HammerTek Elbow Room

SMART ELBOW® Deflection Elbow for Pneumatic Conveying Systemsress site

Abrasive lime can’t wear the Smart Elbow® deflection elbow down

by Miaja Cornelius
To meet EPA air pollution standards for sulfur dioxide emissions, Montgomery County’s North Incinerator plant injects finely powdered limestone into the three incinerator units housed at the facility.

Long-radius stainless steel sweep elbows conveyed approximately 18,000 pounds of the material through the company’s dense phase pneumatic conveying system daily. The problem? Lime is incredibly abrasive and those elbows — critical components of the conveying system — were literally being worn away.

At the pressure required to move such a huge volume of limestone non-stop, even a pinhole-sized leak in a sweep elbow creates a tremendous cloud of dust. Breeches in the sweep elbows required immediate shutdown of the lines for repair and cleanup. Plant manager Dave Martin knew his team was up against the clock whenever a shutdown occurred: if it lasted more than a few hours, the EPA required a complete (and costly) incinerator shutdown.

Downtime expenses related to complete shutdown run $40,000 per day, and Martin didn’t see any solution to the recurring problem — until he discovered Hammertek’s Smart Elbow deflection elbow at a trade show.

Unlike traditional sweep elbows, which rely on collisions between conveyed material and the elbow wall to redirect material, the Smart Elbow deflection elbow is designed to eliminate impact-related wear, thanks to the patented vortex chamber at the back of the elbow. The Smart Elbow structural design and shape creates a rotating ball of suspended material that helps redirect the entire product without friction, impact or wear. Smart Elbow deflection elbows are also easier to install, requiring much less physical space than long-radius sweep elbows.

Years later, that first Smart Elbow model installed by Martin remains in service and shows virtually zero wear, despite the high-pressure and high-volume conveying environment. Additional Smart Elbow deflection elbows are now installed in the plant’s higher capacity lime injection and fly ash handling systems.

To find out how HammerTek Smart Elbow deflection elbows can save your company expensive repairs and downtime while increasing efficiency and productivity, visit us at HammerTek.com.