Conveying of Material

Till now we talked about tippling process and the way wagon tippling takes place and its maintenance.So what happens next?. Actually tippler tipples and what ever the material is in the wagon gets unloaded into hopper.

Now , What is a Hopper ?

A hopper is simply a conical structure wide at the top and narrow at the bottom.It is designed so as to free and constant flow of materials.Inside the hopper,its walls are fastened with liner plates , so that the mother plate by which the hopper is made, doesnt get worn out. The liner plates are made up of different materials depending on the cost. Mostly stainless steel,Manganese steel , Hardox plates are used. Fabrication is a vast subject , different metals and combination alloy's are used for different purposes. Even many countries have their own standards and codes ,for exmple  china uses Q355,Q255 structural steels for heavy structures. It doent mean that these are the only steels , there are wide variety of options. Every company fabricating structures have their own compositions while offering quality in strength and other mechnical properties for the requirement of customers.


A hopper while in operation , Iron Ore Handling

Anyway every metal have certain properties and life. Even the StainlessSteel liner plates get worn out and need to be inspected and changed before it gets fully worn out and the mother plate damages. The liner plates are fixed to hopper wall with fasteners, most propably counter sunk bolts are used, before fixing the liner plate a counter sunk hole is made with exact dimentions corresponding to the design of respected fastener to be fixed. For example if it had to be fixed by a 16mm counter sank bolt , a 16 mm counter sank hole is made on the liner plate to be fixed.

why counter sunk bolt have to be used?

Simple, because if normal hexagonal headed bolt is used, when continous flow of mterial is there, the head gets worn out and there is a high scope of liner plate to fall when the bolt heads  are worn out. If counter sunk bolts are used, it positions itself in the hole made and the bolt doent get distrubed till the plate is worn out to some thickness. It must be understood that continous inspection should be there, otherwise the fasteners might get loosened.


                                         Hardox liner plates fixed with counter sunk bolts

For cost consumption and long life, even the liner plates are covered with thick rubber pads at some places.

                                                     Rubber Pads fixed on liner plates

To reduce the impact of material from certain height on the underlying conveying system ,additional saftey is provided like poke rods. It depends on the type of conveying system using exactly underneath the hopper. For example if the immidiate conveying system is a belt conveyor, poke rods are used to reduce impact on the belt, if the immidiate conveying system is an apron feeder poke rods are not used.

what is immidiate conveying system?

Like i priviously said, for a meterial to reach from one place to another there are lot of conveying systems involved in between. Like in simple terms transportation. So when the wagon unloads the materail inside the hopper, beneath the hopper a conveyor system is present for the material to get dispatched/conveyed to storage location.

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