PRODUCTS & PROCESSES
Case Study
Waupaca Foundry Partners with
Pangborn to Implement Abrasive
Recovery and Waste Minimization
The company was searching
for a way to separate their
waste into clean, reusable
materials to facilitate the
recovery of abrasives.
Challenge
Waupaca Foundry, a Hitachi Metals Group
company, provides iron castings to the
transportation, construction, agriculture, and
industrial markets worldwide. The largest
foundry in the U.S., the company has a history
of innovation and quality, and its leadership
team is dedicated to leading the industry in
environmental innovations and exploring new
ways to manage their end-of-life waste stream.
Waupaca Foundry operates an integrated
system for the handling of waste materials and
industrial by-products generated from foundry
operations. Waupaca’s Engineering Team was
concerned that some reusable abrasives were
not being captured in their current foundry
byproduct and abrasive reuse management
processes. They were searching for a way to
separate the waste into clean, noncontaminated
materials to facilitate recovery
of abrasives with remaining value that may
otherwise be lost in the waste stream.
Solution
Pangborn offers a complete line of abrasive
recovery and waste stream solutions that can
be incorporated into the design of new
equipment, retrofitted on existing blast
equipment (from Pangborn or other vendors),
or delivered as a stand-alone system.
Waupaca’s engineering manager and project
engineer selected Pangborn for this high
visibility project. Prior to this, the company
had worked with Pangborn on blast wheel
conversions which enabled Waupaca to
extend the life of their wheel wear parts.
Teams from Pangborn and Waupaca worked
closely in order to fully understand
Waupaca’s byproducts and abrasive recovery
expectations. Waupaca has multiple waste
streams and industrial by-products containing
different types and sizes of waste particles –
all of which need to be separated and sized
to determine reusability and recyclability.
Pangborn’s engineering team designed a
customized, stand-alone solution specific to
Waupaca’s needs. Pangborn reconfigured
and integrated current blast machine
technology into a recycling system enabling
Waupaca to remove and separate large,
heavy, tramp material, smaller waste
components such as paper and flashing,
as well as the most minute particles of dust
and sand. Key components of the solution
include:
a magnetic separator to separate the
abrasives from sand and dust; and,
a vibratory screener (classifier) to classify
and recover the reusable abrasive.
During the solution design process, the
project scope was expanded to incorporate
additional methods of getting materials into
the separation system, including new
conveyors and increased elevator height.
Ultimately, all waste streams went through
the separation and screening processes
resulting in waste that was separated, sized,
and ready to be reused, recycled, or
discarded as necessary.
Waupaca Foundry’s complex system of waste
streams and material flow could have made
the installation and implementation of the
Pangborn Abrasive Recovery & Waste Stream
Solution challenging, creating interruptions
of material flow and downtime.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 58
56 JUNE 2020
read online: www.surfaceworld.com