About your inquiry,

With regard to using a hydraulic or pneumatic breaker in a hopper car:

Using one before the load is dumped is counter productive simply because

the load would be packed further into the hopper car by compression and

compaction.

BUT IN TWO SEPARATE EXAMPLES:

1. What is done here in the United States is the hopper car is pulled through

a heating shed where resistance heating elements attached to both sides of the heating shed

are energised and the sidewalls of the hopper car are heated with electricity allowing the sidewalls

of the car ot be heated and then the load will be dumped out and then fall on to a grid of stainless

steel that further breaks up the lumps. Anything larger that will not break is jackhammerd and broken

by a laborer when the system is plugged and ore transfer is prevented to the apron feeders and

then on to the stockpile.

a. another method is the use a propane fired flame that heats the sidewalls of the hopper car before

the belly dump doors are opened on the rail car and the ore is carried away with a plow conveyor to storage.

b. Another method used very efficiently is the CAR HOE rail car excavator used for belly dump hopper cars.

It could be used for Bath Tub Gondola Cars but the load would have to be dumped and the car pushed backout

and the remaining ore broken up in the belly of the car and then brought back into the rotary car dumper/car tippler

to dump out the balance of the load in the railcar.

Using a pneumatic or hydraulic breaker is counter productive prior to pushing the

hopper car on to the rotary car dumper/car tippler as an entire load is frozen.

Unless you have a plow conveyor and use a fleet of belly dump hoppers a pneumatic

or hydraulic breaker is counterproductive.

The "Car Hoe" uses a spade attachment to aid in breaking up frozen material and also has

bucket attachment as well; The "Car Hoe" is hydraulic in its operation using an high voltage

electric motor. ■

Originally Posted by niladri

lzaharis,

Thanks for your thoughts.

Of course we are familier with the heating shed concept and hae used them on a numbe rof occasions. In this instance the client doesn't want to incur the cost of installing these and furthermore the considerable cost of running them.

He's looking for a solution that breaks up the frozen material in the wagons before they are dumped in a Tippler, hence our concept of using a rock breaker.

The CAR HOE rail car excavator, sounds interesting, thanks. I'll look into it a bit more.

niladri

Namaskar, Saba il kheer,

Greetings and Salutations Niladri

The problem is one of patience and more patience with frozen carloads.

A rock breaker with either a hydraulic hammer or an air hammer

will only pack the load in tighter negate the use of simple gravity

and its convenience.

this is where the fun begins as the load will not dump out completely and

the car will have to be rotated back to the 12 oclock position and backed out of

the dumper shed and the remaining ore in the bottom broken up again and then

once again the the car is pushed into the tippler and disconnected again from the

locomotive, the car clamp is then lowered to hold the hopper car to prevent it from falling

down as the load is dumped into the recieving pit for transfer to a bunker or stockpile.

Then the hopper car is rotated back to the twelve oclock position and reconnected to the

string of loaded cars behind it to push out the empty one and set up the next car to be dumped.

The only real option for hopper cars that can work quickly is a flame heater to warm up the car sides

quickly prior to dumping. Unfortunately it is a an opportunity cost issue again staring one in the face

and there is no easy and quick solution without resistance heaters in a warming shed or a series of

flame heaters.

here is the link to carhoe.

www.carhoe.com ■