Most if not all Rail Car Vibrators are typically used in the rectangular inverted cone of a covered hopper car or the dump door frame

of open top hopper cars and are attached to the car using a slide in bracket where the vibrator is secured to the car body.



Please find a list vibrator builders/sellers below

www.houstonvibrator.com

www.workmaster.net

www.go-mps.com

www.shakeit.com

www.chicagovibrator.com

www.rtoolsolutions.com

www.martin-eng.com

www.navco.org

www.railcarvibrator.com

www.totalvalve.com

www.hollandbinkley.com

www.controlengineering.com

www.saferack.com

www.meadequipment.com

www.corrosioncontrolresources.com

www.kadee.com

www.martinmetalfab.com

www.profileshf.com

www.renningen.com

Disclaimer:

I have no financial interest ownership interest or affiliation of any kind with the above companies in the links provided by me. ■

Originally Posted by prwatts

Many thanks !!

I am looking for a vibrator that can be kept in the unloading facility in case one car comes in with some wet powder. When dry the discharge is to specification but if the powder gets wet it sometimes blocks.

So I wanted a portable one that could be pressed against the car to dislodge the load.

To fit a vibrator to each car will be expensive and most of the time unnecessary.

Peter

No,

just look at the information there are

a herd of detachable shakers.

the portable shakers are just that-portable.

the vibrators are not permanent Peter,

they are slid into the brackets, secured,

energised, cargo dislodged, unsecured

from mounting bracket, and then removed,

and used again on the next railcar with issues of

compacted payloads. they are great for finding

broken welds and leaks in the discharge cones too.

lzaharis ■

Qld Rail in Australia just use a jackhammer suspended from a beam on a rolling hanger. The jackhammer is placed in a pocket formed by a plate and a short length of angle. These are welded to the railcar between each door pair. The operator walks along using the jackhammer as the train continues through the dump area.

More modern interpretations that remove the safety/manual handling issue are a deploying, rolling device that a remote operator activates. These deploy from beside the track towards the railcar and roll along the (smooth) side while vibrating.

There were papers published on this by QR and the CSIRO a few years back.

M ■

Originally Posted by WoltonM

Qld Rail in Australia just use a jackhammer suspended from a beam on a rolling hanger. The jackhammer is placed in a pocket formed by a plate and a short length of angle. These are welded to the railcar between each door pair. The operator walks along using the jackhammer as the train continues through the dump area.

More modern interpretations that remove the safety/manual handling issue are a deploying, rolling device that a remote operator activates. These deploy from beside the track towards the railcar and roll along the (smooth) side while vibrating.

There were papers published on this by QR and the CSIRO a few years back.

M

Is the center sill which you refer to is properly referred to

as the "main beam" if it is under the car body.

Every unloading scenario is different and cannot have a

one size fits all remedy in the case of a jack hammer as

I have mentioned below.

The information on the railcar vibrators I posted in the links for

your use are either cart mounted or simply slide into place and

are locked in during unloading and then removed to be placed

on the next car or hopper section-it is very simple and

requires a low air volume.

Using a rail car side wall banger for any rail car is problematic as

they are installed after the car heater building in cold climates.

to help break frozen coal away from the cars sidewalls.

The material is already settled and if the car vibrator is simply slid

in to the pocket of the inverted cone of the hopper car it energises

the area of the car that is used to dump the payload.

The railcar vibrators available today in the western world

are more efficient in delivering the energy required than

a jack hammer that would be misdirecting the amount of

so called controlled or uncontrolled wasted energy.

The maximum energy available to induce funnel flow

and mass flow is immediately generated with the pad

vibrator of the specific size at its mounting location

on the hopper invertwhich creates the resonance

required because the Vibrator Pad is physically in

contact with the hopper car invert to allow the material

to move downward if and only if the dump doors are open.

The distance the payload travels from the loading point

to the discharge point, The condition of the railroad

track bed and track, whether it is jointed rail or ribbon rail,

the type and condition of the railroad ties and the railroad tracks

geometry and the proper loading of the rail car are the determing

or detrimental factors where compaction occurs during transit and

where the unloading issues have occured from day one

which resulted in the creation of the the "Car Hoe",

which is used for open top hopper cars in many

locations world wide.

The covered hopper car is no different where compaction

occcurs during transit and if a material is hygroscopic in

nature using Soft Coal and Halite as prime examples

and many others the issues are no different.

The portable wheeled units as well as the single pad attached units are fully

capable of doing what is required for powder discharge issues.

There is no good to come out of reinventing the wheel here.

A properly desiged purpose intended portable railcar vibrator which are offered by

many reputable suppliers who have been manufacturing many purpose

defined and refined rail car vibrators that are simply attached to the hopper car

inver, locked in place in the mounting bracket(which is also provided by the manufacturer

to be welded to the rail car invert of each discharge point drawdown section for the vibrator.

The issue of deciding which side to anchor the attaching plate depends on the number of locations

the car will be discharging its cargo and whether its on the port side or starboard side or both as

the car builders over here simply attach two mounting plates to each drawpoint of a hopper cars discharge

invert as most all of the pad vibtrators are using a standard design mounting shell.

The actual square inch area occupied by the horizontal gate which opens and closes using a dual spur gear shaft and twin

gear rack is where the entire weight of the cargo is applied in addition to the car sides but gravity is the issue and as a

result compaction of the cargo occurs in both side discharge open and closed top hopper cars.

Using a rail car vibrator is very efficient where the vibrator is attached and or locked in place the dumo door opened

using a Ratchet wrench or air impact wrench or torque multiplier with a hand ratchet, the air line valve opened which in turn

energizes the pad vibrator with the proper system pressure required to operate the pad vibrator to aid in discharging

the material from the hopper car invert allowing the complete discharge of the hopper car at each drawpoint and the

additonal material that falls away from one or both sides of the invert of the railcar.

The simplicity of the railcar vibrator allows you to open the air valve and leave the vibtrator on if desired while it is

dumping its payload.

The limiting factor is the reception pit or pits or the number of below ground hoppers available to discharge the entire payload.

If the unloading facility has only one small recieving hopper for recieving the payload from one draw point of an open top

or covered hopper of any size of configuration it limits the unloading speed.

The product being unloaded is the other huge factor if it is affected by moisture, freezing or is improperly sized for the proper discharge

of the material.

The issues of funnel flow and mass flow are no different in an open top condola hopper car or a closed top hopper car with bottom discharge doors

or with side dischage doors as the issues are identical.

The use of a jack hammer that is designed to break rock or asphualt with brute force impact energy

can be a quick way to hospital if the air hose disconnects and causes an injury which can be fatal

(if a whip stop is not employed or the quick couplers do not have wire holes to tie the connectors together)

If the employee trips and falls under the car due to the air hose separating and hitting the employee

and the employee is injured or killed nothing was gained in this excercise of cost savings.

The railcar vibrator eliminates the need for human contact of the rail car and injury or death whil unloading.

There are many hundfreds of recored accidents with rail cars and the job of unloading them and I personally am aware

a large numbe rof these incidents unofortunately.

With side discharge bay doors the issue is the center spine of the rail car base where the material is affected by its compaction and angle of repose

If the inverted V floor base of the rail car does not have a greater angle than the materials angle of repose the material will not flow very well due to its compaction.

The railcars designed for the transportation of stone ballst for rail beds have wide bay doors and they are also very long to allow quick discharge.

The bottom dump doors of an open top hoppper car are positioned on both sides of the hopper cars main supporting beam and also add to its tare weight and the payload weight.

This type of railcar has many dump doors in its base to aid in dumping its payload due to the limited clearances of the car body within the rails 52 and one half inches and the clearance height above the rails for transit at speed.

That is why the modern bulk closed top hopper har has a wide flat plate gate discharge as it allows for better mass flow of material and the design stays within the

clearances required for rail car body clearances within the rail gauge.

The use of flame heaters to aid in the discharge of coal in open top hopper cars is

often used in many locations where coal is dumped from bottom discharge cars to trestles

or under car plow conveyors.

lzaharis

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