Sanitary Installations Compressed Air: Fill & Download for Free

Mollenberg-Betz Plumbing ServicesMollenberg-Betz, a Western New York-based mechanical contractor, has served a broad range of clients since 1910. We take pride in our tradition of providing customers with high quality design, construction, installation, and service — from concept to completion.PLUMBINGLicensed, Bonded, InsuredCommercial, Institutional, IndustrialMaster Plumbers on StaffSERVICESAcid damage & venting systemsBackflow certification & repairsCompressed Air SystemDrain Cleaning / JettingExcavation & BackfillGrease Interceptor (Traps)Jetter ServiceMedical Gas SystemsNatural Gas Piping SystemsSanitary & Storm Drainage SystemsVideo InspectionWater Filtration Systems24/7 Emergency & Scheduled ServiceFor more details, visit: Plumbing | Acid damage & venting systems | Mollenberg-Betz in Buffalo

Polyethylene (PE) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) are the plastic pipes most often used for underground utility construction.Some in the PE market estimate that 90 percent of the natural gas pipe installed historically decade is PE pipe.PVC proponents claim that more linear feet of PVC water and sewer pipe is being installed today than all other types of pipe combined.PE and PVC have several characteristics in common, but also significant differences. Both are light in weight, do not corrode and are resistant to chemical and bacteriological buildup. PE is more flexible than PVC. A primary difference is the way lengths of pipe are joined together and to other pipe materials. Compressed air or gases ought to not be introduced in to PVC pipes.The Plastics Pipe Institute (PPI) represents manufacturers of PE pipe and actively promotes the use of PE products. The Uni-Bell PVC Pipe Association does the same for member companies who manufacturer PVC pipe. The sections that follow summarize characteristics of the two types of pipes and are based on information provided by the two associations.Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) PipePVC is widely used for:* Water mains and service lines;* Sewers;* Irrigation;* Conduit and duct;* Drain, waste and vent pipes; and* Various industrial applications.PE pipe is used for a variety of applications, including distribution of pressurized natural gas, pipelines carrying petroleum and petroleum products and chemicals, underground loops for geothermal heating and cooling systems, distribution of compressed gases and air, potable water mains and service lines, and sanitary and storm sewer systems. Corrugated PE pipe is used for storm sewers and highway drainage systems.@https://www.electrikals.com/products/rc-pvc-conduit-fittings/pvc-pipes?cnid=76&cid=684&page=1&pagesize=20

Full disclosure: I work for MPE, a company that makes tubular drag conveyors.Just so it doesn’t sound like I’m writing this to plug my own company’s product, I’ll also mention competitors like Luxme, Schrage, Spiroflow, Cablevey, and Hapman who all make quality tubular drag conveyors. There is mutual respect within the industry and additionally some manufacturers have particular wheelhouses of expertise. Conveyor systems are often custom designed for a specific application, so you may benefit from working with a manufacturer who is familiar with your application.For this answer I’ll only be talking about the core differences between cable and chain tubular drag conveyors. Other things to consider in a tubular drag conveyor are puck/disc designs, CIP cleaning options, discharges and inlets, turnarounds, tensioners, oxygen-free conveyance, etc. But I’ll save those for another time.The differences I want to focus on are:Sanitary food grade designReliable operation, maintenance time spent, and spare parts costLimitationsClaimed differences that simply aren’t true1) Sanitary, cross-contamination preventing designNot all foods/applications require the same level of vigilance on sanitary design. For instance, roasted coffee production doesn’t require full CIP (Clean-In-Place wet-wash) conveyors, whereas raw meats do.In most cases, cable tubular drag conveyors can be engineered to work. But there are cautions to keep in mind. For example, a braided cable has the ability to harbor product or dust between each little braid. The usual solution is to add something like a motorized brush box or compressed air nozzle in the conveyor circuit. These solutions though can’t remove all particles, all of the time, because some particles can still bury themselves in between the braids. For this reason braided cables haven’t worked well for some customers we know, where they’ve gotten sub-standard batches.Cable tubular conveyor manufacturers do have a solution though, which is to wrap the cable in a nylon jacket. The nylon jacket prevents any product, flavors, and allergens from getting into the braids, which makes these cables potentially suitable even for extremely sanitary environments. But only for as long as your cable has zero cuts, cracks, and nicks in the nylon; which can and do happen.Chain tubular drag conveyors though don’t have braids, nor do they get cuts, nicks, or cracks in the chain. This improves your conveyor’s sanitation, and better prevents cross-contamination. The inherent robustness of chain, especially in the long run, carries over to my next point as well.2) Reliable operation, maintenance time spent, and spare parts costLet me indulge a story: Someone I know was working at a packaging facility for coffee and after an emergency shut down had to restart a cable tubular conveyor system. No problem right? They were wrong. The load of the coffee in the conveyor resulted in the cable connector pulling apart at the seams. The whole cable had to be removed and re-installed, with 200 lbs of salable coffee wasted on the floor. Eventually they got a retrofit kit to convert the cable system to chain.Comparing similarly sized conveyors, chain is simply stronger than cable. The tensile strength of a chain inside a typical 4–6″ diameter conveyor including the connector link can exceed 14,000 lb. In fact, chain tubular drag conveyors can pretty much guarantee full load starting without the risk of breaking.This greater strength translates not only into more reliable operation, but lower maintenance and spare parts cost. Even my competitor Spiroflow who manufactures both cable and chain tubular drag conveyors, states on their website:The heavy-duty chain drag conveyor is more robust and will last longer due to the strength of the chain compared to the strength of the cable.But what if having a stronger, longer lasting chain also meant being able to do more with your design? My next point shows how having a stronger medium during the design stage allows for more capability and imagination.3) LimitationsRelated to strength, the high tensile strength of chain means engineers can run farther distances, higher verticals, and even more turns than cable. Below is a drawing of a chain tubular drag conveyor for green coffee. Green coffee has a bulk density of 38 lb/ft^3 and is quite abrasive (high drag coefficient). The conveyor’s product vertical is about 51 ft with a total conveyor height of 55.5 ft.This conveyor can start from full stop under full load—and has been doing so since 2016.I’m not trying to promise that chain tubular drag conveyors can move everything. Nor am I saying that a cable tubular drag conveyor is incapable of achieving the same feat. But from an engineering perspective, when comparing similarly sized conveyors, chain can go farther, higher, and longer while still affording greater reliability.There are limitations with any conveyor. The best way to find out is to test and validate your application. I’m fairly certain all conveyor manufacturers have testing labs of their own for you to test your product; just as we do, which actually leads to my final point of validating other claims you may hear about cable and chain conveyors.4) Claimed differences that simply aren’t trueI’ve come across a claim that cable is gentler than chain. I’ve never heard of any theoretical engineering hypotheses for how this could be true, let alone any actual evidence to back this claim. Our tubular drag conveyor rates are always estimated at 80% pocket fill, so there’s plenty of room for the chain links to bend and turn during conveyance. I’m happy to provide data that our chain conveyors have breakage rates between 0 and 1% depending on the application, which by any customer we’ve talked to, is comparable if not better than cable. The truth is breakage has much more to do with inlet and discharge design, as well as disc/puck design. That’s why you’ll want to work with a manufacturer who is familiar with your application.An actual photo (above) of us hand sorting pistachios to measure breakage in our tubular chain conveyors. This test was done for a customer who already had a cable tubular drag conveyor. In short, the results were near zero; they’re using chain now, and have bought more of our conveyors since.Another claim is that cable is quieter than chain. Again, I’m all ears (pun intended) if there are data to support this, but I’ve never seen it, not even a single testimonial. From an engineering standpoint, a taut chain—like cable—creates virtually no noise during conveyance no matter how many bends and turnarounds there are. Noise is either created from contact between the product and inner tubular walls or the contact between the pucks and the walls. In both cases, these have everything to do with the manufacturer’s ability to engineer lower friction pucks, ideal puck pitch (distance between each puck), the choice of pipe, conveyor speed, and so forth. Or in other words, basically everything other than the chain or cable itself.In closingI hope this has offered some knowledge into cable and chain systems. If you’d like to learn more about MPE’s chain tubular drag conveyors, we’ve got customer testimonials, on-location videos, and specs on our conveyors. Just take a look at a recent system MPE did (pictured below).