Mechanical

Selecting

Outlet

best
conveyor
the

What you should know before

speccing your next conveyor.

Michel Podevyn
President and CEO
Spiroflow Systems Inc.
Monroe, N.C.

Highlights
Flexible-screw conveyors
are often the simplest
and least-expensive
option.
Aeromechanical
conveyors move
materials, not boxes or
products.
Vacuum conveyors can
follow long, complex
routes.
Pneumatic conveyors are
the most versatile but
can be the most costly.
Edited by
Stephen J. Mraz
stephen.mraz@penton.com

Industries such as pharmaceuticals,

plastics and rubber, and food, routinely need to move bulk materials.
How that material gets moved is
vitally important to factory efficiency. So when specifying a conveyor system, engineers designing
plants and processes should be
familiar with the variety of options
they have.
Here are the main parameters,
benefits, and disadvantages of four
major types of conveyors.

Metal
screw

Hopper

Polyethylene tube

Flexible-screw
conveyor

Flexible-screw conveyors

Flexible-screw conveyors are often the simplest and least expensive

for moving a variety of materials at
up to 40 tons/hr over distances up
to 65 ft. If materials need to travel
farther, several such conveyors can
be linked together.
These conveyors consist of a stainless or heat-treated and temperedcarbon steel screw that rotates within
an ultrahigh-molecular-weight-polyethylene food-grade tube. For most
applications, the spiral has a round
cross section but a flat or profiled version can also be used for fine, cohesive, and easily smeared materials.
The term flexible refers to the fact
that these conveyors can be curved to
some extent, depending on its diameter. This lets users route the conveyor

around obstacles. Normally, using only one continuous curve

is recommended. This type of conveyor is well suited for
powdered, granular, and flaked materials with a bulk density
up to 150 lb/ft3.
Flexible-screw conveyors are designed to operate when
full of material. Running empty leads to excessive noise
and wear. (Although flexible spiral conveyors should run
full, they can be emptied at the end of an operation or shift
by removing an end bung and running the conveyor in
reverse at a reduced speed if necessary.) It is also not recommended that these conveyors be used to move batches
or large slugs of material. Instead, they are best used to
move materials from storage or bag-tip station to a weigh
hopper or vessel. For example, they are ideal for maintaining a constant head of material in packing-machine
hoppers by gently filling rather than dumping in batches.
Because material flow is constant, flexible spiral conveyors
deliver accurate, highly repeatable batches if controlled
by a simple timing switch. And having a head of mateAUGUST 21, 2008

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83

Mechanical

rial in a feed hopper helps with the elevation of material

upon start-up of the conveyor by consistently sending the
same amount of material into the conveyor inlet. This lets
the conveyor operate more efficiently and makes batches
more accurate.
The main benefit of flexible-screw conveyors is their
inherent simplicity. This leads to low initial cost, quick installation, and low maintenance. Food and dairy versions,
for example, can be safely stripped down in minutes for
cleaning.
Wear is only a problem with abrasive products. Life
with other materials is almost indefinite. Tubes and screws
are easily replaced. One of the latest developments is abrasion resistant rubber tubes for such applications as aggregates, sand, cement, and glass cullet.

Aeromechanical conveyors

A more descriptive name for an aeromechanical con-

Aeromechanical conveyor

Discharge of solids
Wire rope

Polyurethane
discs

Chute draws
in air to
replace
air that is
discharged.

Conveyor is
moving 85%
solids, 15% air.
Any air
displaced
by solids is
vented.

Solids are fluidized and accelerated.

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AUGUST 21, 2008

veyor (AMCs) is rope-and-disk conveyor. This is because

AMCs consist of several evenly spaced polyurethane disks
attached to a wire rope. The rope and disks travel quickly
around a continuous loop within parallel steel tubes. Housings enclose both ends of the conveyor, and the rope and
disks run from one tube to the other around a pair of
sprockets. One sprocket drives the rope and disks while the
other tensions the rope. The speed of the disks creates an
air stream that fluidizes and entrains material until it is centrifugally ejected at the outlet. This lets AMCs move materials from 10 to 85 ft at up to 120 tons/hr with little power,

What engineers
should know
Before selecting a conveyor, designers should be
familiar with their specific application. Answering these
questions will help them select the right conveyor:
1. What product or material will be moved?
2. What are its bulk densities?
3. What is its moisture content, average particle size, and
temperature?
4. Is the material or product likely to change in any way in the
future?
5. From what is the product being moved (for example, from
a silo, bulk bag, or bag-tip station)?
6. To what is the product being moved (such as a mixer, sifter,
mill, or reactor)?
7. If its going to a reactor of any type, is there any steam, gas,
or solvents given off that might enter the conveyor?
8. How far will the conveyor travel horizontally?
9. How far will it travel vertically?
10. What route will the conveyor take (such as inside, outside,
bends, total number of bends)?
11. Will the conveyor move a constant a stream of material or
preweighed batches on load cells?
12. At what rate is material being moved in pounds per hour
or batch size over a given time?
13. How long will the conveyor operate each day? How many
days per week?
14. Should the conveyor deliver material in a homogenous
manner, such as adding flakes to a liquid to make a lumpfree paste?
15. If the product is a mixture, is it essential to maintain the
integrity of the mix?
16. Is the material fragile? How important is it to minimize
damage during conveying?
17. What other equipment is needed (such as a bag-tip
station, bulk-bag discharger. or receiver hopper)?
18. Will the conveyor operate in a dusty or otherwise
hazardous area (i.e., will NEMA-rated explosionproof
motors and other such equipment be required)?
19. Is the conveyor manufacturer also supplying the control
panel, level sensors, and other accessories?
20. Will the conveyor be readily accessible for maintenance?
21. How long is the conveyor expected to run between
services?

Mechanical

Vacuum conveying
Filtercleaning
assembly

Head

Filtered air

Filters
Filter
receiver

Compressed
air in (60
to 80 psig)

Pump intake
filter

Vacuum-breaker
valve open

Pressurerelief valve
Air pump
(blower)
silencer

Motor

Materialinput point
Air pumped outside
Throttle-valve
intake filter

Discharge
valve (open)
Destination of material

Circle 183
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minimal product degradation, and

virtually no separation of mixtures.
AMCs are effectively mechanical
vacuum conveying and should not
be confused with drag-link conveyors which are slow-moving, heavyduty devices in which cast-iron disks
linked by rods or chains scrape material along inside a tube.
Over the years, the AMC has
proven to be a cost-efficient and dustfree way to move materials, which
eliminates the need for filtration.
AMCs can move batches and operate
at any angle (including vertical) without sacrificing capacity or contaminant-free delivery. They can also be
supplied with access panels to make
cleaning easier.
Besides straight-line operation,
AMCs are available in several aroundthe-corner configurations. In addition to free-flowing powders such
as acrylics, flour, and carbon black,
AMCs can move difficult materials
such as titanium dioxide. They also
have no problems moving granules,
flakes, or chips.
A major benefit of this type of conveyor is that degradation to the material is almost negligible. This is because AMCs create a moving current
of air in which the material is carried,
similar to the effect of a vacuum or
pneumatic system. However, unlike
vacuums or pneumatics, AMCs do
not need a cyclone or filter to sepaAUGUST 21, 2008

Flow

rate materials from the air. This saves

money and reduces maintenance and
environmental issues because the air
carrying the material is recycled.
AMCs should always be started
empty, then fed or loaded gradually.
With free-flowing materials, this can
be done with a simple slide gate. In
other cases, a controlled feed device,
such as a rotary valve or flexible screw
conveyor, should do the trick.
One disadvantage of AMCs is
that maintenance costs can range
from moderate to high. Rope tension
needs regular adjustment during allimportant start-up periods and then
checked periodically. Rope life depends upon on conveyor length, number of starts and stops, loading, and
whether routine inspection and tensioning is properly performed. Regular maintenance can be minimized by
selecting an AMC with rope-tension
monitoring and adjustment.
Despite this maintenance drawback, properly maintained AMCs
have lasted 14 years and more despite
arduous duty.

Vacuum conveyors

Vacuum conveyors are the first

choice when material must be moved
over long distances and torturous
routes. They are usually limited to
throughputs of around 10 tons/hr at
distances up to 330 ft.
Vacuum conveyors use air to move

materials through a pipeline. They are

easy to route, have few moving parts,
are dusttight in operation, and leave
minimum residue in emptied storage containers and transport tubes.
Because they suck in air, vacuum conveyors are often used to move toxic
and otherwise hazardous materials
because the tubes contain all materials and minimize release of them to
the atmosphere.
Either an exhauster or fan at the
receiving end of the system provides
the motive force. For low-capacity
motion, air-powered Venturi systems
offer low capital costs and are not as
expensive to operate as many have
been led to believe. And reverse-jet
self-cleaning filters clean the air and
return it to the atmosphere after use.
The filters also reduce maintenance
and minimize product loss.
Vacuum systems are normally
the only choice when its necessary
to suck material out of bags or other
open-top containers, such as kegs
and drums. These conveyors are also
ideal for pulling materials from several sources.

Pneumatic conveyors

Pneumatic conveyors are probably

the most versatile of all, but they are
also the most expensive. They have
virtually no limit on capacity, product
type, distance, or routing. Lean-phase
versions, in which the ratio of material
to air is low, can move mountains of
material. Lean-phase conveyors typically move 1 lb of air for every pound
of materiel. Pressure drops across
such conveyors range between 1.5 to
20 psig and air velocity is between 60
and 75 fpm with the entrained material traveling at about 70% of that
speed due to the slip factor.
Dense-phase or plug-flow versions
can move slugs of material at lower
speeds with minimal degradation.
They move about 100 lb of material
for every pound of air, but air pressure can be as high as 100 psig. Slugs
move between 10 and 30 fps.
Positive-pressure models are generally used to move materials from
one place to one or several different destinations. They are normally
used for major tasks, such as quickly

emptying road and rail tankers into

silos or moving material from silos
to large-scale production processes.
Capacities of up to 100 tons/hr are
not unusual.
The two main disadvantages of
pneumatic conveyors are a relatively
high initial installation cost and the
amount of filtration required. The
high cost is due to the need for an
expensive blower or compressor, as
well as larger diameter (up to 6 in.),
pressure-tested pipe, supporting the
larger pipes, and filtering the large
volume of air used. As with vacuum
conveyors, self-cleaning reverse-jet
filters are a big help in reducing maintenance. Maintenance is needed to
ensure these systems are leak-free for
best efficiency and, above all, to avoid
associated health and environmental
issues leaks cause.

Other conveyors

There are several other types of

conveyors, including:
Rigid-screw conveyors. Beware
of the seals and bearings.
Bucket elevators. This type of
conveyor is ideal for most delicate
products, but generally not for those
that are dusty.
Flat-belt conveyors. These are
mainly used in quarries and mines.
Vibratory feeders. Good for distances of 6 ft or less.
Air slides. Well suited for moving
dense materials downhill.
In some applications, a mix of
conveyor types is appropriate. For
example, short, easy-to-clean flexible-screw conveyors are often used to
consistently feed material to a longdistance AMC.
In selecting a conveyor, the key is
to find a supplier you have confidence
in and are comfortable with. The supplier should provide a performance
guarantee for the material you will be
moving. After that, it comes down to
the usual commercial considerations
of price and delivery. Normally, installing a conveyor is part of a larger
project. But heath, safety, and environmental benefits usually outweigh
monetary issues. Nevertheless, the
conveyor has to be the right one for
the job. md
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