ABHR spoke with Pneuvay Engineering to find out what makes Vortex Global’s equipment suited to pneumatic conveying.
Quality components are the cornerstone of Pneuvay Engineering’s mission.
Established in 1982, the pneumatic conveying company has strived to exceed client expectation through reliable designs, dependable service, and conveying equipment that its customers can count on.
According to Paul Malcolm, general manager of sales and engineering at Pneuvay Engineering, that’s why the business supplies Vortex Global equipment.
“We approached them about 10 years ago and have included most of their equipment in our designs since,” he told ABHR. “Vortex products are exceptional – we feel as if it makes the only dedicated pneumatic conveying valves, especially for isolation gates.”
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Pneuvay has found Vortex’s equipment to be well suited to several common applications. Its range of Titan slide gates in particular have been used in several projects to restrict the flow of the conveyed material.
Vortex designed its Titan range to take on some of the most demanding applications when handling heavy-duty abrasive materials such as sand, gravel, coal, metal powders or minerals. They are often used in gravity flow applications where positive material shut-off and dust-tight sealing are required.
The range features a live-loaded, hard polymer bonnet seals that compensate for wear and provide material seal across the gate. These seals can be swapped while the valve is still in-service, reducing downtime.
The hard polymer seals have a compressed rubber backing to ensure that even as the polymer experiences frictional wear from many actuations over time, the rubber load seals continuously force the polymer seals against the sliding blade.
Malcolm said a quality seal is vital for pneumatic conveying purposes.
“Material we help convey can be highly abrasive and can damage normal valves. Vortex’s design means the valve body will last a lifetime and the seals can easily be removed and replaced without taking the entire valve out of position.”
Pneuvay has also benefitted from the flexibility of the slide gates. They can easily fit into a design, through a wide selection of gate positioning controls, position indication switches, and flanges. The gates also offer a wide variety of modifications to accommodate different temperatures, corrosive, humid, and explosive environments.
Titan slide gates offer a wide variety of actuation choices, including electric, hydraulic, pneumatic, chain wheel, and hand crank. Features include hardened steel cam-adjustable rollers, grease zerks, side-mounted switches, carbon steel contact, inlet or outlet transitions, seal access ports, and removable seals.
Most of Pneuvay’ s clients that use the Titan slide gates are in the mining sector, usually in processing facilities. Malcolm said the equipment can withstand the harsh conditions of the industry.
“Generally, they work well and we see repeat business from the client. They’re not coming back to us for spares, they’re buying seal kits,” he said.
Pneuvay operates a 24-hour service department, specialising in Victoria. In other states, it relies on relationships with other organisations to provide support.
Malcolm said that Pneuvay has been working with a few companies in Western Australia for more than 40 years.
“We’ve worked extremely hard to increase our visibility within the engineering, procurement and construction management sector,” he said. “We want to position ourselves to provide systems for the big companies in that market, and we’re seeing a lot of these plans come to fruition.
“Pneuvay can handle projects of all sizes and we hope to continue supporting projects both large and small.”
The company values its relationship with Vortex and has been able to draw on its expertise to help in the design phase.
Pneuvay will specify what it needs from the supplier, which can provide several options to meet the requirements.
Malcolm said he has been impressed by Vortex’s commitment to getting things correct when it comes to finding the right tool for the job.
“If they don’t have a suitable valve, they won’t put something forward just for the sake of it – they will only ever provide what we need and aren’t afraid to say no,” he said.
“Vortex provides us with a range of high-quality valves and we’re really happy to be working along with them. Almost anything can be custom built for the task, which has been fantastic.
“They’ve been a great partner for us and a natural fit into our business model of exceeding customer expectations.”