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30 / April 2021 powderbulk.com BENEFITS OF TUBULAR CABLE CONVEYORS OVER AIR-POWERED CONVEYORS FOR FRAGILE FOOD MATERIALS Tubular cable conveyors can help reduce material damage, energy use, noise, and maintenance needs in a plant. This article explains how these conveyors work and how they can offer benefits over air-powered conveyors for certain applications. Karl Seidel, Cablevey F or food manufacturers processing high-value end-products that are susceptible to damage, such as nuts, cereal, coffee beans, dry pet food, and others, material breakage and loss can be a very costly problem that can harm the bottom line. When a whole macadamia nut is broken during processing, for instance, its value can drop by half. Instead of a premium price for whole nuts, damaged nuts are often sold at a substantial discount or crushed for use in cooking or upstream processing. Processors can reduce some of that loss by avoiding conveyors that force these fragile materials through stressful phases during transport throughout the plant. In certain applications, up to 10 percent or more of a fragile material can be damaged by high- velocity air-powered conveying, such as via pneumatic and aeromechanical systems. Sometimes the cost is compounded because the damage comes after a value- added process has been completed. For exam- ple, manufacturers go to great expense to roast whole coffee beans, but moving those beans via high-velocity air-powered conveying — besides possibly impacting material integrity — can compromise the roasted beans' flavor and aroma. Tubular cable conveyors can help avoid some of these problems. In specific applications, tubular con- veyors can help move delicate, dry food products with little impact on the material's integrity while still meet- ing high-throughput requirements. Tubular cable conveyor systems work by moving material through a sealed tube using a coated, flexible drag cable that's connected to a sprocket and pulled through on a loop. Solid circular discs (also called flights) are attached to the cable at regular intervals. These flights physically push the material at low Tubular cable conveyors move material through a sealed tube using a coated, flexible cable pulled through on a loop. Solid circular discs are attached to the cable, which push the material at low speed through the tube without the use of air, preserving material integrity and minimizing waste.