Robust and reliable recovery system designed for heavy-duty sandblasting facilities.
A mechanical recovery system uses a screw conveyor system and a bucket elevator to collect residual abrasive media from blasting operations and clean it through an air wash separator, which separates reusable media from dust and foreign particulate matters.
The mechanical recovery system is the ideal solution for maximizing the blaster’s productivity while minimizing required care and maintenance of the system components. Also, there are no limits when it comes to the type of abrasive media used in the process or the contaminants that might chip at the workpiece during operations – a mechanical system will move the dirty media mix without restrictions and at a much faster rate than a pneumatic system.
The key advantages of a mechanical abrasive recovery system:
After contact with workpieces, abrasive media falls on the floor and mixes with the blasting process by-products – paint chips, rust, scale, shattered media, solid debris, etc. The dirty media mix is then pushed through floor hoppers (excavated in the floor) or shoveled into hoppers located above the ground.
In a hybrid abrasive recovery system, the dirty media mix is conveyed by worm screws to a transfert hopper, then it is draft in urethane duct work up to rotary drum media separator where light particles are separated based on their specific density through a set of adjustable air streams and deflectors. When exiting the rotary drum system, dust and foreign particulate matter can be collected separately, and only reusable media still in good shape is returned to the blast pot for further operations.
Although a hybride abrasive recovery system is more expensive to implement than a pneumatic abrasive recovery system, it provides an exceptional return on investment when considering the overall process expenses related to downtimes, productivity, maintenance, and operation.
Let’s take a closer look at the key components of the hybride abrasive recovery system.
The screw conveyor system collects and conveys the dirty media mix from the floor hoppers to the recycling system.
It consists of a set of long auger assemblies that move the media mix all the way to the end of the room, where the load is discharged into a bigger transverse auger assembly.
At the end of the transverse auger assembly, the whole blast booth load is then discharged into a transfer hopper where it is then draft by urethane duct work up to the rodary drum media separator.
The endless screw is a key component of the hybrid recovery system. Its innovative design, with only rugged parts, reduces wear and tear caused by friction with abrasive media. The auger’s shaft and steel flights are made of steel alloys specially designed to withstand incredibly heavy load demands. All Kresco augers are built to CEMA standards.
Unlike the competition, our design consists of a direct drive 2 hp motor, on each auger independently, which rotates at a slow 2 rpm speed. This significantly reduces the blast booth’s energy consumption and eliminates the need to constantly adjust the strap on regular belt drive motors.
The shaft is supported by suspension brackets with steel bushings to facilitate the auger’s calibration, alignment, and maintenance. Between the shaft and the suspension bracket, friction is absorbed by the hanger bearing, which is one of the rare pieces of equipment that requires special attention in a mechanical abrasive blast facility.
Indeed, this sacrificial component needs to be replaced after several hours of operation in order to keep the screw-conveyor system in smooth running condition and avoid wearing out critical components. But no worries – it is a 10-minute job when you get used to it.
Kresco offers different storage hoppers ranging from 6.4 cu. ft. to over 100 cu. ft. The storage hopper is usually located between the air wash separator and the pressure blast pot to temporarily stock an abrasive media reserve in order to refill the blast pot when it runs out of media.
Our screw conveyor design provides self-limiting features to prevent overloading the blast recovery system at the bucket elevator during the recycling process.
The bucket elevator also has a high-level media detector to prevent overfilling the storage hopper. When the bucket elevator stops hauling, the screw conveyor stops feeding it in order to avoid overloading the recovery system.
Learn More About Storage Hoppers
Floor hoppers are protected by removable steel grating rated to 1,000 lbs. per square foot. Other capacities are available to allow lift trucks and other material handling equipment to circulate above.
Since the media falls freely through the grating, all contaminants can be easily conveyed by the augers without the risk of clogging the system, unlike with the pneumatic abrasive recovery system.
This abrasive media recovery system is available with a choice of two abrasive media cleaning technologies, each designed to remove contaminants from the recovered media and return only clean, reusable abrasive media to the blast pot. Both systems help maximize blasting performance, maintain consistent process quality, and reduce abrasive media consumption.
Learn More About the Rotary Sieve Drum Separator
Learn More About the Cyclonic Separator
A full-floor recovery system only requires a 6.4 cu. ft. storage hopper to run uninterrupted blasting operations. This system continuously collects abrasive media after contact with the workpiece and unceasingly feeds the recovery system. Therefore, by the time the 6.4 cu. ft. blast pot runs empty, the 6.4 cu. ft. storage hopper is full and ready to refill the pot. Not only does the full-floor recovery system maximize the blaster’s productivity and reduce the effort by eliminating the need to load the floor hopper manually, it also allows for a more compact system and a significantly reduced amount of circulating abrasive media into the system – usually, 2.5 times the blast pot, so approximately 16 cu. ft. of media.
On the other hand, partial floor coverage requires a much bigger storage hopper since that the operator must shovel residual abrasive media down the hopper to feed the recovery system, and eventually the storage hopper. Therefore, the size of the storage hopper must be oversized to at least 10-to-30 cubic feet if the operator wants to refill the blast pot without cleaning the floor each time it runs empty.
A mechanical loading recovery system has the advantage of using a powerful mechanical loader to clean the floor. Then, the amount of residual abrasive media left on the floor is not a concern as it is with traditional systems where the operator must manually shovel the blast media into the hoppers. However, to ensure uninterrupted blasting operations, the storage hopper must be able to hold enough abrasive media to last a day or two. So, a very large 50-to-100 cubic feet storage hopper is advised in this system.
Oversizing the storage hopper results in elevating the bucket elevator accordingly and feeding the system with more abrasive media.
In summary, the desired size of the storage hopper – in other words, the number of refilling cycles desired without the need to clean the floor – sets the minimum ceiling clearance for the bucket elevator, which is the highest component of the mechanical recovery system, as well as the required quantity of media in circulation.
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