The Rise of Pneumatic Conveying Machines - SwiftBright Ventures Group Co.,Ltd

Things have changed in the 30 years that I have been in the pneumatic conveying industry, with several major improvements that come to mind.

May 19, 2025

I recently celebrated the milestone of “surviving” 30 years in the pneumatic conveying industry, which has triggered some reflection of how things have changed over that time period.

There are several major improvements that come to mind, such as:

1. Advancements in air movers: blowers, compressors, and vacuum pumps with more efficient operation, and a wider range of pressure and flow capabilities

2. Development (or at least implementation) of a wider range of material flow regimes, particularly dense phase conveying

3. Major advancements in engineering methods, such as 3D modeling and cloud-based “virtual design for construction” collaborations

4. Better documentation and dissemination of pneumatic conveying concepts, theory, and methods (thank-you internet)

5. Improved manufacturing techniques, such as automated machining, cutting, forming, bending, and welding equipment, affecting how pneumatic conveying equipment is manufactured

But of all the changes over the years, I believe that the advancements in automation have had the largest impact on improving the performance of pneumatic conveying systems.

There are many key advancements in automation that have led to improved operation and process control of pneumatic conveying systems.

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Cost of Instrumentation

I remember a time (1995ish) when the cheapest pressure transmitter available cost approximately $900 and adding an analog input card would run about $1,500. To add a simple pressure transmitter, you were spending $2,400. In today’s dollars that equates to about $5,000. Today, a high-quality transmitter costs $325, and the analog input card is $725, so all in for $1,050 — a five-time reduction in cost.

A dense phase vessel of that era likely had four solenoids, a pressure switch, and a high-level sensor for instrumentation, and few of the valves would have had position feedback.

This advanced automation interface puts real-time system control and diagnostics at your fingertips. All images: Cyclonaire

Today, the same vessel may include:

1. Pressure transmitter(s)

2. Load cells

3. Level control(s)

4. Analog position valves

5. Analog pressure control

6. Airflow measurement (flowmeter)

7. Nearly all valves have position feedback

Similarly, the common integration of lower cost variable frequency drives allows greater control of air movers and feeders, achieving better air velocity control, material throughput rates and batching accuracy, and energy conservation.

All this additional instrumentation presents greater opportunity for process visibility and advanced control.

Miniaturization

The reduction in size (often in part by operating at lower voltage--120 VAC was prevalent in 1995--whereas now 24 VDC is the standard) allows more inputs and outputs per card at a much-reduced form factor. This allows I/O to be mounted locally on machines and allows for more instrumentation to be more easily adapted. Instrumentation has also shrunk in size and grown in functionality. One device can now have digital, analog, and network signals.

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Processor Power

Increased processing power allows more computation and memory, allowing programs to house more information, and process it faster. This opens doors for various machine functions to be programmed as standard, and allows additional computing power for collecting information such as maintenance counters, hourmeters, etc.

Combining the processing power with the increased instrumentation allows for more advanced programming, with code that can respond to process variations or upset conditions. It can also adjust machine operation for conveyance of different materials, or different destinations (distance effects). More advanced methods can be applied to respond to material flows.

Communication Protocols

Development of communication protocols such as Ethernet I/P and Profinet allow easy exchange of data such as recipes, batch data, barcode validation and tracking, etc., allowing the pneumatic conveying system to be more integrated with the plant processes.

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Additionally, this has driven the concept of “remote I/O” to become a standard. Equipment modules have local, on-board I/O facilitating installation, commissioning, and troubleshooting of equipment, and further reducing instrumentation costs by reducing field wiring costs.

Wireless communications allow information to be exchanged remotely, enabling features such as remote alarm notifications if systems operate outside of accepted ranges (email and text alerts for example).

A glimpse into advanced automation technology — where data, control, and performance converge on one smart screen.

Data Storage Capability

Data trending and historian logging allows for greater process visibility, capturing and giving visibility to transfer rates, batching accuracies, filtration health, and other important performance criteria. This information can be invaluable for tracking system performance and can also be used to investigate upset conditions. Baseline performance can be documented and compared to trend data over time to ensure that performance is not degrading.

Pairing the data storage advancements with improved communication protocols allows data to be accessed remotely in real-time, or for historical review. This greatly simplifies system monitoring and understanding of its performance, allowing quality control while overseeing efficiency, productivity, and accuracy. Operators can input recipes from a centrally maintained database. Scanning material barcodes before operation ensures that the correct ingredients are used, and relevant data can be recorded for quality oversight.

Visualization Tools

Operator interface in 1995 usually meant lights, buttons, and switches, and perhaps a simple electronic (usually alphanumeric text only, or very limited graphics) operator interface for alarm messaging and timer adjustments.

Today’s HMIs are touchscreen enabled devices which can display detailed graphics to accurately represent the equipment in every detail. It is common to have “pop-up” windows for every instrument or device, which can allow operators to interact directly with that specific device, setting calibration parameters, manually triggering the device and monitoring its feedback.

Overall process flows can be displayed, with interlocks identified, assisting with troubleshooting to identify any missing interlocks. Alarms and significant events are logged and easily reviewed.

Additional features like on-board trend displays, and data logging to USB port devices are also commonly available. Microsoft Windows capability (or equivalent) allows for onboard troubleshooting guides or reference documents. For example, many screens can be remotely accessed by VPN over wireless network, allowing for a cellphone to become a remote HMI, allowing operators to control a device while standing next to it for observation or troubleshooting.

Combined Cyclonaire Dense Phase Conveyor on load cells ensures accurate, efficient material transfer with real-time weight monitoring.

Simulation Capability

In 1995, testing of a new PLC program prior to commissioning generally meant taking a finished PLC enclosure, and wiring up switchboards, lights, and relays (to auto-route outputs back to feedback input signals), as well as voltage generators for load cells. This was a cumbersome process and required significant hardware to accomplish (not to mention the time to set it up).

PLCs and HMIs today can perform software simulations using emulation. Any new software change can be easily tested “offline” to validate performance. These same emulations can be used for training purposes, allowing operators to interface with the system in a “virtual” environment to learn about the system sequencing and troubleshooting.

Software Algorithms

Programming software today is available with “canned” algorithms such as PID controllers, weigh batch controls, and signal conditioning, making it easier to adopt more advanced adaptive control methods. Additionally, there are tools which allow users to configure their own proprietary modules which can be constructed to standardize a “black box” solution that can be repeatedly deployed with “best practices” captured.

All of these developments have combined to drive huge efficiency gains, and tighter control of pneumatic conveying systems. Systems are highly customized and flexible in their capabilities, far more so than possible in the past. Additionally, they provide animation and visibility to what is actually happening inside the pipes and vessels, allowing operators to have a much better understanding of the process, making it much more intuitive to operate. This helps to drive reliability as well, since any system performance deviations can be observed sooner and corrected before they create cascading effects.

Transfer Rate Trending monitors system health, ensuring optimal performance and early issue detection — powered by today’s advanced Cyclonaire automation technology.

With all of this information available, one would think that it should be easy to own and operate a pneumatic conveying system. Sometimes that is true, but not always.

Industry has taken full advantage of the increased ability available to control pneumatic conveying systems and integrate them into larger plant processes. We can do things today that were unheard of 30 years ago. Pneumatic conveying systems can handle many more sources and destinations and accommodate conveyance of many different ingredients with the same system. Advanced control measures can be leveraged to maintain flows, batching, and inventory tracking with levels of precision not previously possible. All of this can add a lot of complexity, however. The additional instrumentation requires increased sophistication for maintenance and troubleshooting. Much like automobiles, pneumatic conveyors have evolved to a point where the increased performance comes with an added burden of complexity.

While much of the system performance may be trended, recorded, and documented, today it still takes a person (often a subject matter expert) to interpret the data. Some manufacturing companies develop a level of expertise within their own organization to occasionally review the system performance. Others occasionally rely on outside sources for this, particularly if a system’s performance may start to degrade.

Here another obstacle is often encountered. As automated systems have become more interconnected, cybersecurity has become a major concern for manufacturers. Allowing direct access to a functioning process from an outside network is often forbidden. Sophisticated methods can be employed to transfer the data through various exchanges to isolate the data from direct access, but it requires a level of coordination between the owner and any outside party they wish to engage. Often this is enough of an obstacle that even sophisticated owners choose to host their own data collection, and only share exported data at scheduled intervals, or “ad hoc” when assistance is needed.

Today’s automation brings smarter routing, real-time monitoring, and enhanced system efficiency for seamless, data-driven performance.

Attempting to predict what advances the next 30 years will bring is probably naïvely stupid to attempt. In 1995, I never would have envisioned commissioning new systems with a “magic” wireless touchscreen (cell phone) while standing on top of a silo, far from the PLC. Nor would I have predicted the amount of information available from the system, and the easy access to it.

Nevertheless, we have some indications of directions advancements are heading. Two that will have obvious influence are:

• Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)

The interconnectivity of things will continue to grow and expand. This will overcome the security barriers that exist today, preventing (outside) access to machine data. It will also likely continue to drive down the cost of instrumentation and further drive development of smart sensors.

Even more information will be available than today, accessible to specialists for remote support, or more likely for analysis by artificial intelligence.

AI & Machine Learning

The development of Artificial Intelligence will be able to capture much of the subject matter expert’s (SME) role. AI models can “learn” the specifics of even very complex pneumatic conveying systems and learn from their operation over time.

I can envision HMIs in the near future that will have on board SME qualified expertise which can be accessed through a natural language exchange. The control system will be able to suggest troubleshooting techniques, perform root cause analysis, and point out needed predictive maintenance in advance of failures (think Hal from the “2001: A Space Odyssey” movie, but hopefully less psychotic).

AI combined with the development of big data and advanced analytics will likely be able to observe and quantitatively consider minute system effects that even the best human SME can’t comprehend today (perhaps for example, how daily temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure effects may influence the system performance in minor ways at any given moment).

In addition to IIoT and AI, there will be many other advancements that are hard to imagine today. Who knows, maybe we will have delegated maintenance tasks to autonomous robots by then. Maybe we will have miniature cameras that can be conveyed through the system and transmit images of system internals to spot buildup or abrasive wear on components, or mini drones to fly through for this. Maybe the HMI will be a 3D immersive hologram experience…

At the start of my career, I often heard that “pneumatic conveying is an art, not a science.” Obviously this is not true, but it captures the essence of the fact that there are so many complexities interacting in a dynamic conveying system that it is impossible to account for them all with any simple calculation, and only with a lot of experience can someone begin to at least consider the full range of interplay and understand general effects.

As more and more of these contributing complexities are measured by automation, and accounted for with advanced programming algorithms, pneumatic conveying becomes more “scientific”, understood, and controlled every year. As this information is analyzed by more advanced computational models that incorporate machine learning and model predictions, the complexities of pneumatic conveying will continue to be even more predictable and controlled, ensuring that pneumatic conveying systems will continue to be integrated with increased capability and usefulness in manufacturing.

Scott Schmid

Scott Schmid is president of Cyclonaire. Schmid has more than 30 years of pneumatic conveying experience. Since joining Cyclonaire (York, NE) in 1995, he has held key leadership roles in engineering and operations, driving innovation and excellence in the bulk material handling industry and has served as the president of Cyclonaire since 2015. A graduate of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Schmid is known for his deep technical knowledge, strategic vision, and commitment to developing talent and advancing pneumatic conveying technologies across a wide range of industries.