Solids handling specialist Ajax Equipment has supplied Cargill, the leading food and agricultural products manufacturer, with a stainless steel buffer hopper and twin screw feeder to handle filter cake. The system allows spent filter cake to be held as required and then emptied at a consistent rate.    

Ajax designed the handling system’s vee-shaped hopper and twin screw feeder together to help ensure the smooth transfer of filter cake. Utilising a screw feeder below the steep walled hopper facilitates the reliable flow by providing active extraction of material. Due to the demanding characteristics of the filter cake, Ajax recommended the screw’s flights be manufactured in a wear resistant steel and with geometry to fully serve the hopper outlet.  

“The Ajax team were great to work from first contact and then through design, manufacture and the FAT. They certainly know the technology and their products,” says Gary Cotter, project engineer at Cargill.

Lewis Shaw, technical sales engineer, Ajax Equipment, comments, “Ajax Equipment has worked with Cargill many times. We frequently work with engineers around the world but in this case, we were very happy to be able to support Cargill’s Manchester site in Trafford Park, not far from Bolton where Ajax is based.

“After going on site to discuss the requirements of the handling system and conducting flow property testing on sample material in our lab, we worked with Cargill to develop a system which would provide a reliable feed of spent filter cake, determining that a vee-shaped hopper and twin screw feeder would deliver the performance required.”

www.ajax.co.uk.

Ajax Equipment utilised material testing to develop a system which would provide a reliable feed of filter cake