Advanced Aeration Technologies
An Introduction to BacTee Aeration Design
Forced Aeration of bulk materials is essential for many odor control, composting, and material drying processes. Fundamental to successful aeration in these processes is maintaining uniformity of airflow to assure consistent moisture applications throughout the bed. Functionally, the aeration floor components in these applications must support heavy wheeled equipment and allow periodic cleaning and maintenance, the floor must be able to be able to contain free water or condensate within the aeration coponents and the connecting aeration pipeline.
Why BacTee is Better:
For over 20 years, BacTee Systems has been designing and supplying aeration floor systems for applications requiring uniformity in air distribution, durability for the loading/unloading of bulk material with heavy wheeled equipment, and accessibility for cleaning all surfaces associated with the aeration system. BacTee also provides specifications for subfloors and piping that facilitate transportation and removal of excess water.
Our aeration floor systems have ranged in size from a few hundred square feet to over 3 acres of flooring. Each aeration floor designed with, or using, BacTee components must meet our specifications that assure uniform air distribution based on the resistance to flow in both of the floor components and the bulk material.
In the early days of aerated odor control (i.e., biofilters) and composting systems, the common methods of aeration included the pipe-in-stone and pipe-spigot designs. Pipe-in-stone systems consisted of parallel runs of perforated pipe buried in a bed of washed and uniformly sized gravel/pea rock. Pipe-spigot designs consisted of manifold pipes, usually under a concrete floor, with short vertical pipes (i.e., spigots) extending upwards to the surface of the floor. In both cases, the uniform distribution of air along the length of the pipes/manifold is achieved by backpressure created across the small holes in the perforated pipe (pipe-in-stone) or the small diameter spigots (pipe spigot).
There are two negatives in these older aeration methods: firstly, they both incur an energy requirement to move the air across small diameter holes or spigots. Secondly, cleaning and maintenance of the embedded piping and openings through which the air gains entrance/release from the piping is often difficult, time consuming, or in some cases, requires disruption of the floor components.
BacTee's flooring system eliminates the energy loss associated with moving air through small holes/pipes by using a plenum design, creating floor components containing numerous open slots through which the air can pass with negligible energy loss. Secondly, the components of all BacTee aeration systems can easily be removed and reset for ease of cleaning both the floor components and the subfloor and accessory piping. All BacTee floor layouts account for the management of free water or condensate by enabling drainage through the aeration floor components and subfloor and piping leading to sumps from which the water can subsequently be disposed of in a manner appropriate to the facility.
Your professionals at BacTee will evaluate your aeration needs and facility to provide a floor layout with BacTee components that offer optimal performance at the lowest cost for aerating bulk materials.