World Cement - North America 2019

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creates a mini explosion that also aids in the
removal of the buildup.
Conclusion
These systems are currently operating on
several preheater ID fans with great success.
The initial installation was on an ID fan in a
Southern California cement plant. After a retrofit
of a backward curved rotor design to maximise
the operational efficiency, a soft, powdery material
would build up on the back side of the blade. In
turn, this material would shed unevenly, causing a
heavy spot and, consequently, an unmanageable
vibration from imbalance, forcing the kiln operation
down to clean the rotor. After installation of the
compressed air system, operations were able to
keep the buildup off the rotor and eliminate the
imbalance and vibration issues.
A cleaning system installed on a preheater
ID fan, another backward curved blade design,
at a cement plant in South Carolina was so
successful in reducing the buildup and nuisance of
imbalance and vibration issues that the following
comment was made: “it was the best capital
money spent in the plant that year.” That particular
installation had been plagued with buildup issues
for years, with the need to come down from
production just to clean the fan rotor.
Another preheater ID fan installation in
Northern California was having the same issues,
with soft buildup on the backside of the blades.
After installing a system during a planned outage,
on startup and when introducing feed into the
kiln, the first firing of the compressed air cleaning
system was made. According to the plant manager,
who was in the control room at the time, the
vibration on the fan immediately started to drop.
Preventing downtime and lost production in
today’s competitive marketplace is paramount.
A simple, easy to install, and cost-effective
cleaning device could literally be the difference
between remaining in production and being
forced into an outage from runaway vibration on a
preheater ID fan.
About the author
Allen L. Ray is Director of the Air Handling Group at
ProcessBarron.
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