Case Study: Bucket Style Diverter Solves Maintenance Nightmare For Concrete Packager

In the spring of 2004, the head of maintenance at one of the facilities for a nationwide concrete packager contacted Salina Vortex Corporation. He had gotten Salina Vortex's name from a sister facility that had successfully worked with them on an earlier project. He wanted to know if Salina Vortex manufactured a bucket style diverter that could handle the enormous amount of aggregate, concrete and sand products his facility processed each day. They were currently using a diverter that was being fabricated locally.

However, it presented many maintenance issues.The worst application was the main diverter directly beneath the primary aggregate belt conveyor. This diverter handled every ton of aggregate (gravel, dryer fines and two grades of sand) that went through the facility. It directly fed a series of diverters that eventually directed material into individual bins.

One leg fed three diverters, the other leg fed five diverters. An average of 60 tons of material per hour passed through this main diverter. The facility operated 24 hours a day, 5 days a week plus two 12-hour weekend shifts. Problems with the original diverter included extreme wear to the internal parts, leakage of material to the off leg, maintenance/serviceability issues and actuation problems. Salina Vortex was already working on a new design for a bucket style gravity diverter.