May 19, 2020

4 Min Read
Dual-Stage Lump Breaker Increases Efficiency, ROI
Schutte Hammermill high-capacity, dual-shaft lump breaker

From uncontrolled storage temperatures that cause agglomeration to recovery and capitalization of a waste stream, there are many products and applications that require a lump breaker to provide a flowable product to feed into the processing line. Products can be abrasive, caustic, sanitary--the list goes on. Schutte Hammermill offers a variety of sizes, configurations, and material finishes in lump breakers to best fit the application demands.

A recent client came to Schutte Hammermill with a unique challenge. This client produces a variety of custom-shaped products from graphite. These shapes range from small rods to complex blocks. When their internal quality control rejects a piece in any of the various stages of the production process those components accumulate as valuable scrap material that can be reclaimed for later processing. However, the scrap pieces need to first be processed into a smaller, more uniform particle size. 

In order to handle the variable sizes of the feed stock, the Schutte Hammermill team engineered a high-capacity, dual-shaft lump breaker with a hammer and comb rotor design to pre-crush the material into a manageable size. Doing so allowed for the downstream hammer mill to be sized properly and therefore meet the production scale as efficiently as possible. Without the inclusion of the lump breaker at the beginning of the processing line, the hammer mill would have needed to be sized much larger than necessary to fit the bulky infeed material.

Now the client can process any variety of infeed material down to a 100-200-mesh powder with only one operator interface to the process. The return on investment for this client justified the project because it touched a number of cost points within the organization: lost material with associated labor and machining time, disposal fees, and the need to run multiple batches in order to produce one batch of finished product.

The key to providing a successful single- or dual-shaft lump breaker is the configuration of the rotor and combs. Much like a shredder, the tooth or crushing disc profile will offer the ideal action against the incoming materials in order to allow them to pass through efficiently by grabbing the product and pulling it through the mill. Also in this particular case, the objective was to prevent product kick back and control dust. The dual shaft was selected so it will orientate the various infeed sizes and pull them through the center of the unit. Compared to a single shaft unit that would require a larger diameter disc and be less effective in grabbing the product. Additionally, the loading mechanism for delivering product to the system required the rotors to have some headload, so a low profile rotor was selected so that it could churn through the headload with little impedance. The individually driven shafts also allowed for efficient reversing of the rotors if an unexpected product, such as a tool or piece of metal that could potentially jam the rotor.

No screens are used in this stage, as the purpose is only to reduce the bulky infeed material and keep the product moving through the process with as little dwell time as possible. There is little wear and access for maintenance and cleaning is simple.

From start to finish, Schutte Hammermill and the Bengal Machine family of equipment manufacturers provided a custom-configured, turnkey system for size reduction and material handling needs, ensuring that the system integrates as one unit, and has the control platform to manage the system.

For more information on Bengal Machine | Schutte Hammermill (Buffalo, NY), call 800-447-4634 or visit www.hammermills.com.

Here are size reduction-related articles that may interest you:

Identifying a Pin Mill for Optimal Performance and Minimal Downtime
Tech Talk: Hammer Mills and the Attrition Zone
Customized Lump Breaker Solves Process Line Challenges

 

Sign up for the Powder & Bulk Solids Weekly newsletter.

You May Also Like