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. 297
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. 288
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. 279
April 1, 2013
Going With the Flow Instead of Against the Grain
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. 272
March 15, 2013
HammerTek Product Cures “Achilles Elbow”
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.
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. 245
February 15, 2013
Smart Elbow® deflection elbow moves the bark, avoids the bite
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. 232
January 30, 2013
Granite Dust? Rock ‘n Roll for the Smart Elbow® Deflection Elbow
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. 225
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. 219
December 28, 2012
Schmalbach-Lubeca: No Friction, No Heat, No Problem
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. 213
December 17, 2012
National Oats: This Isn’t Your Father’s Pneumatic Conveyance System!
As long as that elbow isn’t a HammerTek Smart Elbow deflection elbow.
Prior to 1985, National Oats of Cedar Rapids, IA, had been conveying oats for its oat cereal and oat flour from its outdoor storage tanks to its indoor blending vessels the old-fashioned way: using an 8-inch pipeline with ceramic sweep elbows everywhere that line turned. 206
December 3, 2012
Smart Elbow® deflection elbow puts an end to failures, cleanups
October 15, 2012
Smart Elbow® deflection elbow prevents power plant’s leaks
September 28, 2012
Smart Elbow® deflection elbows size up pulp and paper mill
September 14, 2012
Smart Elbows® deflection elbow save space and money
August 16, 2012
Smart Elbow® deflection elbow cleans up safety issues
When Gary Wright, Director of Plant Engineering, had one of the Smart Elbow deflection elbows they had installed a year earlier pulled to check for wear and tear, he assumed it would require considerable repair, if not replacement. “After one year in service, we could still see the casting marks,” said Wright. “By now, we would have been through four or five sweep elbows and 12 rolls of duct tape.” He added, “We’re impressed.”
Five years later, we checked back with RheTech to see how the Smart Elbow units were holding up. None of the 170 Smart Elbow deflection elbows installed had worn out or been replaced since the installation six years earlier. 137