The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

ELEVATORS FOR MATERIAL, IN BULK 29 If small, the feeding device should take only a little at each movement and repeat the movements frequently; but if the material is large, the movements should be fewer, and a heavier feed should be allowed for each movement. (For other Feeding Devices see Chapter XVIII., page 202.) An interesting form of elevator,1 in which both top and bottom terminals are combined into one wheel, the lower part receiving whilst the upper or highest point gives delivery, is illustrated in Figs. 26 and 27. It is used for coaling railway engines, and is installed by the Hungarian Südbahn (Southern Railway) at Nagykanizsa. The apparatus is portable, and consists of a wheel 5 metres, say 16 ft., in diameter, which revolves slowly in the direction of the arrow on its spindle. The boss is long and the spokes are on one side only, to leave the interior of the wheel accessible for the inlet and outlet as well as for the shield a. The rim of the wheel is made of channel Figs. 26 and 27. Coal Elevator in which Both Terminals are Combined into One. section p] closed at the outside and open towards the middle. This rim is divided into sixteen compartments which represent the elevator buckets. A portion of the illustration is in section, and shows the stationary shield a which closes the channel at the inside for that portion where the coal is conveyed more or less on it. It will be understood that when the coal is fed by wheelbarrows at the lowest point, it is carried forward and upward on the outside periphery of the rim until a point is reached, when it is held in position by the shield, and towards the end of its travel it is pushed, as in a scraper conveyor, till it reaches the outlet at the highest point, where delivery to the locomotive tender takes place by a hinged shoot. The angle of repose a of the coal determines the point at which the shield begins. B—ELEVATORS FOR LARGE OBJECTS Elevators of a somewhat similar construction to the foregoing are frequently used for handling sacks, packing cases, carcasses, casks, blocks of ice, etc.; but of course 1 Zeitschrift des Vereines deutscher Ingenieure, 7th August 1909, page 1’283.