Improving Process Flow with Lump Breakers

The movement of materials in a bulk handling system plays a significant role in determining profitability. Over time, due to factors such as moisture or gravity, bulk materials often form lumps during storage, transportation, or manufacturing. These lumps can complicate the processing workflow, making it inefficient and costly. To mitigate this issue, manufacturers frequently employ specialized equipment like lump breakers. Despite their relatively straightforward design, these machines are incredibly effective in preparing bulk materials for further processing stages.

The Simplicity and Effectiveness of Lump Breakers

Also known as de-lumpers, flake breakers, lump crushers, or lump disintegrators, lump breakers are designed to reduce agglomerated materials into smaller, more manageable particles. Irrespective of the specific design, these machines play a crucial role in bulk material processing, enhancing process efficiency while simultaneously improving the quality of the final product. The versatility of lump breaker designs makes them invaluable for pre-conditioning raw materials before downstream processes and conditioning finished products to ensure they are free from lumps and clumps.

Irrespective of the exact design, all lump breakers are intended to fulfill the following four primary functions:

• Conveying: Lumpy materials are challenging to transport, especially when using pneumatic conveying methods. Even belt conveyors face inefficiencies when dealing with lumpy materials. The design of a lump breaker ensures that dry powders are conditioned to achieve the ideal particle-to-air ratio, making conveyance more efficient. This also facilitates smoother operation of rotary valve feeders, screw feeders, vibrating feeders, and other feeding mechanisms.
• Deagglomeration: Dry bulk materials often form into clumps during transport or prolonged storage due to natural densification caused by gravity pulling finer particles downward. Air pockets collapse, forming lumps, which can worsen under conditions of humidity or moisture. This commonly occurs in day bins, intermediate bulk containers, rail cars, silos, and super sacks. In many facilities, lump breakers are strategically placed below silos or other containers to deagglomerate raw materials before discharge, a practice widely seen in sugar processing facilities.

Additionally, lump breakers contribute to the following:

• Efficiency: A key yet often overlooked benefit of lump breaker design is its ability to add value to subsequent downstream processes while reducing the risk of clogging or equipment breakdowns caused by agglomerated materials. Tougher lumps can damage mesh, sieves, or other screening equipment designed to classify products, which are not built to handle agglomerated material.
• Transportation: Transporting raw materials or finished products becomes more expensive when lumps are present, as it requires more energy to move substances with inconsistent particle densities. Materials with uniformly shaped and sized particles flow better, settle more effectively, and create more balanced loads.

No matter the specific design, lump breakers reduce downtime, boost processing speeds, and improve the consistency of finished products. This holds true regardless of their purpose or location within a processing system that includes a lump breaker. Whether designed to abrade, compress, impact, or shear, the humble lump breaker is a vital component that enhances process flow in any material handling system.

How Lump Breaker Design Enhances Material Flow

Lump-breaking machines are typically employed before processes such as blending, feeding, pneumatic conveying, and sifting of granular or powdered materials. They are often integrated into chute, conveying, or duct systems. Although the basic design of a lump breaker doesn’t vary much in appearance, the materials used depend on the specific application. Most lump breakers feature either a single or dual-shaft design, with screen sizes and shapes tailored to meet diverse requirements.

Lump breakers improve the mixing of powders by breaking down agglomerates and creating more uniform particles, leading to more consistent mixtures. This helps enhance the quality of the final product by ensuring even distribution of ingredients. When powders are mixed evenly, manufacturers can increase throughput without significantly increasing energy consumption, thereby boosting productivity.

In systems incorporating a lump breaker, it is usually placed upstream of equipment that could be blocked by clumps of material. Blockages are common in many material processing systems, so preventing such issues can significantly reduce downtime. For this reason, bulk powder processing systems often include at least one lump breaker, customized for specific applications to prevent downstream clogs.

Most lump breaker designs include these core components:

• Combing bars (often called "teeth")
• Feed inlet and discharge outlet for product
• Motor and drive
• Reducer
• Rotating shaft(s)

However, manufacturers must consider several factors when evaluating the nuances of lump breaker design.

Key considerations in lump breaker design include:

• Size, percentage, and hardness of lumps in the product
• Density and flow rates of material entering the lump breaker
• Levels of fat, moisture, or oils within the material being processed (which may necessitate non-stick coatings)
• Texture of the product (whether it is coarse, granulated, or powdery)

Materials that are abrasive tend to wear down machine parts more quickly, so it is often wise to consult with a vendor who has a testing facility to determine the optimal lump breaker design. In addition to rotor tip speed, careful consideration should be given to the design of the teeth. Furthermore, some manufacturers may opt for a variable frequency drive (VFD) for improved efficiency, allowing the machine to adjust its speed as needed. Additionally, a lump breaker design that allows for easy and safe access to remove and replace screens provides greater flexibility.

Understanding How a Lump Breaker Operates

Typically, a dual-shaft lump breaker design features two rotors, whereas a single-shaft design has one. A lump breaker’s rotor is equipped with blades, breaker bars, hammers, teeth, or other tools, depending on the application and material being processed. These tools force the material through a fixed grate opening, the width of which determines the size of particles that can pass through it. Although these rotating tools are designed to push material toward the center of the machine where it is crushed and ground, they also help prevent blockages around the grate.

Factors to Consider in Lump Breaker Design

The precise lump breaker design required for a specific application depends on the material properties of the product and the intended use of the final product. A knowledgeable vendor can assist in identifying the best lump breaker design for the processed material and application.

Industries and Applications Utilizing Lump Breakers

Regardless of the exact specifications of a lump breaker design, these versatile machines can process countless materials for a wide array of industrial applications. Lump breakers are utilized by the chemical, construction, food processing, mining, pharmaceutical, and numerous other sectors to efficiently process bulk materials. Regardless of the material being processed, the lump breaker design should support deagglomeration and mixing processes to ensure uniform consistency in the product. This, in turn, enables smoother processing of granulated and powdered dry materials in bulk.

The diversity in lump breaker design means that these machines can handle multiple materials and varied applications across a range of industries.

Prater Lump Breaker Designs

Prater Industries offers two broad categories of lump breaker designs: a standard model and an easy-to-clean model. Our standard version is available as either a dual-shaft flake breaker or a single-shaft lump breaker, both featuring low profiles that make it easier to position the machines within a processing system. Equipped with blades that rotate in opposing directions, they work well for granulating or conditioning materials that become agglomerated.

Prater’s two fundamental lump breaker designs:

• Standard lump breaker: This lump breaker design offers a cost-effective solution for reducing naturally agglomerated or deliberately compacted materials for a wide range of applications, including recycling and waste disposal.
• Quick-Clean lump breaker: This easy-to-clean lump breaker design provides a simpler method for disassembling the unit for cleaning and maintenance. The end plate and rotor can be disengaged from the drive and extracted from the machine on a glide rail system without the need for tools.

Prater can tailor the machine to meet a customer’s specific needs, regardless of the lump breaker design. Prater can customize screens by shape and size and select different construction materials that best suit specific applications. With a Prater lump breaker, designs allow for easy replacement of screens and other internal components, enabling manufacturers to optimize materials for their application. To learn more about Prater’s lump breakers and other material handling equipment, contact one of our representatives today.