor and cause damage. You can use the same coatings that you use for the housing bore, interior, and end plates.
Use Proper Design
Finally, the way your rotary airlock feeders are designed goes a long way to ensuring that the machine will operate correctly for years to come.
Our rotary airlock feeders, for example, are manufactured from heavy-duty carbon steels, abrasion-resistant steels, or stainless steel. They feature airtight design with shallow rounded pockets that help prevent material build-up in the rotor – which can be a cause for damage over time.
They also come with shear-pin overload protection and variable speed control to better manage the operation of your feeder.
Of course, beyond proper design is proper preventative maintenance and regular inspections. Having a specialist check your feeders on a regular basis – at least once a year – can help prolong the lifespan of your equipment.