Originally Posted by KMechEng

We load Zinc Concentrate into rail cars using a shuttle conveyor and a chute. The chute drops the concentrate into the rail car about 10 feet below it. Currently, the chute is nearly verticle to fill the middle of the cars and is tilted to fill the end of the car. This causes a build-up or peak in the middle of the car which makes it difficult to secure a lid to the rail car. The cars are removed to another location, flattened with a loader and then the lid is applied.

Does anyone know of a good way to modify the chute to have less of a peak in the car? A deflector is not the best solution because concentrate would build up in the chute during the winter months.

Any suggestions? Manually flattening the concentrate causes many inefficiencies and needs to be avoided.

Thank you!

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you have not mentioned whether you have

the funding to initiatate and oversee a solution or the authority to do so.

1. a radio comtrolled or manually controlled

car spotter or back hoe is used to push the

empty and filed cars or a switcher locmotive

either manned or radio controled is being used





or:

2. whether you load in batches of X number of cars

in one switching or by the individual hopper car

or

3. the tonnage desired per hour or per hopper car

being 80-100-150 tons etc.

or

whether you are using narrow gauge covered hopper cars or

standard gauge hopper cars



or

4. what the sieve size of the zinc concentrate is.

a. dust control issues if applicable

Now as you are loading the car in one position thats one big issue-

If you wish to expand on why this is done please do so by all means as we are only curious.

plus if you are exceeding the combined weight of the hopper car and payload weight thats not a good process to follow,

as the danger exisits of not having enough braking power for the train consist of X numbers of car s and Y numbers in locomotives for the terrain that it follows.

the other issue is whether your company owns or lease these cars from a railroad operating company as overloading will cause more damage to the hopper

gates, and base, brakes, bearings, and air system components being plungers, seals, gaskets, brake pipes; the car knuckle couplers, main beams, wheels sets,

trucks truck springs, glad hands, glad hand seals, hand brake linkages and connecting chains.

A hopper car with covers depending on its type is typically loaded in two, three or four passes to fill it or has circular hatches that require more work to fill the hopper car.

smacking the cars lids to close them is problematic only because eventually they will fail eventually possibly damaging the roof of the hopper car and the loads are not intended

to be loaded above the hatches anyway

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solutions if you are interested

1. reset the limit switch stops on the shuttle conveyor to feed only the car length minus three feet on both ends of the length of the open hopper doors with the shuttle conveyor



if possible by simply attaching a tube chute to both ends of the shuttle conveyor that reaches the hopper car roof line and continue with your operating procedure

2. disable the shuttle conveyor and simply load from one position by:

a installing a telecscoping loading chute that fills from the bottom up of the hopper car

the telescoping loading chute has a low limit start position and a high limit stop that will stop the conveyor.

3. disable the shuttle conveyor and install a high speed thrower with a chute that retracts to fill the hopper



car absolutely fill per your operating methods by placing the thrower at one end of the hopper car and filling it that way

by regulating the speed of the thrower for proper or your desired filling level in one pass.

4 . simply do nothing if no money for a solution is available or offered

hope fully I have not caused the loss of any potential fees for my valued friends here from my response

lzaharis ■

Dear,This is an old design from one of India's premier company,this design has following flaws--

1.You will have to divide a rake in two parts,in your case I do not know the layout.

2.Dividing/shunting rake means two more escape lines.

3.Heavy structure/loadings of travelling chute on foundations--increase in civil cost.

4.Lot of spillage and environmental problems.

5.It takes 6-8 hours to load/shunt a rake where now Indian railway provides only

2--3 hours for complete cycle.

The best method is to have single point loading where entire racke can be

loaded with in 1-2 hours.

Please provide us the G.A drwaings for the existing system to suggest modifications.

Regards, Anil

Director--Libran Engineering&Services,India

www.libranengineering.com

0091-9811055650 ■

Hi

I think that you know the answer.

We load L/C ore into wagons.

The rake is moving along by loco at slowe speed - speed controlled loco.

We track the postion of the wagons

We have a shuttle conveyor that runs inline with the rake

We move the shuttle along/back toe rake whilst loading to get a wagon loaded evenly.

We have a belt weigher in the belt feeder system.

It requires a good PLC and program to make is all work

The shuttle is driven by VFD unit.

We have to get the axle loading right. We do not have lids to fit.

Depends on the money that you have to fix the issue.

I think that you could throw the ore more to the front and back and less time vertical.

Surely this system was commissioned/handed over OK and lids fitted at the loading bay- if so, then what changed to make it worse.

Sometimes, sitting down and spending time just watching the equipment work and think about what is happening can pay off.

Cheers

James ■