The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

COAL, COKE, AND ASH HANDLING PLANTS 641 deliver into overhead conveyors in the boiler-houses which supply the overhead bunkers. The process then can either be direct from the ship into the overhead bunkers in the boiler-houses, or from the ship into the silo, afterwards to be delivered into the boiler-houses according to requirements. The capacities of the various conveyors are given in the illustration, Fig. 899. This installation is by Babcock & Wilcox, Ltd. Coal and Ashes Handling Plant at the Massachusetts Cotton Mills, Lowell, U.S.A. (Darley System) .—The general arrangement of the coal and ashes handling installation of the Massachusetts Cotton Mills, of Lowell, U.S.A., is shown in Figs. 900, 901, and 902. This is probably the largest pneumatic conveyor equipment ever constructed. Coal is handled from the track hopper, some 600 ft. distant from the boiler-house, by means of two 10-in. section conveyors. Beneath the track hopper is an automatic feeder and crusher for delivering the coal at a predetermined rate to the two intakes of the conveyors, which rise vertically to the roof of the building, and then extend horizontally across the intervening buildings to two 45-ton receiving tanks mounted .above the boiler-house, as shown. The two exhausters are located in the monitor of the building, and are so arranged that either exhauster can operate either suction ■conveyor. The coal can be dropped directly into one end of the storage bunker, or distributed by the motor-driven car. A ’5-ton weigh-hopper, mounted on an electrically driven crane, is employed to draw the coal from the bunker and discharge it to the stokers. The structure is of steel: the bunker is of reinforced concrete, holds 5,500 tons of coal, and is framed in with the building columns. The system of ashes handling may be readily understood from the illustration. This installation provides for handling the coal and ashes of 10,000 H.P. Babcock & Wilcox boilers, and is the design of the Guarantee Construction Co., of New York. Coal and Ashes Handling Plant of the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Co., Buffalo, U.S.A (Darley System).—The diagrams, Figs. 903, 904, and 905, show .a complete installation, using Darley pneumatic conveyors, for handling coal from railway wagons and from outside reserve storage, as well as dealing with the ashes from the boiler-house. There are two batteries of boilers, and an 8-in. suction pipe extends from the ash pits to a 60-ton storage tank located over the adjacent siding, to deliver ashes as convenient directly to cars for removal from the yard. A coal tank of 100 tons capacity is mounted at one end of the boiler-house, and is connected with a track hopper on the siding on which coal cars enter the premises. This suction duct connects, by means of a swivel elbow at the foot of the vertical riser, with a suction line extending out beneath the reserve coal storage. Ordinarily, coal is transferred from the 100-ton storage to the overhead bunker in the boiler-house by means of a motor-driven car, but the track for this car continues out of doors beyond the boiler-house on a trestle to provide for the reserve storage heap. For the boiler stokers .a travelling hopper is employed, provided with scales, as shown in section. Both the coal and ash conveyors are operated by a single turbine-driven exhauster, shown in one corner of the boiler-house. This installation is also the design of the Guarantee Construction Co., of New York. Ashes-handling Plant of the New South Wales Government Tram- ways, Sydney, Australia (Darley System).—Figs. 906 and 907 show an 41