All our members are established specialists within their fields, and have the experience and commercial standing to provide quality, cost-effective solutions for all aspects of mechanisation for bulk materials handling and storage, conveyors, dust collection and control, instrumentation, mixers, big bag handling, sampling systems, sieves, valves and weighing systems and equipment.
Since the dawn of civilisation materials have been conveyed, by men
and women toting sacks on yokes, by pack animals, carts and more
recently using mechanical conveyances. They all faced the same
challenges – maintaining quality whilst negotiating bends, inclines,
vertical rises and falls in unforgiving climates as well as delivering
according to demand as economically as possible. The demands are now
even greater but conveying technology has moved on. The choice of system
is huge and each system has its particular advantages, according to
material type, sensitivity and quantity, distance or elevation to be
covered, location and economic constraints, among many others. The
subject and range is huge and a brief look at pneumatic conveying would
indicate some of the parameters to be considered.
Pneumatic
conveyors employ air, or other gases to move powders or granular
material along a pipeline to the receiving vessel or process. The
material may be highly concentrated (dense phase) or relatively diluted
in the airstream (lean phase). In either case the material may be blown
by means of a blower mounted near the point of entry, known as pressure
conveying, or it may be drawn by an exhauster downstream from the
delivery point, known as vacuum conveying. Pressure conveying blowers
may exert pressures up to 1 BarG and be capable of very high
throughputs. Vacuum conveying exhausters may generate up to about 0.5
Bar of negative pressure, somewhat lower, but then there are particular
advantages to this system. Because there is no positive pressure within
the system, the product vessel feeding the system may have no need for
an airlock or rotary valve enabling larger particulates to be handled
safely. For all systems each element must be performance matched, from
the initial feed with metering valves or rotary valve through to the
final point of delivery.
In any system, fuel efficiency is a
prime design consideration. Therefore conveying pipe diameter and flow
rates, the number of bends and their severity must be optimised. In
addition, attrition and wear rates must be considered and indeed this
latter wide ranging topic is the subject of a SHAPA paper available to
view in the Technical Section of the SHAPA website. All of this is a
mere snapshot of what is required for economic, long lasting material
moving equipment. The website Product Finder will, however, lead you to
many expert companies whose websites are informative and enlightening.
The SHAPA story is one of progress, moving with the times and
promoting excellence. With this in mind new SHAPA annual awards are now
being considered by the General Council. Proposed awards include an
Export Award, SHAPA Company of the Year and an Innovation award. These
will demonstrate the professionalism and enthusiasm of the membership.
Stay tuned and visit www.shapa.co.uk
or email info@shapa.co.uk
for a greater insight.