If you’ve ever endured road construction (and who hasn’t) while making the daily work commute or during the family vacation trip, you may have noticed the construction workers creating quite a bit of dust while using tools that sound like machine guns. Congratulations—you’ve just encountered a pneumatic jackhammer.
One of the less reported sports stories of 2018 involved a marathon runner from Kenya named Eliud Kipchoge. Kipchoge has dominated the sport in recent years, and back in the fall he set a new world record in the marathon with a time of 2 hours, 1 minute, and 39 seconds. Similar to the four-minute mile barrier that nobody believed was possible until Roger Bannister eclipsed it in back in 1954, the two-hour marathon is a mythical number that until now, nobody thought was possible. Now it seems this incredible runner from Kenya has it within his sights. Maybe 2019 will be the year he breaks it!
There are many variables to take into consideration when selecting and designing a loading arm. The configuration, components, applications, measurements, media and site limitations, all must be taken into account for the design. Being able to work through this process in a clear concise manner will ensure that all these variables will be considered in the final build of your loading arm.
The process of making sugar from sugar cane has been around since before the birth of Jesus Christ. In many countries, sugar is still made the same way: The stalks are cut, the juice is extracted by ox-drawn crushers and then boiled to remove impurities, and finally it is evaporated to produce sugar crystals. Sugar was once a luxury item for the rich or presented only at special occasions. In the 1700s, sugar had another moniker: “white gold.” In today’s sugar processing plant, moving from sugar cane juice to the white crystals we see in the bowl on our kitchen table is done on a much grander scale. The equipment used in extraction, evaporation, boiling, centrifugal and, finally, packaging make this an amazingly quick journey. However, dangers are inherent to this automation, one in a most inconspicuous form: dust.
A customer’s truck pulled up to the hose shop and the shop leader went over to it to see what he needed. After a short conversation with the chemical plant driver, the shop leader motioned for another employee to come over. The shop leader explained that the customer’s hose had only been in service for a week and had gotten run over by a tanker truck. The hose was damaged, and it needed to be replaced, although the fittings were basically new, and the company had paid good money for them. He then told the employee to cut the fittings out of the hose, get the same style hose from stock, and put the customer’s existing fittings in the new hose. The shop leader instructed the employee to do it quickly, since the driver was going to wait.
Loading arms are becoming the standard choice over hoses for certain applications such as the transfer of liquids and dry materials in refineries, chemical plants, food & beverage processing plants, rail terminals and truck terminals. There are many variables involved in making the decision to purchase a loading arm. They can be based on application, material, location, site limitations, etc. Safety should always be considered first when protecting your most important asset, your employees. Is a loading arm actually a safer option than a standard hose assembly? Let’s dive into a few scenarios and examine the impact on safety.
Manufacturing is a fast-paced environment where every company faces the challenge to ramp up production as demand increases. The challenge becomes critically important in the food and beverage industry where complying with Food and Drug Administration standards while increasing production is a necessity. There are many ways to help production meet demand; adding people, extra shifts and equipment to name a few.
A sewer cleaning truck is a sophisticated piece of equipment. It has a pump capable of blasting a stream of water up to 2,000 PSI. Specialized nozzles, attached to a hose, use the pressurized water to clean and unclog pipes. The pump also pulsates the water stream, giving the nozzle a “jackhammer” effect to remove really tough clogs. When the task is complete, the nozzle is retrieved from the sewer pipe by winding the hose back up on a hose reel.
My business card reads Vice President of Sales and Marketing. In my heart, though, I am still the territory sales representative I was at the beginning of my career. Sitting in front of a customer and making my pitch is what has driven me for 29 years at Dixon. For that reason, you might think that US Manufacturing Day, which we celebrate on October 5th this year, would have less meaning to me than others at Dixon. Plant managers, machine operators, and maintenance supervisors spend their days “manufacturing” – turning castings into finished parts, repairing and maintaining machines, and producing Dixon products. I just sell what they make.
At a waste-to-energy facility, part of the operating procedure is to periodically dislodge the buildup of ash that collects on the internal walls of the scrubbers (air cleaners) so that it can be removed for proper disposal. This is done to maintain efficiency of the scrubbers and to prevent the ash from being released into the atmosphere.