Survey confirms: Testing material flow properties helps you design better storage and handling systems
When you select a new storage or handling system or consider a retrofit solution to a flow problem, do you test your material's properties? Or are you basing the equipment design primarily on avoiding your past problems? This article, which summarizes survey results from plants across the dry bulk solids industry, shows that careful flow characterization is the key to designing successful storage and handling systems.
In late 1993, 300 people who manage, design, or operate bulk solids storage or handling systems in US plants received a survey asking them to describe their bulk solid material, its flow properties, and their storage and handling equipment selection practices. The survey was mailed in two rounds. Just over 25 percent of the recipients -- 80 in all -- completed the survey and mailed it back. Figure 1 shows a breakdown of respondents by industry sector.