Food Processing Equipment
Multi-Media Abraser Employed to Reduce System Component Wear in Food Processing Equipment
Application:
A large scale producer of sugar cane wanted to determine which materials in their process were causing erosion of system components due to the abrasive action of the entrained particulate matter.
Analysis:
The Taber Industries Multi-Media Abraser was selected as a potential solution to help investigate the causes of erosive wear. Testing using the Multi-Media Abraser involves erosion of three brass pins by a suspension or slurry that passes between the pins and a steel wear plate. The resulting abrasive action wears down the pins relative to the abrasiveness of the entrained particulates.
Particulate slurries were created for each material using distilled water as the medium. The slurries were placed into the specimen dish of the Multi-Media Abraser and the testing commenced. After a specified number of cycles the testing was stopped and the weight loss of the brass pins measured. Analysis of the results showed significant differences in weight loss of the pins depending on the material being evaluated. Utilizing this information it was easy to rank the performance of the different materials and show which were most responsible for component wear.
Benefit:
Having this type of information on hand would allow the customer to implement different filtration techniques in those critical areas required to reduce component wear in their process.
