Bin Whipping Provides Blockage Removal With Less Downtime

Is your company dealing with plugging, ratholing, bridging, or build-up? Industrial Access Bulk Material can help. At IA Bulk Materials, we offer bin whipping because it allows for less downtime at your facility compared to other methods and a safer experience for workers since it eliminates the need for enclosed space access. Bin Whipping is a popular and effective method used to clean out vessels, silos, and bins. This process also ensures that no valuable assets are lost during the clean out.

Consistently scheduled bin whipping procedures can ensure free-flowing bulk material without your company experiencing a detrimental blockage or potentially losing valuable company assets.

How Exactly Does Bin Whipping Work?

This popular cleaning solution is done by lowering a bin whip down into the vessel, silo, or bin that holds dry bulk material from the top opening. The bin whip is then operated from the top of the vessel, silo, or bin that needs to be cleaned. It is carefully lowered into the storage vessel from a safe distance for workers.

Next, the bin whip is powered by compressed air, allowing for a variety of whips and cutting-edge motions to knock off stuck or built-up material. As the process continues, the worker operating the bin whip will carefully navigate through the entire structure to ensure that all built-up material is successfully broken free from the walls of the vessel, silo, or bin and flowing is back to normal. Despite the bin whip’s ability to power through caked-on material, however, the whip itself is made of material that will not compromise or damage the walls of the vessel, silo, or bin.

What Can Bin Whipping Do For You?

The most common issue facilities seem to face is general buildup of material. This could occur due to moisture, time, or inadequate flow of materials. But, that’s not the only thing that bin whipping can solve. A few other issues you may encounter are:

• Arching (Bridging) — when there is an arch just above the exit hole, preventing flow
• Ratholing — when material clings to the wall creating a hole in the middle of the bin/silo, minimising flow.
• Hot Spots — if materials don’t move effectively, it can collect heat in stagnant materials, potentially leading to mold or excess moisture.
• Plugging — occurs when the exit hole is completely blocked with material.

Bin Whip Variations

All binwhips follow the same process as outlined above, however, every bulk material and situation could be somewhat different. Because of this, there are three different materials we use as a whip, which are:

• Star knuckle - nylon rope with polyethylene knuckles
• Bronze chain - non-sparking and corrosion-resistant chain
• Steel chain - provides maximum impact when no explosives are in the environment

Why BinWhipping Is A Good Solution

Effective for a Vast Product Range

It has been proven that this method can restore bin capacity to 100% when used properly. That means minimal amounts of your company’s assets are lost. On top of that, this method is efficient and compatible with bins of all shapes and sizes that carry all different products. At Industrial Access Bulk Materials, we service silos, bins, and storage vessels that carry many different bulk materials in the food and beverage industry and other commodities.

Cost-Effective

We know that cost is an important factor when making decisions for your company. Bin whipping offers a quick and cost-effective method to clean any bin, silo or storage vessel you have while maintaining overall effectiveness. We minimize time on-site so your company can get back to production as usual quickly. With only two workers required to operate the bin whip with only a 20 minute assembly time, we’re able to keep our costs low.

Safe

Safety is important for our workers, your workers, and your community. Bin whipping can handle difficult or dangerous highly compacted materials from a safe distance. Bin whipping is operated from outside of the bin to minimize accidents.