Conveying

system
successfully
transfers
carbon black
prills from
railcars to
silos
A rubber hose producer
installs a dense-phase
conveying system to improve
its plants railcar unloading
operation.

arker Hannifin Corp., headquartered in Cleveland, operates a plant in McCook, Nebr.,

that produces rubber compounds and
industrial hoses that are used by
Parker Hannifin plants and sold to
other companies. The McCook plant
uses carbon black and other ingredients to make the various rubber compounds and hoses. In the past, the
plant received carbon black prills in
100-ton-capacity gravity-discharge
railcars and used a vacuum and mechanical conveying system to move
them into four storage silos. In 2002,
the plant decided to improve the railcar unloading operation to increase
the material unloading rate and decrease maintenance costs.

Unloading the railcars

In the past, the plant received three
different grades of carbon black prills
in gravity-discharge railcars. An operator would select the carbon black
grade for unloading, then connect a
vacuum conveying systems hose to

the appropriate railcars bottom hopper. The operator then accessed a control panel to specify the destination
silo and start up the vacuum and mechanical conveying systems.
The vacuum conveying system transferred the carbon black prills from the
railcar to an enclosed bucket elevators infeed hopper at about 8,000
lb/h. The bucket elevator moved the
carbon black prills 85 feet vertically
and discharged them onto a drag conveyor, which conveyed them horizontally. The drag conveyors diverter
system, consisting of several diverter
gates activated by the control panel,
directed the carbon black into the
specified silo.

Experiencing conveying system

problems
In January 2002, Bruce Bair, the McCook plants engineering manager,
noticed that some of the bucket elevators bearings and other components
were worn and needed replacing.

The high-pressure dense-phase conveying system (shown here unloading a truck, which the plant later switched to) can unload a bulk transport vessel at up to 15,000 lb/h.

Copyright, CSC Publishing, Powder and Bulk Engineering

Case history

The bucket elevator and drag conveyor were a maintenance nuisance,

causing us a lot of headaches because
of frequent downtime and high costs
for repairs and upkeep, says Bair.
We also experienced some minor
cross-contamination issues since the
carbon black fines sometimes had a
tendency to stick in the buckets and

build up on the drag conveyors belt.

And because the bucket elevator and
drag conveyor were open systems,
the carbon black was susceptible to
atmospheric humidity, which sometimes made it difficult to handle.
The plant also had problems with the
vacuum conveying system. It was
undersized and couldnt unload the
railcars as quickly as we wanted,
says Bair. Also, its internal filter frequently plugged or ruptured, which
caused unacceptable system downtime to unplug or replace the filter.
Additionally, the unloading and conveying systems repair service had

The conveying systems controller has an operator-friendly interface, so

an operator can easily specify a delivery destination and start up and
monitor the system.

Copyright, CSC Publishing, Powder and Bulk Engineering

However, before repairing the bucket

elevator, Bair and other plant managers held a meeting to discuss the
merits of continuing to maintain a 30year-old bucket elevator versus installing a new, higher-capacity
unloading and conveying system.

To decrease maintenance costs and

downtime and increase the plants
railcar unloading rate, Bair decided to
investigate replacing the plants vacuum conveyor and two mechanical
conveyors with a vacuum-and-pressure pneumatic conveying system.
We realized that mechanical conveying systems are kind of clumsy,
expensive to install, and maintenance-intensive, and that pneumatic
conveying systems dont really have
a lot of moving parts like bearings,
shafts, gears, and sprockets that
can wear out and require maintenance
and downtime, says Bair.

Finding a new conveying system

In spring 2002, Bair traveled to a
trade show and saw some newly designed unloading and conveying
equipment manufactured by Cyclonaire, York, Nebr. The supplier manufactures bulk material handling
systems and controls for the rubber,
chemical, mineral, cement, food, and
other industries.
After I got back from the trade show,
I drove to the suppliers CycloTech
test facility in York, Nebraska, and
tested our material in one of their
dense-phase pneumatic conveying
systems, says Bair. I was really impressed with the test facility, because
it allowed us to test the conveying
system and verify that it would work
before we purchased it. And since the
supplier is located in Nebraska, they
can have someone at our plant in
about four hours should we ever have
a problem, which is a lot faster service
than we received in the past. So, because the tests were successful and
we liked the service quality they provide, we decided to purchase their
conveying system for our plant.

The dense-phase conveying

system
The DPV-25B high-pressure densephase conveying system vacuum- and
pressure-conveys 25-cubic-foot
batches of abrasive and friable materials, operating at a maximum pressure
of 35 psi. The system consists of a 25cubic-foot-capacity transfer vessel, a
5-inch-diameter flexible vacuum hose,
a 5-inch-diameter pressure conveying
line, a venturi, various valves and couplings, several air injectors, and a PLC
controller. A compressed-air hose connects the plants compressed-air
source to the transfer vessel. The 10foot-long vacuum hose connects the
transfer vessel to a railcars bottom
hopper. And the 110-foot-long pressure conveying line connects the transfer vessel to the silos.
Compressed air is used to vacuumconvey the material from a railcar to
the transfer vessel and pressure-convey the material from the transfer vessel to the silos. The system
continuously cycles between vacuum
and pressure mode to transfer the material. It takes less than 1 minute to
vacuum-convey 25 cubic feet of material from the railcar into the transfer
vessel and about four cycles to pressure-convey a material slug in dense
phase from the transfer vessel to a silo.

Because the tests were successful

and we liked the service quality
they provide, we decided to
purchase the suppliers conveying
system for our plant.

This is one reason for the air injectors

being installed in the pressure conveying line, says Dave Rystrom, Cyclonaire regional sales manager. Since at
any given time during operation several material slugs are in the pressure
conveying line, the air injectors help
restart the slugs movement each time
the pressure-convey cycle starts up.

The dense-phase conveying system transfers the carbon black

prills that Parker Hannifins McCook plant mixes with other ingredients to make rubber compounds
and industrial hoses.
To create both vacuum and pressure,
the unloading system relies on the
transfer vessels venturi, bypass injection system, and five valves a venturi air-supply valve, a suction valve,
a convey air-supply valve, an outlet
butterfly valve, and an inlet butterfly
valve. In vacuum cycle, the suction
valve opens while the inlet and outlet
butterfly valves stay closed. As the
compressed air moves through the
venturi, it pulls air from the transfer
vessels interior to create a low-pressure zone inside the vessel that produces the systems vacuum. As the
vacuum increases in the transfer vessel, the inlet valve opens and the material is pulled from the source into
the transfer vessel.
After the transfer vessel has been filled
to the optimum level, the inlet and suction valves close and the outlet valve
opens. The same positive compressedair supply that created the vacuum is
used to push the material into the transfer vessels discharge elbow, where its
mixed with a small amount of additional air for dense-phase conveying to
a silo. This minimizes particle degradation, eliminates line wear, and increases the systems efficiency.
The unloading systems controller is
mounted on the transfer vessel. For
efficiency, the controller features a
slow-fill alarm and a long-discharge
alarm. If during the vacuum cycle the
high-level switch isnt tripped after a
certain time, the system switches to

Copyright, CSC Publishing, Powder and Bulk Engineering

become overly expensive: We had

one supplier charge big bucks for
their technician just to travel here, and
that didnt include doing any work or
the cost of parts required to fix the
problem.

The supplier also installed a bin-vent

pulse-jet dust collector on each silo top.
Each dust collector operates continuously, filtering dust from the incoming
airflow and exhausting clean air to the
atmosphere. Each dust collectors
pulse-jet regularly cleans the bag filters, knocking the dust down into a silo.
Additionally, the supplier replaced the
drag conveyors diverter gates with
stainless steel, air-actuated ball-style
diverter valves. These diverter valves,
designed for high-pressure applications, provide unobstructed material
flow to minimize material degradation,
and their seat design prevents material
from migrating into the cast body, minimizing cross-contamination concerns.
The dust collectors and ball-style diverter valves are activated from the systems controller.

Unloading and conveying positive

results
Since installing the suppliers vacuum-and-pressure conveying system,

Parker Hannifins McCook plant has

increased the amount of carbon black
prills it can unload from a railcar in a
given time. We oversized the new
unloading and conveying system so
that we can unload a railcar at a rate of
about fifteen thousand pounds per
hour, says Bair. In doing this, we
wont have to worry about getting a
new system in the future when we
might need more capacity.
Bair says that the new system is also
easy to operate. To unload a railcar,
an operator connects the vacuum hose
to a railcars bottom hopper and uses
the controller to specify which silo the
system is to discharge the carbon
black prills into. The operator then
starts the system and it operates automatically, signaling him when the
railcar is empty.
The plant hasnt had any operating or
maintenance issues with the conveying system, dust collectors, or ball-type
diverter valves. The new unloading
and conveying system doesnt generate any more fines than our previous
system did, says Bair. Also, the balltype diverter valves have never malfunctioned, unlike the previous
diverter valves, which jammed, crosscontaminated, and leaked carbon
black fines out onto the plant roof,
making a huge mess. And even though
weve never had to have the supplier
come out here to service the system,
we know that they provide excellent
service. In fact, thats one reason we
chose to install their equipment.

The plant hasnt had any operating

or maintenance issues with the new
conveying system, dust collectors,
or ball-type diverter valves.

Additionally, after experiencing such

success with the suppliers ball-type
diverter valves, Bair says, Weve
gone through our other systems and
replaced all of the other diverter
valves with the suppliers ball-type
diverter valves. Theyre a little more
expensive, but theyre worth it because weve never had a problem
with any of them theyve been totally bullet-proof. They always close
properly, they dont cause cross-contamination, and the Nebraska weather
doesnt seem to bother them. PBE
Note: To find other articles on this
topic, look under Loading, unloading and Pneumatic conveying in
Powder and Bulk Engineerings Article Index at www.powderbulk.com or
in the December 2006 issue.
Cyclonaire, York, NE
888-593-6247
www.cyclonaire.com

Copyright, CSC Publishing, Powder and Bulk Engineering

the pressure cycle to discharge the

transfer vessel. When completed, the
system switches back to the vacuum
cycle. The controller is programmed
to repeat the vacuum cycle a couple of
times before sounding the slow-fill
alarm to alert the operator that the material isnt loading into the vessel and
that the source vessel might be empty.
If during the pressure cycle the lowlevel switch isnt tripped and the unloading system doesnt switch back to
the vacuum cycle after a certain time,
the long-discharge alarm will alert the
operator that the pressure conveying
line may be plugged.