Eugene, OR. — Three new aspiration low pressure systems with mechanical conveying and waste storage was recently designed, fabricated and installed for Spearfish Forest Products in Spearfish, SD. Planers and molders require aspiration air systems for a quality final product, our decades of experience in dust control design is well known and trusted in the wood products industry.
Western Pneumatics will analyze an existing dust control system and redesign the system to improve all machine center performance and integrate new equipment into the air system with the most efficient energy consumption design. With thousands of dust control systems under our belt, we have accumulated a huge library of new and used equipment design specifications and we are always working with equipment manufacturers with their new equipment performance requirements.
Along with our pneumatic system knowledge, we also design mechanical conveying equipment and incorporate our past experiences to provide the best solution for correct conveyor selection and operation. En-masse conveyors and truck storage bins have existed in our product line for over 35 years and are used throughout North America.
The Ask
Customers need to integrate new equipment and improve production levels to meet demand, they can ill-afford to shut down while making plant process changes. The Spearfish Forest Products team was confident Western Pneumatics could assist them in making their desired upgrades safely and in a timely manner.
What We Did
Integrating relocated truck bins, mechanically moving large volumes of planer and molder shavings, working with recently purchased used low pressure pneumatics equipment and have it all installed while the plant continues to operate was the challenge in Spearfish. Layout engineering, determining and manufacturing new pneumatics parts, installing all systems in the proper sequence and finally start-up and commissioning made this project a success. Our multi-dimensional talents for this type of mill conversion with an on-time completion allowed the mill to avoid skipping a beat with production.
Products We used
New air aspiration systems with mild steel and spiral lock pipe, gored elbows, rubber tipped airlocks, cyclone inlet and outlet fittings, molder riser piping, fan RPM re-design completed the dust control portion of this expansion. A new en-masse chain conveyor with a turning “elbow” allowed the enclosed conveyor to start traveling horizontal and then inclining to the truck bin complex. The en-masse conveyor cleanly carried all pneumatics system shavings and sawdust by-product to the leveling screw system of the truck bin complex. Western Pneumatics has a truck storage bin line. In the case of Spearfish, existing truck bins were purchased by Spearfish, transported to the plant site and installed, we confirmed the clam shell doors and screw leveling system would operate as intended based on mass flow rates.
Results
We are happy to report all systems with new and used equipment were properly designed, installed and commissioned on time resulting in another happy customer.
