Composting Aerator

Client: Dongamere Farming Co

Project: Composting Aerator for use in fertilizer plant

Dongamere Farming Co required a drum for their manure rotator for their fertilizer plant. The machine was to be used to aerate windrows or compost used in fertilizer production and was an urgently needed replacement for an existing rotator drum which had failed.

Equifab was recommended to the client by another fabricator and was commissioned to build the 4m x 600mm drum. The design process involved close collaboration between Equifab and Dongamere with the drum flight requiring centre discharge. A number of difficulties had to be overcome, not least of which was the issue of large rocks in the compost and drum flighting changing pitch as it worked from outside to centre. Equifab was able to overcome the problem by individually cutting heavy enough material to cope with the impact of the rocks.

The team designed bosses to carry dummy shafts and distribute torque through the cylinder.

The final drum rotator had a rotation speed of 2600 RPM and had been precision machined and balanced in order to cope with the high RPM.

Outcome: The Client was very pleased with the performance and reliability of the rotator.