Effective automatic trash rake systems are essential to keeping critical water supply systems flowing no matter what nature or your neighbors send down the river.
If you’re the point person for any type of raw water intake facility, you’re up against it to keep flows consistent daily. That’s a big ask in an increasingly uncertain world, where climate disruption is spiking flood peaks and dumping more debris into rivers.
To protect your facility and guarantee more consistent flows, you need a future-ready automatic rake system to keep it clean.
Efficient Trash Rakes for Clean, Consistent Flows
A tough bar screen should protect your intake or water-handling equipment from river-borne trash from catastrophic damage or clogging. Still, your critical operations and downstream clients depend on clean, consistent water flow to maintain safe, efficient operations.
Efficient trash rake systems are essential to remove trees, roots, tires, and other major debris, as well as biomass like roots, grass, and reeds, from your intake system before these accumulate and disrupt flows.
Below, we take a closer look at what trash rake systems are, the features and benefits they should offer, and why choosing an efficient trash rake system from a trusted equipment supplier like Atlas-SSI can help you keep your promises to operational partners and downstream clients.
What Is a Trash Rake System?
A trash rake system is an automated system that removes water-borne debris trapped against the bar screens that protect the entrance to your water intake system.
Intake screens are essential to protecting pumps and other downstream infrastructure from leaves, roots, grass, trash, and even larger debris like tree trunks or tires.
A trash rake system helps manage debris so that water can pass through your screens to ensure consistent flows and prevent flooding, especially during storms and flooding events.
Trash rake systems typically include a vertical grabber mechanism designed to lift debris trapped against intake screens, as well as a horizontal travel mechanism that moves the grabber unit sideways to allow the debris to be dropped into a hopper or container.
What to Look for in a Quality Trash Rake System
While automatic trash rakes all do the same thing, they don’t do it equally well. Here are some critical features to look out for that make the difference in both day-to-day performance and long-run efficiency.
- Strength: Your trash rake needs the strength to haul out the heaviest debris and clogs to keep water flowing and prevent overloading your screens today, and the capacity to handle the storms of the future.
- Toughness: Durability is no place to compromise when it comes to protecting critical infrastructure. Leading brand trash rakes are quality fabricated from long-lasting, corrosion-resistant materials.
- Efficiency: The best trash rake systems do a better job of clearing debris from screen bars, making each cleaning cycle more effective.
- Flexibility: No two trash rake installations are the same. The best systems have the design flexibility to allow them to be customized to the unique features of your facility.
- Automation: Your system needs automated features to work when no one’s around, plus the remote or on-site functionality that enables it to be operated manually.
- Compliance: Industry-leading trash rake solutions come with key environmental and safety regulation compliance built in, to avoid fines and expensive retrofits down the line.
What are the Benefits of the Landy Trash Rake?
Installed at over 800 sites worldwide, Atlas-SSI’s Landy Trash Rake system answers the need for a versatile solution with install-anywhere flexibility, the strength to handle the heaviest loads, and built-in efficiencies for long-term return on investment.
Power
The Landy Rake range is built with the lifting power you need to remove the heaviest debris loadings. Our regular R series models lift loads of up to 3,000lb from working depths up to 130- feet. Our SE models can be built to outperform this.
Durability
Quality fabricated in the U.S. in carbon steel, hot-dipped galvanized steel, or 304 or 316 stainless steel, our trash rake systems are built for the long haul. Plus, with no moving parts permanently submerged, Landy rakes require less maintenance or parts replacement over time.
Efficient
Cleaning efficiency is at the heart of the Landy trash rake’s design. Grab tines are built to slide between the bars of your screen as the grab descends, removing more debris as it goes. Landy rakes also clean your screens from top to bottom for maximum debris removal.
The Landy hoist grab also carries your debris directly to a dumpster – no conveyors or permanent additional handling equipment are required.
Flexible
With a surprisingly small system footprint, the Landy rake system can fit into almost any intake or canal configuration, while the overhead track system design can be curved or extended to meet challenging, site-specific requirements.
Customizable
Atlas-SSI’s purpose-built design flexibility extends to our control equipment. Landy rake units can be designed for fully automated PLC operation or remote or on-site manual operation using cameras and sensors and our SmartScreen® technology.
Atlas-SSI: Efficient Rake Equipment, Superior Service
Long-term flow consistency requires an ongoing commitment to efficient screen cleaning and debris control. That’s why it’s important to work with a full-service equipment supplier who provides the quality equipment you need, and backs it up with ongoing support and service.
The best suppliers can deliver quality, fully customized intake protection and debris handling solutions on time and on budget, and provide expert on-site installation, maintenance, and repair services.
Atlas-SSI is the leading provider of quality traveling water screen protection and bulk debris handling equipment in the U.S. We offer our clients:
- End-to-end design, fabrication, and installation services
- Some of the shortest delivery times in the industry
- Quality fabrication in the U.S. – we don’t sub out work
- Highly-certified technician and diving teams for on-site service anywhere in the U.S.
Contact us today to find out how we can help provide high-efficiency traveling screen systems for your raw water system or click below to learn more about our automatic trash rake equipment range.