Designers and builders of new plants are facing ever-increasing contractual obligations for starting up on time and at design rates with only minimal operator involvement. Those that don't deliver are exposed to severe liquidated damage penalties. A single new project that does not produce can cost a company heavily in both dollars and reputation.

Even if you haven't encountered these problems yet, you eventually might, considering today's tough demands of increased production rates, tight quality control and minimization of product loss. Flow problems during manufacture may result in off-spec material and, ultimately, dissatisfied customers, which will translate into lower sales and poor company image. If you are currently experiencing solids handling difficulties, we can help you eliminate them. Or, if you are developing a new product, we can utilize our industry-leading technology to help you ensure a smooth startup and avoid penalties and production losses down the road.

• Debottlenecked production operations through:
  • high speed transfer chute designs for increased throughput and pluggage elimination
  • high rate discharge systems, including specialized fluidized feeding of fines and concentrates
• Improved product quality through:
  • inventory analysis techniques for compositional feed control
  • elimination of fines/coarse material segregation [220K QuickTime video]
  • reduction in attrition of highly porous structures, e.g., sponge-forms
• Upgraded process reliability and safety through:
  • elimination of vibrations in silos, bunkers, and tanks
  • reliable and efficient reprocessing of tailings, dust collector fines, and off-spec materials
  • optimization of roaster feed systems, green ball and smelter pelletization, DRI reactor efficiency
• Provided benchmarking and modeling studies
  • kilns, pelletization, briquetting, sizing, and fixed bed reactor flow

Client confidentiality prevents us from discussing most of our projects. The following case studies were written with the consent of our clients.

Some of the metals handling equipment we have designed and supplied:

• Mass flow screw feeder for copper concentrate
• Bin with insert, slide gate, and mass flow screw feeder for molybdenum concentrate
• Mass flow insert retrofit for pyramidal steel powder hoppers
• Mass flow screw feeder and discharge chute for zinc oxide
• Bin with transition hopper and screw feeder for manganese oxide

Some of the metals we have handled:

A partial listing of the metals handling companies with which we have worked: