Rotary Airlock Feeder Improvement

Medium Density Fibreboard ( MDF ) manufacturing requires processing of raw wood into boards. During this process, the raw tree woods are crushed into fine particles & turned into strong pieces of processed wood boards by blending & curing process.

Rotary air lock feeder is widely used in this process to prevent the loss of air while transferring dry bulk wood particles at a controlled rate of displacement. Though not one-hundred percent airtight, they are precision built, therefore can meter the flow of materials with minimal loss of air. 
Due to abrasive nature of the fine wood particles, the rotary air lock shell surface wear of regularly.
Worn Our rotary shell can cause air to leak & reduce the efficiency of the rotary feeder.

Introducing Hardox^® 450 to replace S275jr for the shell of rotary has been very challenging as the process requires precision machining. However, it was Do-able & 0.2mm tolerance was achieved between the spindle & shell.

This yielded a good performance in terms of service life extension & reduced the requirement of high number spares.

This also helped client on better process control & increased reliability of the equipment.