HammerTek Product Opens New Window for Plastics Manufacturer

May 15, 2013 by Miaja Cornelius

In an environment where product mixture is critical and rapidly failing sweep elbows were causing expensive downtime and EPA fines, Al Husni had to do something.

Husni is maintenance manager at ACRO Extrusion Corporation, a Wilmington, DE plant that produces vinyl window systems and extrusions. PVC resin runs from ACRO’s outdoor silos to the plant’s mixing room at a rate of as much as 34,000 pounds per day, and the abrasive product was causing the system’s sweep elbows to fail as often as every two to three weeks. Cleanup and repair was time-consuming and expensive, and any material released to the air or the ground required documentation and was subject to federal fines.

To further complicate matters, the many additives that make up the PVC resin were passing through the system’s conventional sweep elbows at different speeds. Some of the materials tended to adhere to the elbow walls, restricting flow and plugging them. And a broken elbow could introduce moisture into the mixture, contaminating an entire batch of product rendering it unusable in production.

Husni responded to an ad in a trade publication and installed 10 of HammerTek’s Smart Elbow^® deflection elbows as part of a 60-day free trial offer.

The improvement was as clear as the glass in ACRO’s window systems.

In a system where conventional sweep elbows were failing every two to three weeks, all 10 Smart Elbow units were still going strong 16 months after installation.

“They’ve eliminated the wear problem and doubled the amount of operational time between cleanings,” Husni said.

Impressed also by their ease of installation and compact design, he purchased an additional dozen Smart Elbow products eight months later.

“You would be better off installing safety measures like these Smart Elbow units with their high-wear resistance factor than discovering that 10,000 pounds of product has leaked out through a hole in an elbow and the EPA has fined you,” he said.

The secret to the Smart Elbow deflection elbow is its patented Vortex Chamber, a nearly spherical chamber located at the back of the bend where traditional elbows fail. The chamber’s patented shape allows the formation of a slowly rotating ball of material which, instead of creating eddies or other pockets of turbulence, redirects and smooths the flow of material into its new direction.

Most of the material being conveyed never actually touches the back wall of the Smart Elbow unit. This eliminates elbow wear, helps save energy in pumping costs, and increases product quantity and quality by improving material delivery rate and flow.

The durability and ease of installation of HammerTek’s Smart Elbow deflection elbows can save your company time, expense and regulatory paperwork too. They truly are an “open window” for conveying systems where any incidence of sweep elbow failure has environmentally sensitive consequences.

To read the full case study, please visit the HammerTek website.