Designing a robust pneumatic conveying system to handle future expansion — Part I
Today's slow business climate is making efficient, reliable pneumatic conveying in dry bulk materials handling plants more important than ever. The trouble is, we often expect more out of our pneumatic conveying systems than they're designed to provide, creating a host of new problems. This two-part article explains how you can design a robust pneumatic conveying system that will handle afterinstallation system changes. Part I covers testing your material and designing the system, and Part II[to appear in April 2004] covers choosing system hardware, controlling and monitoring the system, and complying with noise and air quality requirements.
Most of us expect a new pneumatic conveying system to perform according to design at startup, and in many cases we get the equipment supplier's performance guarantee to make doubly sure the system will operate successfully. But even when the system performs up to spec at startup, most of us eventually place demands on the system that it wasn't designed to handle.