Salt Querry
Greetings,
Your recent querry is thought provoking due to the fact that creating a saline pipeline to the loading pier will only create a delivery system disaster in my opinion.
As an aside you do not state whether the product in question is deep mined rock salt, solar salt harvested from concentrating ponds or evaporated salt from a heated saline brine operation.
no matter what type of product you have you will have a mess
if you try to pipeline it to an offloading station as salt by its nature turns to mush when it gets very wet and it is very hard to handle along with quality concerns, severe corrosion, metal failure, high maintenanace costs along with higher operating costs in general.
For example solar salt is quite often washed with a salt water solution to remove dirt, and mud from the concentrating ponds when it is harvested, then the salt is conveyed to a "rotary kiln"
at the bagging plant where it is heated, screened, and packaged.
The simple and easy way to do this is to use the system developed by Brink Weaver at wwww.pneutrans.net
the "capsule pipe line" system would totally eliminate the need for belt conveyors or trucks and the beauty of it is that the system runs on low pressure high volume air at atmosperic pressure.
the loadout for the system is the easy part, all you will need is a barge to install a large hopper on and a chute to direct the salt in to the ships hold- the minimum size pipe line for your needs would be a 16 inch pipeline. the minimum break even tonnage required for this system is 100,000 tons per year.
Also before I forget- do not depend on gravity at the loadout,
install an apron feeder under the full length of the dump hopper that feeds the ship as you will have nothing but problems from
salt caking up and reduced hopper capacity from same. ■
Re: Development Of Bulk Salt Transport System
Have you thought of using jet pump technology, its fast powerful and low wear. If you require further assistance please contact me on my email rwheatley1@yahoo.co.uk
Best regards Richard Wheatley ■
Development Of Bulk Salt Transport System
As an itroduction, my company is providing consulting services to a bulk salt mining company, and is specifically busy with a transportation system for the mine.
The mine is exploring more cost effective means of getting the salt from the stockpiles to on board a ship and is currently using road haulage and then a conveyor system. The study is considering moving the ship to a point 1km from the stockpile and then piping it directly aboard, thus saving considerable effort and exspense. One of the problems is that the ship will not be entirely stationary in the water as it will not be moored to any berth or dock but will be anchored for and aft. Therefore the piping wll have to have a degree of flexibility. This could be as much as 20 meters in each girection.
Bulksalt is a low value product and therefore the effectiveness of the loading system is important to the viability of the operations.
Shippments of up to 50 000 tons per month are being considered and idealy the product would be moved at a rate of not less than 500 tons per hour, more would be a bonus.
In coclusion, the obvious quiestion remain. Would a company be prepared to advise on this project and what costs would be involed. ■