The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

i36 THE MECHANICAL HANDLING OF MA TERLAL which is probably one of its best features, as this tends to make the strand of the conveyor more flexible for curves on a horizontal plane, and each unit has only one running rail in 1 i Fig. 187. Diagram showing Method of Tipping. the central direction of the chain. It will be seen that with such an arrangement the strand of the con- veyor chain is in lability, so an auxiliary rail above the wheels be- comes necessary for guiding the rollers in their horizontal passages at top and bottom (the vertical portion, of course, requiring no rails whatever). This construction makes it imperative that the buckets should be divided into two com- partments, one on either side of the central roller (see Fig. 189). This development offers rather more difficulty at the loading point, particularly in conveyors of small capacity, where the units are not close together, as two shoots are necessary, one for-each section of the bucket. The same circumstance makes this system impracticable for plants of very small capacities, as each of the two buckets form- ing one unit would be too small in such a case. The links of the chain are com- posed of two ZD- shaped bars which surround the rollers, so that the two open ends a a and b b meet in the centre and are traversed by the axle of the roller, which forms at the same time the pin for the chain, and carries a bucket at each of its overhanging ends The closed ends of the ZD -shaped link segments of each unit are joined to- gether by a short