The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

COKE FROM COKE OVENS 367 wheels are of cast iron bored out to fit the ends of the axles, and kept in position with collars on the inside, and nut and washer on the outside. The hollow ends of the axles are lubricated by viscous lubricant, a brass plug being screwed in the end. Lubrication is effected by a boy standing at the side of the conveyor and giving each brass plug a turn with a spanner, which causes the lubricant to flow to the outside of the axle. The wheels run on rails supported on girders. The driving drums are of cast steel and hexagonal, with renewable teeth. The conveyor has a speed of 30 ft. per minute, but only works intermittently. At present it conveys 150 tons of coke per twenty-four hours. Fig. 508 shows an elevation of the installation. Figs. 509 and 510 give an elevation and a cross section showing the conveyor on a larger scale. It is a fact that people sometimes go out of their way to introduce elaborate mechanical devices, when by a judicious general arrangement much might be done by gravity and without mechanical handling. A case of the latter category may be cited in connection with the coke ovens of the Mitchell Main Colliery, Barnsley. Here the hearth is erected on parallel rows of cast-iron stanchions, not as usual on walls and masonry arches, so that there is room under the ramp for the sidings and the coke trucks; above the hearth there are a series of openings or traps of 18 to 20 in. square, to which angle-iron coamings are riveted, and they are fitted with lids. When the coke has been quenched, spread, and cooled on the Fig. 511. Coke Loading Device of Gregoire. hearth, it is shovelled down these holes into the trucks; the angle-iron coaming to the openings is there to prevent the quenching water from running into the trucks. A different principle is that of Gregoire, Seraing, in Belgium, shown in Figs. 511 and 512. In this system the coke is moved after cooling on the ramp by a mechanically driven plough running on two lines of rails parallel to the battery, which pushes the coke into the trucks. The plough is driven, as shown in Fig. 512, by a motor and the trans- mission a, b, c, d and the chains e and /, which gear on to the back axle. The carriage,