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Forgot Password?TerraSource Global’s Jeffrey Rader® TubeFeeder was recently featured as a spotlight in Biomass Magazine. Learn more about how this unique system provides many advantages for biomass facilities.
Fuel preparation is vital for efficient combustion, which is a critical component to the overall profitability of biomass energy plants. Many factors, however, must be accounted for to ensure quality fuel preparation, such as controlling dust, removing foreign and oversized particles, and ensuring appropriate material storage and high-quality homogenization. TerraSource Global’s Jeffrey Rader® TubeFeeder system uses innovative technology to thoroughly and cost-effectively handle all of these challenges, making it an integral component for reclaiming biofuel from silos or storage piles at the most efficient biomass facilities.
TubeFeeders offer full homogenization at a uniform rate of fuel, while maintaining substantially lower power consumption compared to alternative solutions. Over 100 TubeFeeders are installed worldwide, primarily in pulp and paper and bioenergy operations. However, TubeFeeder technology is also a viable reclaiming option for several other applications beyond forest products, including coal, cement, pellets and many others. With the increasing demand for sustainable bioenergy, the TubeFeeders have gained a reputation for being the optimal solution for companies operating in this market.
A TubeFeeder is composed of an outside tube with uniform slots spread along the length of the machine, which is key to controlled combustion. Pile height is not an issue, as TubeFeeders are easily adaptable to desired height and silo volume. Conveying occurs by gravity flow through the slots, which helps diminish the required operational power by at least 70% compared to other, conventional systems. Each slot is furnished with an “activator.” The intelligent design employed in the tube and screw configuration constitutes a “closed forces system,” meaning no thrust forces into the structure are generated.
As the tube rotates, material is reclaimed into it. Material being conveyed inside the tube is protected from the static pressure exerted by the remaining material in the pile/silo. Tube rotation is controlled by variable frequency drive, and the typical span is 1-6 rpm, allowing for uniform material reclaiming and blending along its length. A screw auger operates inside the tube at a fixed rpm, conveying fuel to the outlet end. Capacity is proportional to the tube rotation speed, with a 15-100% repeatable rate within a selected capacity window. Tube rotation depends on travelling direction, thereby ensuring consistent operation regardless of travel direction. The whole unit traverses on rails across the base of square silos or in round silos on a swivel around the center.
Overall, biomass facilities can expect major performance and operational advantages by choosing the TubeFeeder as the critical component of their storage and reclaim solution:
Learn more about why the Jeffrey Rader® TubeFeeder is the most trusted and well-proven solution for biomass customers requiring efficient, long-life and trouble-free operation – www.terrasource.com.
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Jeffrey Rader Pneumatic Conveying Systems are the best solution for conveying bark, RDF, bagasse, wood chips, sawdust and other biomass materials. These systems provide better performance and lower costs than alternatives such as chain or belt conveyors.
Check out our new animation that shows a high-level overview of how our pneumatic conveying systems provide value to customers.
Contact us today to learn more about how our customers benefit from Jeffrey Rader Pneumatic Conveying Systems, as well as the support and expertise they gain by working with TerraSource Global.
TerraSource Global’s EMEA Sales Manager, Sinisa Jaksic, will be on hand at the European Biomass to Power Summit in Helsinki on November 6th and 7th to provide insights into the most innovative and cost-effective solutions to size, process and feed biomass and wood-based materials. If you are attending, we encourage you to make an appointment with Sinisa to discuss your specific application and process requirements and the challenges you’re facing in meeting the goals of your operation.
TerraSource’s Jeffrey Rader brand equipment is the top choice across the biomass industry for companies requiring custom solutions for sizing, storage, reclaim, screening, and pneumatics. Jeffrey Rader machines have earned the reputation as a leader in durability and reliability for both small and large operations, including for major players such as Louisiana Pacific, Georgia Pacific, International Paper, Domtar, WestRock, and many others.
Some of the best-known Jeffrey Rader equipment for biomass includes:
•Tubefeeders: These unique reclaimers offer a more energy and process efficient solution through reduced wear parts, high accuracy on low out-feed rates, uniform and adjustable reclaim rates, and true first-in, first-out flow conditions. This machine’s advanced material blending enhances fuel preparation.
•Chip-Sizers: Jeffrey Rader Chip-Sizers are the first true no-knife rechipper in the market, which means minimal fines, greater efficiencies and, perhaps most important, a safer operation.
•Pneumatic Conveying Systems: Innovative Jeffrey Rader pneumatic conveying systems enable you to move chips, bark, sawdust and RDF more efficiently to a boiler or material pile. A variety of custom configurations are available to ensure high-throughput and long wearlife, including performance components such as the highest rated Rotary Airlock Feeders, Cyclone feeders, and wear-resistant elbow joints and blowers.
•Wood/Bark Hogs: Our hogs come in a variety of sizes and are engineered to increase productivity and facilitate easier maintenance. Easy access vertical and horizontal models are available, each specifically designed for faster wear-part replacement, minimized downtime, and heavy-duty operation.
Jeffrey Rader machines are the industry-standard for biomass material handling and processing. Even if you aren’t planning to attend the European Biomass to Power Summit, reach out to our team at info@terrasource.com to begin discussing how TerraSource can offer your operation outstanding ROI with a long-standing brand you can trust.
TerraSource Global is proud of the hundreds of years of cumulative innovation, quality and reliability that we are able to offer customers around the world through our three legendary flagship equipment brands (Jeffrey Rader, Pennsylvania Crusher, and Gundlach Crushers). We were reminded of this enduring legacy in an email our team received in the Spring from Mrs. Christine Dale of England, who wrote to see if we could help her answer a decades-old family-history question involving a Pennsylvania Crusher machine. We were intrigued.
As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Mrs. Dale had a beloved photo of her late father sitting in his study, behind him a copy of the front page of a January 1925 Pit & Quarry magazine. Front and center of this issue is a Pennsylvania Crusher machine that Mrs. Dale’s great-grandfather Albert Euphrates Snelling helped design nearly a century ago. Though Mrs. Dale never met her great-grandfather Albert, her father and grandmother proudly shared stories of his life. Reflecting on these memories, Dale sought to find more information about what had happened to the Pennsylvania Crusher Company and the machine featured with her great-grandfather, which ultimately led her to TerraSource Global’s inbox.
Albert Euphrates Snelling, born in 1876 on a Romanian ship on the Euphrates River, grew up in Constanta. Snelling, a clever and driven man, chose to follow in his father’s footsteps and become an engineer. This ultimately led him to a role at Fraser and Chalmers Engineering Works in Kent, England, a company formerly associated with Pennsylvania Crusher Company.
Following a paper trail from the 1920s is not always the easiest of tasks. But, TerraSource’s Senior Director of Engineering Matt Richardson began digging through archives to find what he could about Snelling’s involvement with Pennsylvania Crusher. Through meticulous searches, he found that Pennsylvania Crusher would often license out technology and products to companies like Fraser and Chalmers, the company for whom Mr. Snelling worked, to collect royalties. In many cases, those companies would adapt the standard designs in order to better accommodate unique specific applications and markets. When relevant, Pennsylvania Crusher would often incorporate those designs and improvements into their future models. With this information in hand, Matt informed Mrs. Dale that it was very likely that Albert Euphrates Snelling was involved in taking a standard design and then modifying it for the UK and India mining operations, as indicated on the cover of Pit & Quarry photo.
Although we aren’t able to track down the precise machine associated with Mr. Snelling in the photo, Matt determined that the machine was likely a version of a Dixie Fix Cage Hammermill. These machines had a long lifecycle, used up through the 1980s to crush materials such as limestone and cement.
TerraSource’s technological capabilities have clearly advanced since Mr. Snelling’s designing days, but our company’s engineers still marvel at machines like the Dixie Fix Cage Hammermill that inspire our designs of the future. Looking closely at the magazine cover of the 1925 Pit & Quarry, you see words that continue to ring true for this TerraSource flagship brand even today:
“Unfailing steel construction”
“Automatic tramp iron separation”
“Lowest operation costs”
Mrs. Dale hopes that when she makes her next trip across the pond to the United States, she will be able to make a stop in Belleville, Illinois, to see our manufacturing facility firsthand and be immersed in an environment that was in part inspired by her great-grandfather.
Do you have a similar story? A machine that’s been in operation for over 20 years? We want to hear about it! Email us at info@terrasource.com or fill out this survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/W6HNZ2X) to receive a TerraSource T-Shirt and enter our TerraSource’s Oldest Machine Challenge with a chance to do a catered lunch hosted by a TerraSource team member.
We can’t wait to share more stories about what has kept the brands of TerraSource Global top-of-mind for so many years.