The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

THE MECHANICAL HANDLING OF MATERIAL 372 Here the front end of the quencher is closed by an iron plate or shield a, fitted with strengthening ribs and suspended on a rail track for the purpose. A series of sprinkling pipes is arranged inside the cover plate and supplied with water from a distributing pipe b at the top. A triangular recess cut out of the bottom edge, of the cover prevents the coke from jamming inside the quencher. An external perforated spraying pipe c is arranged on the cover plate, so as to complete the quenching of the issuing coke. This arrangement is simple, cheap, and acts in a highly satisfactory manner. Mechanical appliances for loading coke after quenching, and in connection with steep ramps, are in use in a great many cokeries now. Fig. 522 shows such a scheme as used at the coking plant of the Friedrich-Alfredhiitte, Rheinhausen. The chutes are swivelled and provided with balance weights, and deliver the coke into trucks running on a rope track which conveys them to the furnaces. Unless forks are used for moving the Fig. 523. Showing Method of Feeding Coke on to Tray Conveyor. coke down to the trucks, the small coke and breeze cannot be separated. Otherwise, the illustration explains itself. By far the most popular method of conveying the coke is a continuous tray conveyor which runs the whole length of the hearth, and which frequently ascends at the delivery terminal and deposits its load into a sifting and classifying plant prior to its further disposal. With this system, largely used in British cokeries, the lower end of the ramp terminates in a perforated plate reaching as far as the edge of the conveyor and draining away the surplus water. To prevent the coke from falling down on to the conveyor before it has sufficiently cooled, a number of swinging loading flaps are arranged at the bottom of the ramp. In small batteries, in which only one charge is loaded at a time, these numerous flaps may be replaced by one portable flap or door mounted on a four-wheeled truck running on rails parallel and on a level with the conveyor. Fig. 523 shows such an appliance of Koppers. This truck, which is moved by hand, carries four flaps, which are brought into the desired position by means of a toothed quadrant a engaging with a pinion b operated by a hand wheel on a vertical shaft c through worm gearing. When the flaps are set on the slant, as in the illustration, they hold back the coke, but when vertical they allow it to fall on to the