Maximising Screening with Predictive Screen Maintenance

Screening is a process that is very important in industries like mining, mineral processing, agriculture, recycling, waste management, and many more. It intends to take and separate slurry or granulated ore material into multiple grades by particle size. The vibration and any other types of motion of screening equipment help group the materials according to their size, with the screen media handling the filtration of finer materials from larger chunks of solid material or even liquid.

Factors that Affect Screening Efficiency

For a screening process to be efficient and successful, you need to check on some factors that you can control. First, you need to assess your aggregate size and composition. There will be some instances where your aggregate might have sharp materials that can tear your screen media. So, make sure that your screening equipment has the appropriate materials to handle more aggressive materials. Second, you need to check on the volumetric feed rate. Any harmless rocks may become spiky missiles when they move very fast, which can also affect the quality of your equipment.

Some factors on your screening equipment itself must also be assessed. For one, the material’s angle of entry can directly affect the operation profile of your equipment’s sorting deck. The apertures lining the screen will be narrow if the materials do not land perpendicular to the screen surface. Fortunately, any vibratory mechanism can solve this issue. Another thing that you must consider is your vibratory efficiency. The oscillating motors of your equipment may act as a sieving mechanism. However, they must be maintained for them to be efficient. Too much vibratory energy is also not recommended as the particles may leave the boundaries of your deck.

Predictive Screen Maintenance is Vital

Screen tearing, contamination, blinding, and dampening are only a few factors that affect screening efficiency. But knowing and controlling numerous variables can help you avoid these factors from ruining the efficiency and effectiveness of your screening process. Luckily, predictive screen maintenance solutions have been developed to help mitigate all issues that revolve around screen performance and protection.

Predictive screen maintenance solutions are effective since they utilise advanced sensors that are attached to the screen itself. These sensors are bound to collect data on how the equipment operates and functions. And with artificial intelligence, the gathered data is then used to provide condition monitoring and predict potential issues on your equipment and its screening process. Any unplanned screening downtime or impending failures is minimised with the insights provided by the collected data.

With predictive screen maintenance, you can expect to control repair costs, avoid warranty costs for failure recovery, eliminate causes of failure, and reduce unplanned downtime. It can also employ non-intrusive testing techniques for the evaluation and computation of asset performance trends. Some methods that can be used are thermodynamics, acoustics, vibration analysis, and infrared analysis. All these can help you maximise screening efficiency and your equipment’s service life.

If you want to know more about predictive screen maintenance, feel free to contact us now at Hawk Machinery.

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