Wear-resistant sugar beet flume conveyors

Upon delivery to sugar factories, beets are transported by conveyor belts or water flumes to the beet washing unit, where sand, leaves and stones are removed. The flume conveyor portion of this application is primarily subject to impact wear, while the rest of the application is subject to high abrasive wear.

At a well-known sugar manufacturer in France, the flume conveyors were lined with 8-to-12-mm-thick 3CR steel plates. Due to the fast-flowing beets, sand, stones and water, those plates were not sufficiently resistant to wear and the flumes required very frequent maintenance. The customer approached Kalenborn with a request for wear protection to significantly extend the service life of the flumes.

Kalenborn lined approximately 250 m² of the flumes with KALMETALL W100 hard welded overlay elements and lined the joints between them with KALPOXY150 trowelable hardening compound. This customised, seamless wear protection system will safeguard the flume conveyors against extreme abrasion and impact wear for years to come.

German sugar factories generally use ABRESIST fused cast basalt and/or KALCOR zirconium corundum ceramic specially shaped components to line their equipment. Due to the narrow width and overall geometric constraints of this customer’s flume conveyor system, however, that solution was not cost-effective. Initial concerns that the beets might be damaged by the KALMETALL material’s rough surface while they move through the flume conveyors proved unfounded, because the quality of the beets was not impaired.

Regular inspections of the flume conveyors confirm that they are still in excellent condition. Meanwhile, the satisfied customer has placed additional orders with Kalenborn.