When it comes to moving large amounts of bulk materials – whether you’re moving sand, wood chips for biomass plants, coal, pulp, grain, or others – the type of bulk handling equipment you choose will have certain advantages and disadvantages for your particular operating environment.
To reach maximum efficiency with your facility, you have to select the right type of material handling infrastructure to fit your needs and objectives. There are several types of bulk handling equipment, ranging from screw conveyors to drag chain conveyors, bucket elevators, and the like.
Here, we’ll talk about one particular type – screw conveyors– and discuss the advantages this particular type of apparatus has over other equipment.
Greater Variety of Material
Screw conveyors are designed to handle a wide variety of materials and can fulfill a lot of different functions.
As far as materials go, screw conveyors can handle anything from sluggish material to free-flowing material. With sluggish semi-solids, like industrial sludge and biosolids, you can use screw conveyors without a center pipe – called “shaftless screw conveyors.”
Design also varies based on temperature and moisture content, meaning they can carry cool, hot, wet, or dry products and materials as needed, especially considering any heat transfer requirements.
Flexibility of Design
Screw conveyors are also flexible when it comes to design.
For example, you can engineer a conveyor system with multiple discharge and inlet points. This allows bulk materials to be sent to multiple locations, which can be controlled by slide gates and valves that can regulate flow in and out of the system.
Screw conveyors can also be constructed in a variety of positions – horizontally, vertically, or on an incline. They can be completely enclosed to avoid spillage; can mix different materials together; are useful for breaking up lumps in a product; can hold internal pressure and be vapor-tight for conveying any hazardous chemicals or toxic materials; and can create an airlock when necessary.
Additionally, screw conveyors tend to take up less infrastructure space than other material handling equipment. They lack a return like a belt conveyor and can be quite compact.
Finding the Right Screw Conveyors for Your Facility
Before you decide you need screw conveyors, consult with materials handling engineers who can evaluate your needs and your existing infrastructure to make appropriate recommendations. You may not need screw conveyors and may benefit more from other types of equipment.
And, if screw conveyors are recommended, the engineers can design a custom system that fits within your floor space and has the properties and design characteristics needed for your operation.
A custom solution is always better than an off-the-shelf version. This is especially true for screw conveyors, since they can be configured in a wide variety of ways.
Consult with ProcessBarron to learn more about creating screw conveyors for your facility tailored to your business.