Vortex Global had partnered with a European company to keep its sugar high rolling. ABHR finds out how this happened and what the industry could learn from it.
When a French sugar producer engaged Vortex Global to upgrade their site, the European company was clear two aspects were required.
The first was assurance that the new set-up would have a high level of dust tightness, while the second was a seamless material flow.
This led Vortex Global to design a customised solution that addressed these concerns.
“The customer’s requirement for dust tightness and the ability to feed any divert leg at will presented a unique challenge that called for a customised solution,” Vortex Global managing director Laurence Millington told ABHR.
“Traditional gravity vee diverters were considered initially, but due to height constraints, an alternative approach was needed.”
France, especially Northern France, is one of Europe’s most critical sugar-producing regions, alongside the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland.
While the European Union is traditionally a net sugar importer, the region still produces around 18 million tonnes of sugar annually. According to recent data, it is the world’s leading producer of beet sugar.
The high production load meant the French site would be outfitted with a customised set-up and one that could handle significant volume.
After a thorough process, Vortex Global settled on using a tri-verter, which would use Vortex Roller Gates to divert the sugar.
The company had previously used the roller gates with its electropolished blades in another sugar-producing set-up successfully. The company incorporated three roller gates onto an inlet design that addressed the seamless material flow while being able to operate in a small area due to its narrow profile.
“The customer’s positive experience with standard roller gates in their other processes made this solution an obvious choice,” Millington said.
“With this design, we were able to achieve the desired functionality while maintaining the necessary compactness.”
The electropolished blades are vital to the material handling, being able to handle applications such as sugar smoothly with minimal residual build up.
The three-way roller gate solution eliminated the need for a separate diverter, which reduced the French producer’s installation and maintenance costs. The roller gates will also minimise downtime and potential production loss by eliminating the extra machinery and transfer section.
Vortex Global designed the roller gate for material handling in gravity-flow applications.
The company offers various customisable material options for rollers, end seals, bonnet seals, and side seals to suit the customer’s application.
The roller gate is available in various configurations, from rectangular sizes to custom hole patterns. The versatility of the roller gate enables Vortex Global to develop a tailored solution suited to the site and application of the customer.
Vortex’s bonnet and side seals, made from hard polymer, provide a strong dust-tight seal across the gate, reducing product dusting in the atmosphere.
Vortex Global’s roller gate seals have been built with service life in mind, unlike similar slide gates made from soft packing or rubber or felt, which erode quickly. The hard polymer seals are “live-loaded” with compressed rubber to ensure the seal maintains a tightness across the gate.
Customers can add a special service inlet onto their roller gate in horizontal flow applications, which protects the rollers and minimises material contact with the seals to extend its lifecycle further.
Other additional features on the Vortex roller gate include no pinch points or exposed moving points and no internal cavities, which prevent material from being wedged and wasted.
This feature reduces the chance for material wedging in the machine, which has been shown to contribute to seal wear and material degradation.
Vortex has built the roller gate to ‘self-clean’ with the machine’s bonnet seals acting as a scraper to help remove material from the blade on the opening stroke and keep the material in the process line instead of the bonnet area.
Millington said the roller gate had various uses, from light applications to more abrasive powders, while modifications could be made for sticky and corrosive materials.
“Roller gates are renowned for their reliability and efficiency in handling bulk materials such as sugar,” he said.
“These gates are ideal for applications where a material like sugar may leave you in a sticky situation with a different piece of equipment.”