Equipment report

General Kinematics white paper and study compare vibratory feeder results

General Kinematics (GK), based in Crystal Lake, Illinois, has published a new white paper, “Vibratory Feeders for Scrap Recycling.”

In the white paper, the company reports that it wanted to determine whether its High Stroke Feeder (HSF), which uses a drive system that imposes indirect force, would maximize energy input to auto shredder residue (ASR) when sorting for nonferrous metals, thereby improving material purity compared with the results produced by a direct-force feeder in the same application.

The company says it recently conducted a study with the assistance of a leading manufacturer of optical sorting technology that agreed to set up a test in its lab to compare the results of a direct drive feeder with those from GK’s high stroke feeder. An induction sorter was used to detect all metals in the sample ASR through several tests conducted at varying speed rates, according to GK.

The test results indicated that the use of GK’s HSF delivered improved product purity across various feed rates by an average of 5.3 percent, the company says.

Additional information on GK’s High Stroke Feeders is available at www.generalkinematics.com/product/high-stroke-feeders, while the equipment company’s white paper, “Vibratory Feeders for Scrap Recycling,” can be downloaded from http://landing-pages.generalkinematics.com/high-stroke-feeder-whitepaper/

E.L. Harvey & Sons adds two balers

E.L. Harvey & Sons, headquartered in Westborough, Massachusetts, has purchased two certified preowned Bollegraaf balers from Van Dyk Recycling Solutions, Stamford, Connecticut.

The company added a certified preowned Bollegraaf HBC-140 baler to its 25-ton-per-hour (tph) plant in Westborough.

E.L. Harvey’s Executive Vice President B.J. Harvey says of the new baler, “It’s a 25-tph plant, and I can’t feed the thing fast enough. I can stack the bales beautifully, and the thing never jams.”

E.L. Harvey & Sons also purchased a certified preowned HBC-80 to bale OCC (old corrugated containers) at its Fitchburg, Massachusetts, location.

Both balers were refurbished in Van Dyk’s new Bollegraaf Baler Rebuild Center in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Van Dyk’s fully reconditioned Bollegraaf balers are produced exclusively at the company’s North American Bollegraaf Baler Rebuild Center. All baler rebuilds are performed by factory-certified technicians and are completed only with OEM (original equipment manufacturer) parts. All mechanical, electrical and hydraulic components are inspected and corrected, and the machines are extensively tested, Van Dyk says. The result is as close as possible to original factory specifications, according to the company.

Court finds X Body did not violate an existing patent

A United States appellate court has issued a 14-page decision that affirms a previous court’s ruling that a container scrap loading system manufactured by Jewell Manufacturing and designed and marketed by X Body Equipment (also known as Acculoader), Rocklin, California, is not in violation of an existing patent.

The plaintiff in the original case, Advanced Steel Recovery, Rancho Cucamonga, California, has claimed the Jewell and X Body product is in violation of its patent No. 8,061,950 (the ‘950 patent) for a container packing system.

In mid-November, however, a federal circuit court of appeals affirmed an earlier ruling from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California that “X Body does not infringe the asserted claims of the ‘950 patent literally or under the doctrine of equivalents.”

Key to the court’s findings was the placement of the X Body system’s packer and piston-and-cylinder unit at a distance deemed not near enough to Advanced Steel’s design to be in violation of its patent.

“Relevant to this appeal, the asserted claims of the ‘950 patent require that the first piston-and-cylinder unit (the ‘container packer piston-and-cylinder unit’) be connected to the ‘transfer base proximate end’ and the container packer proximate end,’” writes the circuit court.

However, “In the accused Acculoader device, which Jewell manufactures and X Body sells, the container packer piston-and-cylinder unit is connected to the floor of the container packer approximately 35 percent down its length,” Judge Kara Farnandez Stoll, the circuit court ruling’s author, adds.

Responding to the ruling, owner and President of X Body Equipment and Acculoader Greg Bushong says, “We are happy to see this matter put behind us, both for ourselves and our customers.”

Liebherr Construction hosts

2015 open house and seminar Liebherr Construction Equipment Co., Newport News, Virginia, hosted its 2015 Sales Seminar and Open House Nov. 2-6 in Newport News. More than 170 sales professionals, dealers, Liebherr representatives, customers and special guests gathered at the event, where key presenters and trainers from Liebherr’s earthmoving and material handler factories, as well as a support team from Liebherr in the United States, covered features and benefits of Liebherr’s equipment range.

During the two-day sales seminar, participants had the opportunity to operate and compare key features and benefits of Liebherr’s equipment. Demonstration stations were dedicated to wheel loaders, excavators, dozers and material handlers. The company also hosted a material handling module on the third day.

Liebherr Construction Equipment is part of the Liebherr Group, based in Bulle, Switzerland.

US Shredder and Castings Group relocates castings warehouse

Miramar Beach, Florida-headquartered U.S. Shredder and Castings Group has announced that it has relocated its shredder castings and wear parts warehouse to Fort Wayne, Indiana.

“Our inventory program has proven to be such a success that we needed more space and a more centrally located warehouse,” according to U.S. Shredder President Bill Tigner.

“In this market that we are in, many shredders are obviously not shredding at normal capacities,” he says, adding that full container loads of castings are not necessary as a result.

Tigner continues, “We keep a variety of models’ castings on the ground for immediate delivery throughout the U.S.”

The U.S. Shredder and Castings Group supplies scrap shredders, control systems, downstream systems, nonferrous recovery systems, air systems and shredder castings, as well as service, engineering, construction and installation, to the worldwide scrap industry.

More information on the company’s inventory program is available by contacting Tigner by phone at 205-999-7670 or by emailing bill.tigner@usshredder.com.

Florida waste and recycling authority selects BHS for single-stream MRF

The Emerald Coast Utilities Authority (ECUA), based in Pensacola, Florida, has selected Eugene, Oregon-based Bulk Handling Systems (BHS) to design, manufacture and install its new material recovery facility (MRF). The system, scheduled for a spring 2016 startup, is designed to process more than 25 tons per hour (tph) of single-stream materials.

The ECUA serves more than 75,000 customers in Florida’s Escambia County and 21,000 in Santa Rosa County, all of which are offered recycling pickup along with regular waste services.

The $7.5-million project is instrumental in helping the ECUA to upgrade its recycling program, the organization states in a news release.

According to BHS, advanced separation technologies, including BHS screens, a Nihot glass cleanup system and NRT optical sorting will recover more than 95 percent of available recyclables.

“The ECUA is taking proactive steps to locally process our recyclables. This state-of-the-art system will create local jobs and allow the ECUA to continue its recycling program and accept additional recyclables from within the region,” says Randall Rudd, ECUA deputy executive director of shared services.

The new MRF is a component of the ECUA’s comprehensive recycling plan. In addition to its voluntary recycling program launched in 2009, the authority also recycles yard waste through a composting operation, provides a bulk waste recycling program and collects household hazardous waste materials free of charge on a call-in basis once per month.

Founded as the Escambia County Utilities Authority in 1981, the ECUA is a local governmental body that provides sanitation, potable water and water reclamation services. The authority’s name was officially changed to the Emerald Coast Utilities Authority in 2004.

BHS designs, engineers, manufactures and installs sorting systems and components for the solid waste, recycling, waste-to-energy and construction and demolition industries.