Keep product moving by preventing buildup, bridging and ratholing.

When your bottom line depends on moving product efficiently through your plant, obstructions in the flow of material can bring profitability to a complete stop. When working with bulk solids, especially in high-moisture environments, the material flow characteristics can change. This causes buildup in chutes and hoppers, contributing to bridging and ratholing, reducing or stopping material flow.

In addition to the reduction in profitability, material obstructions can pose a safety risk for workers when they attempt to manually loosen the obstruction. This typically involves beating the equipment with a hammer or poking and/or air lancing.

If your operation seems to undergo frequent shut-downs due to material blockages, talk to one of our experts. We’re standing ready to listen to you describe your operation and offer recommendations on how to keep things moving. Our technicians and engineers are available to provide expert advice and assistance on all of your bulk material handling questions and problems.

Our Solutions For Your Biggest Challenges:

Air Cannon Solutions

Prevent buildup on interior walls with bursts of compressed air.

Vibration Solutions

Keep bulk solids flowing through chutes, hoppers, silos and more with vibration.

We Solved Their Problems!

Let us help you solve yours as well. All products and services provided by Martin Engineering carry our Absolutely No Excuses Guarantee. If we don't solve your problem, we will fully refund your money or provide a different solution for you. Period.

Flow Aid Solutions Reduce Production Outages At Cement Plant

A cement plant in Matozinhos, Brazil is one of Brazil’s leading cement production facilities. Opened in 1959, the plant produces 660,000 (600,000 metric tons) tons of clinker per year. The need to improve efficiency and maintain production without outages led company officials to consider ways to improve flow through the plant’s pre-heater tower.

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Air Cannons Knock Down Sticky Coal From Hopper Walls

A power plant was having trouble with coal conditions. The material was wet and slightly sticky, which made it stick to the walls of the hopper, so much so that the material would accumulate and create a blockage in the hopper. Production couldn’t run smoothly, requiring temporary shutdowns so employees could manually knock down the material from the walls of the hopper.

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Industrial Vibrators And Air Cannons Clear Blockage In Hopper

A steel plant was having trouble with iron ore sticking to the walls of the hopper. The wet and slightly sticky material would accumulate in the hopper creating a blockage. Production couldn’t run smoothly and the plant had to hire people to continuously knock material off the wall of hopper to keep the flow of material running smoothly.

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Air Cannons Eliminate Need For Water Blasting

A plant used water blasting to remove material buildups from the pre-heater tower’s riser duct. Personnel were required to open access doors into the tower twice a day to remove the accumulations with a high-pressure water spray. The water blasting caused production problems, dropping lumps into the kiln feed, downgrading kiln efficiency and clinker quality.

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Flow Aids Return Plant To Designed Production Rate

Material would build up at the inlet to the pre-heater tower. These accumulations choked the flow of material, reducing the plant’s production from its design rate of 3,000 to 2,700 tons per day. To regain capacity, the plant would take unscheduled outages to allow manual cleaning of the ducts. After cleaning, the buildup would resume, with flow choked again within ten days.

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MartinPLUS^® Installation Services Gets Rave Reviews From Happy Client

A power generating station needed to improve the performance of a vibratory feed chute. To improve the situation, MartinPLUS^® Services installed an electric vibrator on the feeder pan. The crew also removed the existing UHMW lining and replaced the cables that suspend the vibrating pan. The new feeder and chutes work as projected.

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Air Cannons Eliminate Blockages Caused By Sticky Iron Ore

At the largest cement producer in Texas, when iron ore would come in wet, or it would rain, the ore got very sticky and would stick to the inside of the silo. TXI would shut down for regular 24 hour periods so they could manually air lance the resulting blockage that was causing low feed rates. Working with Martin Engineering, they developed a plan to install a series of air cannons.

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Power Plant No Longer Banging On Silos To Keep Coal Flowing

The plant has had a problem with blockage in the coal silo since it started operation and has manually solved the problem by hammering the silo walls. In some cases the blockage was very serious and completely stopped the flow of material inside the silo discharge. The plant has been running at reduced efficiency and has had to stop production to remove the blockage manually.

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Salt Buildup At Chemical Plant Causing Frequent Shutdowns

At the Arkema Group chemical site in France, a salt storage facility that stores and supplies salt had developed a lot of buildup from carryback along the belt. This buildup required a stop every six months for manual clean-up. After reviewing the system, Martin Engineering recommended two solutions.

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Martin^® Silo Cleaning and Air Cannons Prevent Limestone from Clogging and Shutting Down the Silo

A Drake Cement facility north of Paulden, AZ was experiencing clogging issues on a weekly basis, forcing maintenance personnel to spend up to 10 hours to clear the blockage using tools and compressed air.

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Free Engineering and Application Assistance

Our technicians have solved problems for people in your industry all over the world. Take advantage of our wealth of knowledge. Tell us about your situation today to learn how Martin can improve your performance, safety and bottom line - with no obligation. We want to ensure that you choose the right solution for your exact needs and we are willing to invest the time upfront to get it right the first time.

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Air Cannons - Prepare Now & Save Later

If you know you’ll need to install air cannon nozzles down the road, take advantage of scheduled downtime by installing new flanges now. Once they’re installed, they can easily be sealed until you’re ready to upgrade to new equipment. Plus, we’ll supply the new flanges and installation kit at no cost!

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Save With Our Martin^® Walk the Belt™ Service!

Every conveyor is different, even within the same facility! We can provide regularly-scheduled reviews of your bulk material handling system components, involving a specialized crew with the expertise necessary to achieve high operating standards, keeping the conveyor system running at maximum productivity. Immediate data and photos will be available to facility managers and our suggestions will ensure long-term savings and efficiency.

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