Husni is maintenance manager at ACRO Extrusion Corporation, a Wilmington, DE plant that produces vinyl window systems and extrusions. PVC resin runs from ACRO’s outdoor silos to the plant’s mixing room at a rate of as much as 34,000 pounds per day, and the abrasive product was causing the system’s sweep elbows to fail as often as every two to three weeks. Cleanup and repair was time-consuming and expensive, and any material released to the air or the ground required documentation and was subject to federal fines.

To further complicate matters, the many additives that make up the PVC resin were passing through the system’s conventional sweep elbows at different speeds. Some of the materials tended to adhere to the elbow walls, restricting flow and plugging them. And a broken elbow could introduce moisture into the mixture, contaminating an entire batch of product rendering it unusable in production.

Husni responded to an ad in a trade publication and installed 10 of HammerTek’s Smart Elbows as part of a 60-day free trial offer.

The improvement was as clear as the glass in ACRO’s window systems.

In a system where conventional sweep elbows were failing every two to three weeks, all 10 Smart Elbows were still going strong 16 months after installation.

“They’ve eliminated the wear problem and doubled the amount of operational time between cleanings,” Husni said.

Impressed also by their ease of installation and compact design, he purchased an additional dozen Smart Elbows eight months later.

“You would be better off installing safety measures like these Smart Elbows with their high-wear resistance factor than discovering that 10,000 pounds of product has leaked out through a hole in an elbow and the EPA has fined you,” he said.

The secret to the Smart Elbow is its patented Vortex Chamber, a nearly spherical chamber located at the back of the bend where traditional elbows fail. The chamber’s patented shape allows the formation of a slowly rotating ball of material which, instead of creating eddies or other pockets of turbulence, redirects and smooths the flow of material into its new direction.

Most of the material being conveyed never actually touches the back wall of the Smart Elbow. This eliminates elbow wear, helps save energy in pumping costs, and increases product quantity and quality by improving material delivery rate and flow.

The durability and ease of installation of HammerTek’s Smart Elbows can save your company time, expense and regulatory paperwork too. They truly are an “open window” for conveying systems where any incidence of sweep elbow failure has environmentally sensitive consequences.

To read the full case study, please visit the HammerTek website.

The plant, which serves the Dayton area, also faced hefty downtime expenses if it stayed shut down too long, Plant Manager Dave Martin said.

Powdered limestone must be injected into the plant’s three incinerators to meet EPA air pollution control standards for sulfur dioxide emissions. The pneumatic conveying system used in this process contained long-radius sweep elbows. But these elbows proved unable to withstand the lime’s abrasive action.

At the pressure required to move 18,000 pounds of powdered limestone 24 hours a day, 363 days a year, even a pinhole-sized leak in a sweep elbow creates a tremendous cloud of dust and presents a considerable mess to clean up, Martin said.

But that’s just what was happening, every three months or so, necessitating a system shutdown for repair and cleanup.

To make matters worse, if the lime injection system stays out of operation for more than a few hours, the EPA requires the plant to shut the incinerators down completely – resulting in a downtime expense of approximately $40,000 per day.

Martin thought he had found a possible solution when he discovered HammerTek’s Smart Elbow at a trade show a few years ago. It was there that he learned that the Smart Elbow is designed to allow changes in direction in pneumatic and slurry conveying systems without the excessive wear, plugging and product degradation problems associated with virtually all other elbow types.

The secret to the Smart Elbow’s success is the patented vortex chamber at the back of the elbow. At a point where traditional elbows fail, the Smart Elbow’s shape creates a rotating ball of suspended material that helps redirect the entire product without friction, impact or wear. Smart Elbows are also easier to install.

Years later and with zero surprise dust clouds, that first Smart Elbow is still in operation, and the plant has added more.

“Since installation of the Smart Elbows, we have saved on maintenance costs, decreased our downtime, and increased system reliability,” Martin said, adding, “We don’t have to cut and weld like we did with the sweep elbows – they just bolt right in.”

North Incinerator is now installing Smart Elbows in a new, higher-capacity lime injection system, and they are the elbow of choice for a future fly ash handling system which is currently in its final planning stages.

To read the full case study, please visit the HammerTek website.

Chromalloy’s Drilling Division produces ground barite (barium sulfate) at a plant in Houston, Texas. Barite is an abrasive material that was causing premature wear and plugging problems with the conventional elbows being used to transport it pneumatically from the plant’s grinding mills to its storage tanks.

The high-density barite was wearing through the conventional elbows in approximately 90 days. Chromalloy engineers tried different ways of extending elbow life – including placing larger elbows over smaller ones and encasing the space between them with concrete and other materials – but nothing made an appreciable improvement to the short elbow life. Elbow replacement was expensive and time-consuming, requiring frequent plant shutdowns.

Barite also plugged the conventional elbows frequently because of the way conventional elbows work. In a conventional elbow, materials hit the outer wall and slide along, or impact it, as they are routed in their new direction. This impact can destroy a conventional elbow. It also causes material to slow down as it passes through the elbow, causing plugging problems. Frequent barite plugs in Chromalloy’s line were so dense they required sledgehammers or dismantling of the line. Enter HammerTek’s Smart Elbow, whose patented, spherical chamber creates a soft, rotating ball of product that deflects it without touching the elbow’s walls, greatly reducing or eliminating both problems.

Chromalloy replaced its conventional elbows with cast-iron Smart Elbows in 4- and 5-inch diameter sizes. Since the replacement two years ago, there has not been one case of pipe plugging. In fact, no maintenance of any kind has been needed. On top of that, the plant has found that less system pressure — and therefore less energy – is required for the barite to turn the bends in its line.

To read the full case study, please visit the HammerTek website.

Time and again, the stainless steel elbows in the pneumatic conveying systems at the Pet Foods Division of Quaker Oats in Rockbridge, Ill., were wearing out prematurely – sometimes in less than three months.

Elbows were wearing through in three different systems: Two carry grains (barley, soy bean meal and soy bean hulls) from storage areas to receiving tanks; the third carries “fines” (dust-sized food particles) back into the process for recycling.

Pet Foods had been using long-radius elbows, which wore out very quickly and caused shutdowns which sent clouds of grain and chaff floating through the plant. This in turn caused added maintenance needs.

In an effort to reduce these problems three years ago, Pet Foods bought 11 cast iron Smart Elbows from HammerTek and installed them on 3-, 4-, and 5-inch-diameter lines where their conventional stainless steel elbows were performing the most poorly. The problems were eliminated completely; since installation there has been no wear, no failures, and no plugging.

Bob DiCanio, Engineering and Maintenance Manager at Pet Foods, says he cannot think of a single problem since the Smart Elbows were installed. Although he cannot place a dollar figure on the savings, he says pet Foods has saved a considerable amount of money due to the elimination of replacement elbows, plant shutdowns and associated labor costs.

To read the full case study, please visit the HammerTek website.

Rensselaer Plastics Co. of Rensselaer, Ind., produces PVC piping products for the plumbing trade, with annual sales in the $40 million range. One process at the plant uses a pneumatic conveying system to transfer resin and pellets from storage hoppers to pipe extruders, and therein lay the plant’s Achilles Heel.

Even using long-radius sweep elbows, the abrasive nature of the product took its toll on the conveying system. The elbows wore out in a matter of two to four months, said L.E. Koehler, assistant plant manager. Plant downtime for elbow replacement was eating into profits.

“I had been reading about a new elbow design called the Smart Elbow,” Koehler said. “(HammerTek) guaranteed a minimum of three times the life of conventional elbows. So we put a test elbow in the system, replacing a long-radius elbow that had worn out within two months.”

After more than a year of service, the test elbow is showing no signs of wear.

Based on the test results, Rensselaer has upgraded its pneumatic system, replacing 12 conventional elbows with 12 Smart Elbows in the 3- and 4-inch lines that carry materials between resin silos, compound silos, mixers and extruders. Additionally, the plant is replacing long-radius sweep elbows with Smart Elbows as they wear out.

Wear performance is one of several areas where the Smart Elbow shines, Koehler said. The HammerTek product has also eliminated unwanted “angel hair” that formed in conventional elbows. There is no surging or plugging of lines with the new elbows. And the Smart Elbows eliminate the need for sweep elbows, allowing pneumatic lines to bend at 90 degrees and follow the contours of silos and buildings, greatly simplifying installation and upkeep.

To read the full case study, please visit the HammerTek website.

Essroc, formerly Coplay Cement, is a wet-process cement plant in Frederick, Md., that produces 350,000 to 400,000 tons of cement annually using two 400-foot rotary cement kilns.

Dust is produced in these kilns at a rate of 120 tons during a normal, 24-hour period, and this dust must be removed from the kiln’s exhaust gases. A portion of the dust is collected and sold for industry and agriculture, but the majority of it is recycled through a process called insufflation, transforming it into product. The insufflation rate can be varied by the cement control operator to match the chemistry of the cement in the kiln.

The original pneumatic conveying lines were plagued by constant plugging and surging problems. Upgrading the systems pumps and compressors didn’t eliminate plugging in the system’s long-radius sweep elbows, and elbow wear-through became a problem as well. Then the plant gave 5-inch, cast-iron Smart Elbows a try.

“This eliminated most of the remaining line-plugging problems,” said Ken Gillespie, Essroc process engineer. “I can only recall perhaps two or three plugging problems for the last couple of years. The wear problem was eliminated completely. As far as I can tell, none of the Smart Elbows has been replaced for any reason.”

The system plugs now only when very high insufflation rates are chosen, Gillespie said, adding that the elimination of wear and downtime have resulted in substantial savings for the company.

To read the full case study, please visit the HammerTek website.

Rezendes, maintenance supervisor at Northwood Pulp and Timber Ltd. in Prince George, British Columbia, was facing a problem common in the pulp and paper industry: Moving product through bends in pneumatic lines where friction causes failure, leaks and downtime.

Wood products – in Northwood’s case, “hog fuel” (bark and sawdust) – can become highly abrasive when pneumatically conveyed. At Northwood, wear-back sweep elbows in the plant’s 12-inch diameter hog fuel conveying line were wearing out every three months, requiring repair, cleanup work and associated expenses at a frequency that was far from satisfactory.

Rezendes had heard about HammerTek’s Smart Elbow and decided to give it a try. He fitted a Smart Elbow at one location in the line’s three-elbow system. The Smart Elbow is designed to convey direction through deflection instead of impact with elbow walls, resulting in smoother flow and elimination of elbow wear. Sure enough, this design provided the solution to the problem.

Rezendes’ original Smart Elbow lasted four years – some 16 times longer than the wear-back sweep elbow it replaced. Based on this performance, he replaced the other two elbows in the line with Smart Elbows. This modification proved so successful that the plant is now specifying the installation of three 10-inch Smart Elbows in its chip handling system.

To read the full case study, please visit the HammerTek website.

Western Paving Corp., a division of Western Mobil, has to move granite dust from one area to another in its manufacturing process. Granite dust from the kiln is collected and pneumatically conveyed to a point where it is combined with oil and returned to the mix. This compound then functions as a binding agent that is essential to the entire operation.

The operation’s long-radius sweep elbows, fitted with concrete strongbacks, proved no match for the highly abrasive granite dust, which was wearing these elbows down and causing them to leak hot material within six weeks of installation. Leaks require a rapid shutdown of the 15-ton-per-hour operation for repair, a situation that Western Paving deems unacceptable in terms of waste, downtime and cleanup liabilities.

After learning about HammerTek’s Smart Elbow and its method of conveyance by deflection instead of impact, the corporation installed six 90-degree Smart Elbows in place of its concrete-backed sweep elbows. The result? System shutdown due to elbow wear was eliminated because of the Smart Elbow’s unique characteristics.

Western Paving initially purchased three Smart Elbows in 1988, followed by another three in 1990. The HammerTek elbows are lasting about five years, as opposed to the six-week lifespan of the original sweeps. This incredible increase in elbow life has prompted Western to specify the phasing in of Smart Elbows in all of its plants as older equipment wears out. Western also reports the added benefit of reduced line pressure on systems equipped with the Smart Elbow.

To read the full case study, please visit the HammerTek website.

As the primary wastewater treatment facility for the city of Alexandria and Fairfax County, Va., the Alexandria Sanitation Authority’s sewage plant operates 24 hours a day with a volume that can exceed 80 million gallons per day. For pH control, the operation uses a half-million pounds of pelletized lime per month, conveyed from trucks to 70-foot silos via twin four-inch lines.

Initially the lines were fitted with four-inch sweep elbows. When the sweeps began leaking after about six months in service, the Authority swapped them for sweeps fitted with wear-backs.

“Then we were probably losing an elbow every nine months,” Lead Mechanic Bob Devereaux said, adding that the resulting dust and downtime was not a good thing for such a high-volume facility.

In early 1998, Devereaux received a postcard from Plant Process Manager Tom Tyler offering a free trial of the HammerTek Smart Elbow. The Authority began replacing sweeps in its lime lines with four-inch HammerLoy Smart Elbows in April, and by June there were five Smart Elbows in service.

Two years later Devereaux pulled a couple of the Smart Elbows out of service and inspected them for wear. Finding none, the Authority continued replacing its old-style sweeps with Smart Elbows, which have consistently resisted any hint of wear. Devereaux says the switch to Smart Elbows has more than paid for itself.

To read the full case study, please visit the HammerTek website.

Getting rid of that friction has done nothing but good for Schmalbach-Lubeca’sBlythewood,South Carolinalocation. One of the company’s 63 plants worldwide producing millions of plastic beverage bottles daily, ­the Blythewood plant was using long-radius elbows to convey PET Poly Pellets from rail car to silo, and from silo to molding.

Traditional elbows change a material’s direction by causing the material to deflect off the inside of the pipe walls. With materials like the pellets used at the beverage plant, this contact is the source of friction, heat, and the unwanted side effects of both.

“When feeling the exterior of the long-radius elbow, the elbow felt hot at the point of impact,” said Thom Iwancio, plant system engineer. After changing over to HammerTek’s product in the same system, “when feeling the Smart Elbow it was cool to the touch.”

Impact-generated heat was causing the product to produce “streamers” inside the pipe that collected on the magnet protection before the molding operation, effectively “choking” off the material flow to the injection molding machines. Once this happened, the system would have to be shut down to clean out the magnet chute, causing loss of production, time and money.

Since changing to Smart Elbows in 1999, the streamers have been eliminated. Operational time has improved, the Smart Elbow changeover has paid for itself, and less material is being found in the system’s dust collection system – a result of the Smart Elbow’s method of deflecting material without impact.

Inside every Smart Elbow is a patented Vortex Chamber, a nearly spherical chamber that allows the formation of a slowly rotating ball of material which, instead of creating eddies or other pockets of turbulence, redirects and smooths the flow of material into its new direction while keeping it from impacting the walls of the chamber. This eliminates elbow wear, helps save energy in pumping costs, and increases product quantity and quality by improving material delivery rate and flow.

To read the complete case study, go to:   http://www.hammertek.com/case-study-plastic-schmalbach.asp    For more information on the HammerTek Smart Elbow, please visit www.hammertek.com.