Originally Posted by joglekar.siddharth

I wanted to know how to handle material during rainy season. There's a heavy delay and a lot of loss due to the monsoon season. There are about 22 beds that handle coal ores and fluxes.. Is there any way of tackling this problem?

Here again it is an opportunity cost issue.

By covering the ores/fluxes this eliminates heavy moisture levels

which have to be driven out of the coal ores/fluxes which of course

is a great expense on plant operating costs.

Short of using a geometric dome to cover the coal ores and fluxes you

will spend a great deal of time and labor covering and uncovering the

piles with high quality tarpaulins.

If your serious about investigating this please contact Lyn Bates through

the forum here to learn more about the geometrica dome storage systems. ■

Hello Siddharth Joglekar,

Losses / inconveniency during rainy season is subjective. During rainy season, most of the time raining happens to be moderate and it moderately influences the day to day life including material handling. Wild / heavy rain with wind-gust (storm) is a very small proportion of rainy season, and in this situation life including material handling operation will be affected or interrupted. There is no remedy to this. So some inconveniency during rainy season is unavoidable.

As for rain influence on material, it will increase the moisture content. In some cases it will degrade the material, wherein one has to opt for covered storage (food grains, salt, fertilizers, cement, etc.).

For material like coal, ore, limestone; mostly they go into kiln, furnace or boiler, etc. This will result into few percent increase in the energy loss during heating, as a part of processing. The cost of this energy loss will be insignificant compared to cost of additional equipment to reduce the moisture prior to processing. Even in this additional equipment there will be more loss of energy. In general such activity is counter productive unless the drying happens to be by sun rays. But there are less sun rays in rainy season.

People do opt for mechanical dryer to reduce moisture content in the material flowing to screening or some processes where moisture is objectionable for functional need or end result. Even in this case they tend to use heat from flue gases, etc. rather than burning fuel.

As for the covered shed you have many options and refer to their manufacturers.

Regards,

Ishwar G. Mulani

Author of Book : Engineering Science And Application Design For Belt Conveyors (new print November, 2012)

Author of Book : Belt Feeder Design And Hopper Bin Silo

Advisor / Consultant for Bulk Material Handling System & Issues.

Pune, India.

Tel.: 0091 (0)20 25871916

Email: conveyor.ishwar.mulani@gmail.com

Website: www.conveyor.ishwarmulani.com ■