Shot blasting is a method used to clean, strengthen (peening), de-scaling, de-burring, de-rusting, de-sanding or cleaning in any form that uses metal, including aerospace, automotive, construction, foundry, ship-building, railways, and many others.
Shot blast machines are ‘self-destructive’. Though, they are designed to prevent wear, the same high energy blast wheel that propels the steel shot to clean parts, is unfortunately, also the same high energy that wears out the equipment.
Most of its components such as, bearings, gear reducers, pulleys, sprockets, etc. are the same parts used in most industrial machinery and require the same maintenance.The constant internal bombardment of steel shot and dusting created during the process differs a shot blaster from other industrial machines. This aggressive environment can become very detrimental to the machine without a meticulous and diligent operator and maintenance attention.
Airless: Wheel-BlastingWheel-Blasting directly converts electric motor energy into kinetic abrasive energy by rotating turbine wheel. The capacity of each wheel goes from approximately 60 kg per minute up to 1200 kgs per minute. With these scales of accelerated abrasive, wheel blast machines are used where big parts or large area of parts have to be cleaned.
Air-BlastingAir-Blasting machines can take form of a blast room or a blast cabinet, the blast media is pneumatically accelerated by compressed air and projects by nozzles onto the component. A special application, a media-water mix can be used; this is called wet-blasting. The blasting task determines the choice of the abrasive media; in most cases any type of dry or free running abrasive media can be used.
Challenges faced by OEMs1. Operations related issues• High maintenance cost • Frequent machine break-downs • Reduced capacities with passing time • Increased operating cost
2. Quality oriented issues • Poor quality control • Improper blast patterns • Improper jigs or hanger designs • Poor media selection • Poor control on blast-intensity
3. Safety Hazards • Poor dust collector maintenance: fire hazards • Un-skilled labour: negligence towards safety precautions
4. Business • Financial losses: high cost of operations • Man-hour losses: maintenance and operations • Energy losses: power wastage • Deviation from core competency
About VJ Meta Shiners With an experience of more than two decades in the industry, VJ Meta Shiners has developed its expertise in the field of surface preparation and finishing through different models like mobile workshop for Turkey projects, job-work stations for industry clusters and on-site process handling for production units.
VJ Meta Shiners has well-equipped and trained personnel leading highly skilled and trained teams, supporting the value chains in the field of surface preparation. Thus, through its modular approach to undertake the processes at production units, it has helped its clients achieve seamless and efficient shot-blasting processes with cost-benefits. The company also provides add-on equipment to meet the increasing capacities, as rental assets with zero liabilities.
