New bulk bag discharger put through its paces

The difficulties in delivering both efficiency and worker safety during bulk bag discharging have been addressed by the new generation Bulk Bag Discharger from Flexicon (Europe).

The design increases operator safety by eliminating dust during untying, discharging, retying, collapse and removal of bulk bags, while achieving complete discharge with greater efficiency. Central to the new design is a bulk bag/hopper interface consisting of a manual Spout-Lock clamp ring positioned above a pneumatically actuated Tele-Tube telescoping tube. Together, the devices enable the operator to make a quick, dust-tight connection between the bag spout and hopper, and to elongate the bag automatically as it empties to promote flow and evacuation.

For applications requiring retying of partially empty bags, the company also offers a new Power-Cincher pneumatically actuated flow control valve. Unlike opposing bars that pinch the spout from two sides, the new valve contains a series of curved, articulated stainless steel rods that cinch the spout concentrically on a horizontal axis for easy tie-offs and vertically in a tight zigzag pattern to prevent leakage of fine powders.

Also making its debut on the new discharger is an integral Bag-Vac dust collector that creates negative pressure within the dust-tight system to collapse empty bags prior to retying and disconnection, eliminating dust emitted during manual flattening of empty bags.

The discharger is also equipped with Flow-Flexer bag activators that raise and lower opposite bottom edges of the bag at timed intervals, loosening compacted materials and promoting material flow into the bag discharge spout. As the bag lightens, the stroke of the bag activators increases, raising the bag into a steep V shape, eliminating dead spots for total evacuation of material with no manual intervention.