The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

CHAPTER XXIX THE MECHANICAL HANDLING OF COKE FROM COKE OVENS The industrial history of the past fifty years may be called absolutely distinct from that of any preceding period, and we see a complete revolution in all that part of our social life which is effected by industrial and mechanical appliances. This is specially so in regard to labour saving devices; it is a remarkable fact, however, that those arts whose functions it is to make the daily life of the toiler more endurable, were the last to be touched and invigorated by the talisman of the twentieth century inventive activity. The toiler at the coke oven is, perhaps, one of those whose arduous labours are made more unendurable by the intense heat, the steam of the quenching, and the some- times stifling sulphur fumes, in which he has to perform his duty, and yet there are only comparatively few coking establishments which have taken any steps to ameliorate the lot of these workers, and to benefit commercially by the same means. Coke ovens, whether antiquated or modern, whether charged and drawn by hand or by machinery, give employment to great numbers of men who perform the operations of quenching, breaking up, spreading, and finally loading the coke, all of which take considerable time, and are therefore expensive. The coke ovens themselves, and their more or less mechanical appliances, do not here concern us; may it suffice to say that a great many modern installations in this country and abroad are now met with, which are fitted with the most elaborate up-to-date charging and discharging appliances, but yet the means of handling the coke after it has left the ovens have been sorely neglected, probably on account of the great difficulty which this problem presents, and though this chapter is devoted to this particular subject, it is a question whether any of the numerous improvements given in it may be looked upon as the final solution of the problem. Mr A. Thau, who is closely connected with the subject in this country as well as on the Continent, has written an able paper on this important question, which has appeared in “Glückauf,” and the author is indebted to him for the facts which form the basis of the following. It is difficult to separate the mechanical handling of coke as it leaves the ovens from the quenching process, and both are, therefore, taken together foi this reason as well as for that of completeness in investigating an important process of a vast industry. The old method of dealing with coke from the ovens, and one which is still in vogue in probably the majority of coke oven installations, is very simple, as it is altogether devoid of mechanical contrivances. In front of the ovens there is a wide hearth or platform with a slight inclination away from them. The hearth is covered with cast-iron plates, and on the side opposite the ovens there are one or more lines of rails for the trucks into which the coke is to be finally loaded. The hearth, as a rule, is at its lowei side on a level sufficiently high for the coke to be dropped by gravity into the trucks. The slight gradient of the hearth is for the purpose of allowing the surplus quenching water to run away, and in order to prevent this water from running into the i ail way trucks there 361