The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

348 THE MECHANICAL HANDLING OF MATERIAL The details of a store yard must, of course, in a great measure depend on the conditions under which the material is received. The bucket of the elevator receives its charge from one of the three hopper-bottomed bins. A weighing machine is provided so that a record of each charge can be kept. As soon as the truck is full it is hoisted, and its con- tents emptied into the furnace. The hoist is electrically driven, and the electro-motor is placed in a cabin shown in the illustration. The emptying of the skip is effected in the following manner: The ordinary rails, on reach- ing the entrance to the furnace, are bent in a level direction so that the front wheels as soon as they reach this posi- tion proceed horizontally, whilst the back wheels, or rather that portion outside the flange, en- gage with a second pair of rails which are laid close to the ordinary track, and proceed in the same direction as the latter. The truck then rises until the floor of the skip has reached an angle of 45°, when it automatically discharges its contents, as shown in the illustration, where one of the buckets is depicted in the position of unloading. Fig. 487 shows a portion of a similar in- stallation in which the skip is approaching the furnace top. One of the rear wheels with flange in centre is clearly visible. In this case the rear wheels engage with two short lengths of rails which are slightly further apart than'the main track, so that the rear wheels proceed in a straight line. The main rails have been bent over a short distance in a horizontal direction, which gives the bucket the unloading position shown in the illustration.