Meaning
Quantitative mass loss of plastic resin pellets occurring during airborne pipe transport between storage silos and processing hoppers measures material handling system efficiency. Pneumatic conveyance loss occurs when high velocity air streams cause pellet attrition, generating fine polymer dust or streamer strands that escape through filtration vents. The metric stops applying to mechanical bucket elevators or gravity-fed material transfer systems.
Transfer Attrition
High velocity air propels resin pellets through aluminum or stainless steel transport piping across long factory distances. Impact against pipe elbows shears small particles from pellet surfaces, creating fine dust and elongated polymer streamers. Material loss reduces total delivered weight and creates maintenance issues inside pneumatic receiver filters.
Piping Velocity
Conveyance air speed must remain within narrow limits to prevent pellet degradation while ensuring material does not settle in horizontal lines. Excessive air velocity accelerates wall friction and pellet impact damage, increasing total loss percentages. System designers install long radius elbows and specialized pipe coatings to minimize impact forces during high throughput transfer.
Fines Generation
Polymer dust collected in dust collectors represents unrecoverable raw material mass loss that inflates total unit production costs. Fine particles that escape filtration enter ambient factory air or contaminate adjacent resin transfer lines during product changeovers. Pilot scale testing at low transfer velocities fails to reveal the high attrition rates produced when commercial pneumatic systems run at maximum mass flow rates.
Supplier material forecasts based on virgin pellet shipments must factor in transport mass losses to maintain accurate inventory accounting. Calling a material handling system qualified before auditing dust collector loss rates under peak pneumatic pressure understates total operating expenses.
