How the Olds Elevator Works
An Olds elevator is a new class of bulk material elevator that provides metered mass flow for your product with only one moving part in contact with the material.
A tubular casing with attached intake scoops rotates around a static screw. (See Fig. 1)
Generous clearance is provided between the static screw and the casing. This clearance is an important feature that prevents product damage, casing wear and metal-on-metal contact.
Your bulk material in the feed hopper typically covers the intake scoops. The Olds elevator self-feeds at a controlled rate as it rotates.
Friction against the inner wall of the casing rotates your material and causes product resting on the screw flight to move gently up the inclined face of the screw in mass flow.
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Benefits:- Mass flow of materials maximizes “transport” (operational) efficiency by avoiding the back-flow or “leakage” of other methods.
- The full-bore flow helps to stabilize the static screw, preventing casing contact. No hanger bearings are needed. In fact all of the bearings can be external, eliminating issues of bearing-to-product contact.
- With no seals or bearings at the discharge, the elevator is well suited to handling difficult, hot, abrasive or corrosive bulk materials.
- The elevator’s gentle handling of your product avoids dust generation, and its mass flow excludes air needed to generate dust explosions. Additionally, by providing an inherent explosion barrier or choke, it can add safety to your system.
- The intake scoops provide a positive, controlled input of material that is proportional to casing speed. Thus the elevator serves as a volumetric feeder for any flow rate between zero and its maximum. Contrast this to other elevators that can only operate above a minimum speed, and some only at one speed.
- The flow of your material through an Olds elevator is always smooth and steady, without the pulsations experienced with conventional vertical screw elevators and bucket elevators. This steady mode of flow is gentle to the product and further minimizes particle damage and dust generation.
- The Olds elevator is also an intrinsically low-wear technology. This is due to the fact that the pressure of the product on the screw and casing is only due to the weight of what sits on each flight of the screw. Even on our largest elevators, this amounts to less than 2 PSI for a dense product like sand. Further, the low velocity of motion (less than 3 miles per hour linear speed max.) means there are no high-wear spots due to change of product direction.
- This means that an Olds Elevator can be expected to run for years with no need for repair, and negligible maintenance costs!
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