Similar Materials – Easily Broken

Gallery: 2 Pictures

Gallery: 2 Pictures

Fig. 1: The major advantage of tubular drag cable conveyors is that they don’t cause much breakage. (Pictures: Cablevey Conveyors)

Tubular drag cable conveyors are somewhat unconventional – not speedy or particularly high-volume. However, this extremely flexible conveyor system has the big advantage that it doesn't cause much breakage, even if very friable materials are conveyed. In addition, this type of conveyor can feed and pick up materials from virtually any place within a facility.

Not everybody active in bulk materials handling is necessarily familiar with the tubular drag cable conveyor. They are unconventional; not speedy or particularly high-volume. And they are typically used to convey talc or food materials like almonds, pistachios, peanuts, roasted coffee and breakfast cereal. Their big advantage is that they cause minimal breakage.

Admittedly, they wouldn’t come to mind immediately for conveying lime or reclaimed cement. There are however a number of reasons to consider the use of a tubular drag cable conveyor.

First, they have been used successfully under the most stringent international standards by the top ten food, cereal, nut and coffee companies in the world.

Second, and most important, they have a place in every industry where breakage may occur. This includes between two pieces of equipment that make material more friable such as an oven or extruder; or any kind of metering device conveyed into packaging.

A tubular drag conveyor can feed and pick up materials from virtually any place within a facility. From bag dumps and mezzanines, through walls, at waist-height or 90 degrees from the inlet hopper or silo, simply because they are extremely flexible.

One might not ordinarily think of tubular drag cable conveyors when specifying a solution for a process or project. But they are particularly valuable for processing friable materials, because in this case breakage rates become more critical as the cost of raw materials rise. In other words, the processing method can affect the bottom line.

Different Conveyor

Cablevey Conveyors started out by getting requests to replace other types of conveyors – but those conveyors obviously have a place in many processing environments, so the company started to ask customers why they were buying this equipment.

The answers received by Cablevey typically was one of the following:

• Need for a customized solution.
• Materials are getting sheared going into the inlet of the down stream process.
• Materials are accumulating in the elbows.
• Clean-up is taking too long.
• Existing open systems are attracting critters.
• Breakage rates are over specifications, something in the process needs to be changed.