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June 2010 |
The Flux Capacity |
 MX™ Round Separator A manufacturer of ASME-coded tanks uses an automated welding process to manufacture tanks for propane service. The welding process requires significant quantities of granular flux in order to insure proper weld quality (fairly critical for this application). During the process, very little of the flux is actually consumed: some is fused into "sticks" or "tracks" but most is essentially unused. The tracks interfere with feeding of the flux |
and drastically affect the quality of the welds. At one time, the company sent their used flux to an out-of-state processor for recovery. In addition to the used flux, they sent a pound of virgin flux for every three or four pounds of used flux to be blended back before the recycled flux was returned. The cost was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for the processing, alone. Add in the cost of freight, packaging, inventory, and handling, and they needed help. The SWECO representative performed testing on-site. The customer was very pleased with the results, but was even more pleased with the price. They bought a plain model separator, which was able to effectively process the material, removing the tracks. The SWECO Screen excluded all the tracks while losing very |
little product to the overs. It was set up at the customer's plant, where it is operated once or twice a week with little attention. Payback was reported to be about 4 days. The quality of the recovered flux is outstanding and the amount of virgin flux blended back into the reclaimed material was greatly reduced. The customer plans to add a de-dusting screen to remove fines, which will include some carbon and steel dust generated by the welding process. When the representative asked how the unit was doing after over two years of service, the customer responded that it was the "best piece of equipment in the plant". |
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 Keeping Your Screens Clean A blinded screen occurs when near-sized product lodge or wedge themselves between the wires, leading to the gradual blinding of the screen mesh (Illustration A); or fine powders clog or blind the mesh through the accumulation of the powder around the wires (Illustration B). Either of these two methods can cause major problems in your process. Two of the most detrimental and common problems caused by blinding are the reduction of screening area, which reduces throughput and overall efficiency of the separator; and premature screen failure. There are many devices that can be used to keep your screens clean and prevent blinding. Here are several of the most commonly used ones: Self-Cleaning Kits – have sliders that rest on a perforated plate mounted beneath the screen. As the separator vibrates, the sliders tap the underside of the screen, dislodging near-size particles or fibers that tend to blind the screen.  Illustration A
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 Illustration B SWECO sliders are offered in a variety of materials including those which are FDA approved for food contact. Self-Cleaning Screens - are comprised of a working mesh on top of the tension ring with a coarser mesh (support screen) attached to the bottom of the ring with sliders and/or balls placed between the meshes. The sliders and balls will bounce off of the support screen and tap the top screen dislodging near size particles. Additionally, Self-Cleaning Screens run at much lower decibel levels compared to a Self- Cleaning Kit using a perforated plate. This makes it a much safer option in your plant. Ball Trays - have a coarse screen mounted two inches below the sizing screen. Balls of engineered materials are placed on this coarse screen and the separator’s vibrating action bounces the balls against the underside of the screen cloth, dislodging near-sized particles. Screen Energizer – enhances screening by creating a high-frequency, low-amplitude secondary vibration on screen |
surfaces, thereby improving performance of fine mesh screening of both light and heavy density powders. Ultrasonics – can be an accessory to a SWECO round separator, enabling them to perform fine mesh screening (60-635 mesh) through use of a low-amplitude, high-frequency secondary vibration on the screen surface. It is ideal for light density powders (epoxy, toner, powdered paint) to prevent the “pancaking” or “glazing” effect characteristic of gravity screening. Power Wiper - provide a lightweight scrubbing action on the screen surface to keep material from sticking to the wires, improving product yield through the screen. Power Wipers are self powered by the separator’s Vibro-Energy motion which causes the cluster to spin in a circular fashion on the surface. There are other methods to keeping your screens from blinding, but the devices discussed in this article are the most commonly used in the industry. To learn more about these and other cleaning methods, contact a SWECO professional or your local representative today.  Self-Cleaning Screen
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BigMax™ Gyratory Sifter The new SWECO BigMax™ Gyratory Sifter builds on the unparalleled success of the GyraMax™ line of sifters. Known for their durability, reliability and accuracy of separation, GyraMax sifters are used throughout the world to handle the most demanding screening applications such as activated carbon, fertilizer, frac sand, limestone, petroleum coke, plastic pellets, PVC powder, roofing granules, salt, sugar, and more. Now with the introduction of BigMax, SWECO adds high capacity screening to the list of GyraMax features. The BigMax provides extremely high capacity in a very compact, energy efficient footprint. |
The SWECO BigMax is built around a unique drive that is warranted for three years and requires no routine maintenance. While other equipment uses complex drives with gears, oil baths, springs or as many as seven bearings, the BigMax drive uses a SINGLE sealed bearing that is lubed for life. No need for periodic lubrication or oil changes and no chance of an oil leak or spill that could compromise plant safety. All screens are equipped with welded metal “ball-decks”. Since no  SWECO BigMax™ Gyratory Sifter |
screen attachment clips are used, the ball decks can be fabricated from heavy duty rectangular steel tubing and heavy gauge perf plate resulting in much greater durability than offered by the light gauge sheet metal ball decks used in other equipment. The ball-decks are modular so they can be handled in sections. Once a screen is removed, the ball deck below that screen can also be removed without disturbing any other screen or ball tray. |
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