Severe-duty Bulk Bag Discharger Speeds Downstream Processes

Feb. 5, 2011 - PRLog -- A leading pharmaceutical company had serious challenges discharging a primary ingredient into their process due to the condition of the material when packaged in bulk bags. The crystalline pharmaceutical material severely agglomerated into a single 2000 pound lump that needed to be fractured into much smaller chunks in order to discharge and unload the material from the bulk bags. Extensive pre-conditioning of the bulk bag was required by the pharmaceutical company to discharge the material. The previous bulk bag unloading equipment was not robust enough to cause the material to discharge from the bulk bags. Additionally the material handling equipment did not prevent contaminants from entering the pharmaceutical materials. The machine operators resorted to "pre-conditioning" the bag with whatever means they had available in order to unload the materials from the bulk bag system. It was not uncommon in these cases to see operators using baseball bats, sledgehammers, and fork trucks to get the material to unload from the bulk bags. Unloading materials that were in a blocked condition with substandard equipment was extremely labor intensive and resulted in unsafe operating conditions.

The pharmaceutical company contacted NBE for a solution to their bulk material discharging problems. The pharmaceutical maker was aware of the NBE reputation for supplying reliable bulk bag equipment that provides real solutions to customer material handling problems. The complete bulk bag discharging solution required the pharmaceutical material in the bag to be pre-conditioned and discharged in the same processing operation so that the bag’s discharge spout could stay sealed to the product feed tube. The NBE process solution to this customer’s discharger challenges was to utilize the NBE deblocking ram technology in conjunction with massage paddles, a spout lump deblocker, and the E3 spout interface system. Multiple ribs along the deblocking ram face plates direct powerful point loads into the hardened material. The pharmaceutical material is fractured into very small lumps within the bag without causing any damage to the bag itself. The spout lump deblocker fractures any lumps that get lodged in the discharge spout to keep material flowing from the bag at all times. The E3 discharge spout interface ensures a sanitary closed discharging process.

Implementation of the NBE severe-duty bulk bag discharging system created a sanitary closed bulk bag discharging process while eliminating the need for the operators to beat on bags with sledge hammers and baseball bats. The time to discharge a complete bag of material was reduced from 1 1/2 hours to 15 minutes. This discharge system integration greatly improved the processing line’s productivity and throughput, as well as drastically improving operator safety.

For further details, visit: http://www.nbe-inc.com/bbd

To view National Bulk Equipment bulk bag discharger systems in action, view bulk bag discharger video at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k34QMT1Ux4



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National Bulk Equipment, Inc. manufacturers automated bulk material handling equipment and integrated systems including bulk bag unloaders; bulk bag fillers; tote, drum, gaylord dumpers and fillers; bulk material blending systems; and agitator hoppers.