Comparison of Elbows for Pneumatic Conveying of Plastics

Below is a chart comparing various types of elbow designs and how they perform against specific elbow-related problems in a pneumatic conveying system. Each elbow is rated by various categories including degradation, noise levels, downtime and costs. They can range on a scale of excellent to poor in relation to how that specific elbow performs in each situation.

Performance Comparison by Elbow Type When Conveying Plastics*

excellent Excellent good Good fair Fair poor Poor

 

ELBOW-RELATED FACTORS ELBOW TYPES
LONG RADIUS SWEEP ELBOWS CERAMIC-LINED ELBOWS PLUGGED TEES SPECIALTY IMPACT ELBOWS SPECIALTY DEFLECTION ELBOWS
STREAMERS, ANGEL HAIR, SNAKESKINS poor poor fair fair excellent
PELLET DEGRADATION AND GENERATION OF FINES poor poor fair fair excellent
NOISE LEVELS fair fair fair fair excellent
BUILD-UP AND PLUGGING fair fair poor poor excellent
WEAR RESISTANCE poor fair good good excellent
LONGEVITY poor fair good good excellent
REDUCED DOWNTIME poor fair good good excellent
SHORT TERM COSTS excellent fair fair fair fair
LONG TERM COSTS good fair good good excellent


*The above ratings are the opinions of HammerTek Corp. and are generalizations that do not apply to all applications. HammerTek offers free trials for users to accurately determine application-specific performance of Smart Elbow deflection elbows, and encourages users to consider the total costs that may occur when an elbow fails. Costs such as elbow replacements, maintenance, equipment rental, cleanup, lost production, etc. all negatively affect the operations of a plant and its bottom line.