Reduce angel hair and streamers in your lines

Many of our customers experience issues with angel hair, streamers, and/or snakeskins in their material transfer lines. One of the solutions that PriceFitters supplies is directional shot peening. The directional shot peening process is designed to roughen up the internal surface of conveying line tubing and fittings. During dilute phase pneumatic conveying, resin pellets travel at high rates of speed through the conveying lines. These high rates of speed result in heat developing from the friction between resin pellets, the tubing wall, and the conveying air. In turn, this heat causes the resin pellets to soften. When the softened pellets come in contact with the tube wall they slide leaving a smear of material behind, and over time the smears agglomerate or meld together to form strands of material that can fall into the air stream in the form of "angel hair" or "streamers". When the internal surface of the conveying tube is directionally shot peened, the interior surface of the tube becomes irregular and rough. As a result the resin pellet tends to tumble and bounce away from the tube wall instead of smearing against it. Ultimately, this reduces the occurrence of angel hair.