Blending Without Segregation: Meeting the Demand of the Powder Industries

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Convincing Performance

Yamamoto says Nippon Atomized Metal Powders imported a mixer because, “We wanted complete discharge without segregation, plus large capacity. There are no Japanese mixers that combine these important features.” The Japanese powder metallurgy industry mostly uses V-blenders and double-cone blenders, Yamamoto explains. These mixer types provide complete discharge, but on discharge there tends to be segregation of particle sizes: “In general, the particle size distribution moves from fine to coarse as the mixer is discharged. The Munson mixer avoids this problem.”

Headroom is tight, says Yamamoto, and it was a challenge to fit everything into the available space, as the mixer is loaded from an overhead container that is moved into position by a crane. Customer acceptance was also an issue, he says, and even now some customers are reluctant to change to the offshore mixer for their products. But any initial headaches were well worthwhile, Yamamoto says, with the mixer proving both effective and reliable after nearly three years in operation.

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Worth Knowing Facts

Rotary Batch Mixers at a glance

Proprietary internal mixing flights create homogenous blends. The gravity driven process produces a rapid, thorough blend while imparting minimal energy and intensity to the product. This maximizes equipment life without sacrificing blend quality. Today's advanced Munson rotary batch mixers are the result of con- tinuous improvement:

uniform mixing in less than three minutes,

gentle four-way mixing action: tumble, turn, cut and fold,

continuous mixing during loading and discharge,

zero stratification, segregation or densification,

equally efficient mixing at any capacity, from full down to 1/3 capacity,

single floor installation,

uniform impregnation, encapsulation, drying, heating or cooling processes,

handles dry powder and granular products,

available equipped for liquid spray additions,

low horsepower, high mechanical efficiency,

dust tight design,

capacities from 5 to 600 ft³.

For Easy Product Changes

When a change of grade is required, cleaning is straightforward; a small quantity of the new product is used to clean the mixer and is then recycled. “And we don’t have to worry about maintenance,” Yamamoto says. “With our previous mixer, the design of the machine caused a lot of trouble with the axle and the drive chain. As long as the drum alignment is okay, the rotary batch mixer is trouble-free, and the quality of blending means lower costs for quality control.”

* * The author is Marketing Manager at Munson, Utica/USA. Contact: Phone +1-315-797-0090

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