The movement of products in a processing system can affect profitability in bulk material handling facilities. Due to moisture or gravity, materials often clump together during storage, transport, or manufacturing. These lumps are undesirable, as they complicate processing. To minimize this clumping, manufacturers often use machines like lump breakers. Although their designs are relatively simple, these machines are highly effective for preparing bulk products for further processing.
The Lump Breaker: A Design That’s Simple Yet Effective
Known by myriad names like de-lumper, flake breaker, lump crusher, or lump disintegrator, lump breakers reduce agglomerated materials into smaller and more manageable particles. Regardless of the exact lump breaker design, these machines perform a critical task in bulk material processing, ensuring greater process efficiency while improving the end product's quality. The versatility of lump breaker design makes it valuable for pre-conditioning raw materials in preparation for downstream processes and conditioning the final product to be free of clumps and lumps.
Regardless of the lump breaker, designs serve to perform the following four functions:
- Conveying: Lumpy materials are more difficult to transport, particularly when using pneumatic conveying methods, though this inefficiency is also apparent with conveying materials via belt as well; the manner in which a lump breaker is designed helps condition dry powders to ensure a particle to air ratio that makes conveying more efficient, an aspect that also enables smoother operation of rotary valve feeders, screw feeders, vibrating feeders and other feeding implements.
- Deagglomeration: During transport or after considerable time in storage, dry bulk materials often form into clumps, becoming compressed as they naturally densify as finer particles are pulled down by gravity; this creates air pockets that then collapse and form into lumps, which can be further exasperated by humidity or other moisture.
Commonly, this occurs in:
- Day bins
- Intermediate bulk containers
- Rail cars
- Silos
- Super sacks
In many facilities that incorporate a lump breaker, designs for systems often locate the machine below silos or other containers to deagglomerate raw material to prepare it for discharge, which is common in sugar processing facilities.
- Efficiency: A key yet often overlooked aspect of lump breaker design involves how it adds greater value to other downstream processes while also reducing the risk of clogging or breakdowns due to agglomerated materials; tougher lumps can damage mesh, sieves or other screening equipment used to classify product, which aren’t built to break down agglomerated material.
- Transportation: Moving raw materials or finished product costs more when there are large lumps, as it takes more energy to transport substances with inconsistent particle densities; materials with more uniformly shaped and sized particles not only flow better, but they settle better, making loads more balanced.
No matter their exact design, lump breakers decrease downtime, enable greater processing speeds, and improve the consistency of finished products. This is the case regardless of their purpose or placement within a processing system that features a lump breaker. Designed to abrade, compress, impact, or shear, the humble lump breaker is a key piece of equipment that encourages better process flow throughout any material handling system.
How Lump Breaker Design Augments Material Flow
Lump-breaking machines are typically used before processes like blending, feeding, pneumatic conveying, and sifting of granular or powdered materials. They are often placed within chute, conveying, or duct systems. While the basic lump breaker design doesn’t vary much in appearance, the materials used depend on the specific application. Most lump breakers feature either a single or dual shaft, with screen sizes and shapes tailored to fit different needs.
Lump breakers enhance the mixing of powders by reducing agglomeration and making particles more uniform, resulting in more homogeneous mixtures. They help improve the quality of the final product by evenly distributing ingredients. When powders are mixed evenly, manufacturers can increase throughput without significantly raising energy consumption, boosting productivity.
In systems using a lump breaker, it is usually placed upstream from equipment that might get blocked by clumps of material. Jamming is common in many material processing systems, so preventing blockages can reduce downtime. This is why bulk powder processing systems often include at least one lump breaker, which is customized for specific applications to prevent downstream clogs.
Most lump breaker designs include these primary components:
- Combing bars (often referred to as “teeth”)
- Feed inlet and discharge outlet for product
- Motor and drive
- Reducer
- Rotating shaft(s)
However, many factors should be considered by manufacturers when examining the nuances of lump breaker design.
Processing concerns that factor into lump breaker design include:
- Size, percentage, and hardness of lumps in the product
- Density and flow rates of material into lump breaker
- Levels of fat, moisture, or oils within material being processed (may require non-stick coating)
- Whether product is coarse, granulated or powdery texture
Abrasive materials tend to wear machine parts quicker, so it’s often best to engage a vendor with a testing facility to work out a lump breaker design. In addition to rotor tip speed, lump breaker designs for the teeth should be carefully considered. Also, the manufacturer may prefer a variable frequency drive (VFD) for greater efficiency, which allows the machine to vary its speed as needed. Additionally, a lump breaker design that allows easy and safe access for removing and replacing the screen enables greater flexibility.
How a Lump Breaker is Designed to Operate
Typically, a dual-shaft lump breaker design features two rotors, whereas a single-shaft design features one. A lump breaker’s rotor will come equipped with blades, breaker bars, hammers, teeth, or other tooling, depending on the application and material being processed. These implements force material through a fixed grate opening, the width of which determines the size of particles that can pass through it. Though these rotating tools are designed to push material towards the middle of the machine where it’s crushed and ground, they also help prevent blockage around the grate.
Considerations for Lump Breaker Design
The exact lump breaker design needed for a particular application depends on a product’s material properties and the purpose for which the final product will be used. A knowledgeable vendor can help ascertain the best lump breaker design for the processed material and application.
Applications & Industries That Use Lump Breakers
Regardless of the exact lump breaker design specifications, these workhorses of material handling can process countless materials for a wide array of industrial applications. Lump breakers are used by the chemical, construction, food processing, mining, pharmaceutical, and many other sectors to efficiently process bulk materials. Regardless of the material being processed, the lump breaker design should aid deagglomeration and mixing processes to ensure uniform consistency with the product. This, in turn, enables smoother processing of granulated and powdered dry materials in bulk.
The diversity in lump breaker design means that these machines can handle multiple materials and varied applications across an array of different industries.
Prater Lump Breaker Designs
Prater Industries makes two broad categories of lump breaker designs, a standard model and an easy-to-clean model. Our standard version also comes as either a dual-shaft flake breaker model or as single-shaft lump breaker design, though both feature low profiles that allow easier positioning of the machines within a processing system. Equipped with blades that rotate in opposing directions, they work well for granulating or conditioning materials that become
Prater’s two basic lump breaker designs:
- Standard lump breaker: This lump breaker design offers a cost-effective way to reduce naturally agglomerated or deliberately compacted materials for a wide range of applications, including recycling and waste disposal.
- Quick-Clean lump breaker: This easy-to-clean lump breaker design offers a simpler means of disassembling the unit for cleaning and maintenance. The end plate and rotor can be disengaged from the drive and extracted from the machine on glide rail system without the use of tools.
Prater can tailor the machine to a customer’s needs, regardless of the lump breaker design. Prater can customize screens by shape and size and different construction materials that will best suit specific applications. With a Prater lump breaker, designs allow for easy replacement of screens and other internal components, enabling manufacturers to tailor materials to fit the application best. To learn more about Prater’s lump breakers and other material handling equipment, contact one of our representatives today.
