Higher performance, higher equipment availability and lower operating costs

Long life shot blast turbines minimize the cost of ownership for shot blast equipment

For applications requiring a very high shot blast intensity and/or very aggressive blast media, the Rösler Long Life blast turbines designed by Rutten not only produce a significantly improved blast performance but also offer extremely long uptimes and a lower energy and blast media consumption.

Regardless of the shot blast application, be it shot peening, blast cleaning, paint preparation or paint stripping, the cost effectiveness of a shot blast machine is largely determined by the machine’s blast turbines.  The patented design of the Rösler Long Life blast turbines with their curved „C“ and „Gamma-Y“ throwing blades, combined with the use of extremely wear resistant materials offer many advantages over conventional shot blast turbines.

A technology for minimizing your costs
The curved throwing blades of the Long Life turbines produce a very smooth flow of the blast media which, combined with the optimized blast media in-feed system, results in 24 – 30% higher throwing speeds than achieved in conventional blast turbines. This happens at the same RPM and with the same turbine diameter! This yields up to 70% higher impact velocities. The result is not only a higher blast media throughput, but also a higher blast performance with greatly improved blast results. Also, the energy and blast media consumption is reduced by 15%.
Another key feature of the Long Life blast turbines is the fact that they can be equipped with different control cages for the adaptation of the blast pattern (a.k.a. “hot spot“) to the specific customer requirements. For example, for the blast cleaning of steel sheets, a control cage producing a very wide blast pattern is utilized, whereas for shot peening, the blast stream must be concentrated on relatively small areas of the part surface. The Gamma turbines were designed to throw the blast media in both rotational directions. They are equipped with throwing blades with 2 working surfaces arranged in a Y – shape.  This allows a significantly higher blast coverage of the parts surface by simply reversing the rotational direction of the turbine drive motor.   

Significantly longer turbine uptimes result in higher equipment availability
Another reason for the exceptional cost-effectiveness of the Long Life turbines is the fact that their components are made from specially developed high alloy steel resulting in an extremely long uptime. In comparison to conventional blast turbines the Long Life turbines offer 8 – 16 times higher uptimes. This is especially important when very abrasive blast media is utilized. The astonishing uptimes of the Long Life turbines not only results in significant savings when it comes to wear parts and maintenance, but above all it offers a much higher equipment availability which is particularly beneficial for companies with multi shift or 24/7 shot blast operations.

Rotary table shot blast machine for a wide parts spectrum
A manufacturer of cast parts recently invested in a new shot blast system from Rösler as the company was able to improve the surface preparation of their raw parts for powder coating. The company manufactures all kinds of parts made from spherical (grey iron) castings. They not only required highly aggressive blast media, but also the part weights and high performance requirements of the blast machine, called for an extremely robust machine design. A further challenge was the wide component spectrum. In the end the customer chose the custom engineered Rösler rotary table RDT 200 4S shot blast system because of its technical concept..

Shot blasting of the exterior and interior surfaces in 120 seconds
The RDT is equipped with 4 chambers. For loading of the raw parts into the shot blast machine, which takes place in the first chamber, Rösler had to design parts specific work piece fixtures. After the parts are placed and clamped down, they are automatically transferred to the next chamber where the internal parts surface is blast cleaned. This takes place with a pressure blast system equipped with an air blast lance that moves into the rotating component. To ensure consistent blast results, the flow of blast media is continuously monitored by a special sensor system. A dual pressure blast pot guarantees uninterrupted blast media flow.
In the third chamber the exterior surface area is blast cleaned. This is achieved with four Long Life turbines; model LL-C320 with a power of 7.5 kW each. The optimum placement of the turbines was determined with a 3D simulation of the blast process. The curved blade design helps to drastically reduce the blast media impact on the blade foot and to significantly increase the throwing speed and the blast intensity.  This concept allows turning off two turbines, when parts with a smaller diameter are blast cleaned resulting in reduced energy consumption and lower wear rate. Because of the high blast intensity and the very coarse and aggressive blast media, this chamber is lined with extremely wear-resistant tool steel and hard metal plates.

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