PROMISING DIRECTIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF PNEUMATIC TRANSPORT IN THE AGRO-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Abstract

The active development of the agro-industrial complex of the Russian Federation implies a significant increase in the volume of production, and consequently, the amount of fertilizers for plants, animal feed, other production materials, the finished product, as well as the area of enterprises increases. In this regard, it is important to research, improve and implement installations for material transportation into real production. Meanwhile, the agriculture and processing industry of our country is facing the problem of serious import dependence, since most of the technologies and equipment (including for transportation) are provided by foreign manufacturers. Therefore, there is an urgent need for domestic developments in this area. Also an important issue for research is the automated transport of liquids, which is increasingly being used. At the moment, the most common are low-mechanized, conveyor and pneumatic methods of transportation. The low-mechanized method of transportation involves the presence of loading and transport machines that produce a lot of noise, pollute the surrounding air with fuel combustion products and have a low level of automation. However, this method is relatively simple and cheap, and there are materials that cannot be transported by other means.The conveyor method, despite such advantages as high automation, low noise and environmental pollution, has a rather narrow scope due to its design features. The most promising is pneumatic conveying, that is, a process in which the movement of material occurs due to the difference in air pressure at the beginning and at the end of the transport pipeline. Accordingly, such transportation will operate either at overpressure or underpressure. The advantages of this method are high automation, tightness, compactness, high quality of transportation, low material losses. However, vacuum transportation is explosion-proof, therefore it is a priority method. Despite the positive aspects, pneumatic transport has disadvantages - high energy consumption and the cost of the process, complex filtering systems for the air entering the pump, low productivity due to inefficient material movement modes. Research on this topic should be aimed at eliminating these shortcomings.