Centrifugal air blower provides protective cushion of air

Colin Mear Engineering Limited (CME) of Combe St Nicholas provides a complete secondary manufacturing service to the tobacco industry, as well as designing and manufacturing its own cost-effective products for cigarette making and packaging. Over many years of working with the leading tobacco companies, CME has accumulated substantial expertise and experience, which is regularly put to use to solve customers' technical and operational problems cost-effectively.

One such project was to design and supply new spiral gravity conveyors that are required to safeguard cigarette pack quality during product transfer. This is achieved by delivering a controllable, constant flow of air through a series of holes in the base of the down chute to provide a protective cushion of air, which helps to ensure the smooth and safe passage of the product.

Steve Hallet, one of CME's Design Engineers. comments: "Initially we considered side channel blowers but, when we trialled ACI's blower unit, we found it gave us far more flexibility and control. I was also very impressed with the Multi-Stage unit's small size for the output it provided. All in all, ACI understood my initial requirements and the solution has met all of our needs."

The blower supplied was an ACI 4MS11/020 Multi Stage Centrifugal unit. These are direct-driven blowers that are low-noise, maintenance-free units for use in higher-pressure applications. They are available in single- or three-phase, DC or 400Hz AC variants, as well as in ATEX versions.