A prototype hydrovac based system has dramatically reduced the volume of water required to remove organic material from swine transport trailers.
As part of research underway on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc, engineers with the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute have developed a hydrovac based system which uses pressurized water and a vacuum to remove organic material from swine transport trailers.
Dr. Hubert Landry, a research scientist with PAMI, says in the latest test of the system the upper level of a straight trailer was cleaned in about an hour using 66 gallons of water.
Time wise we are looking at about 60 to 65 minutes to clean that entire top level and about 66 gallons of water.
From a time perspective, probably quite comparable to current industry standards.
The advantage of our system is it involves a single operator.
Sometimes we see in industry a trailer will take four man hours so they can probably throw a team of two people for a couple of hours or so so the time is probably quite comparable.
Water wise, our 66 gallons of water needed are a faction of what's currently used.
It's very difficult to pin down very precise numbers from current practices but we've seen numbers in the line of 800, 1,000, 1,200 gallons per trailer to do the entire trailer though.
That figure of upwards of 1,000 gallons is to clean the entire trailer.
Our 66 gallons are for the upper level only but again, if you multiply that by two or three, you're still at a fraction of the current water use.
Dr, Landry says the next step will be to develop a remotely operated vehicle, still controlled by a person, to carry the cleaning tools and operate them inside the trailers.