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THE LOADING • 0 ISE MATERIALS.

25th March 1924, Page 16
25th March 1924
Page 16
Page 17
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Page 16, 25th March 1924 — THE LOADING • 0 ISE MATERIALS.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

ONE OF the most difficult problems facing such users of motor vehicles as the building contractor and those concerned in the making of roads, is that of loading the loose materials which have to be transported, very often in huge quantities. Many Of these materials, such as sand, gravel, broken brick, road metal and granite chippings, are of considerable weight, and it does not pay to carry them in anything else but their loose form.

• Unloading these materials is usually, a comparatively simple operation, if tipping bodies be employed, but their loading is another matter altogether, and unless the gravel, etc., happens to be very fortunately disposed, as, say, on a bank, so that it can be shovelled down into the body of the vehicle,

, it usually necessitates considerable wastage of time and much expenditure to load the heavy vehicles usually employed for such work.

• Various methods, such as the employment of skips lifted into position by cranes, have been employed, but the matter usually boils down to one of manhandling.

Fewr people, other than those aetnally ,engaged in this work, realize the time occupied in loading. Taking the average loading height as being 3 ft.— which is a very conservative figure—the amount of energy consumed in loading 1 lb. of material is 8 ft.-lb., and to load a five-ton lorr3r takes 2,240 x 5 x 3 ft.-lb. = 33,600 ft.-lb., or about 1 h.p. if the vehicle be loaded in one hour.

It is usually estimated that a man working at full capacity can develop approximately 1-7th h.p. ; therefore, it takes something like seven men to load a five-ton lorry in one hour, and from inquiries which wz: have instituted it seems that although this is quite possible.4for the first hour, it is probable that the loading rate would diminish to a considerable extent during" subsequenthours, SO that, quite apart front the terminal delays caused, there is the very serious item of wages to be considered, and sued wages are out of proportion to the value of most of the materials which have to' be transported.

In view of these facts, it appears strange to us that more use is not made of mechanical loading devices. Several apparently satisfactory types have been placed on the market, but so far have not achieved that measure of commercial success which they would appear to merit. The usual trouble is the first cost, which is, unfortunately, somewhat high, but we believe that once the merits of this type of machine have been realized, there will be a steady demand, which would, naturally, have the effect or reducing the cost of . production.

Some very interesting loaders for loose materials were exhibited at the P u 131 i c Works, Roads and Transport Congress and Exhibition, held at the Royal Agricultural Hall in November, 1921. Most of these' were of the self-feeding type with a bucket loader, the larger ones being mounted on chain tracks and arranged with a slow-motion reverse, so that they can be fed backwards into the pile of Material. • At leastone of these machines was fitted with a special feeder appliance, consisting of tavo discs set almost horizontally and revolving towards e a c other, thus bringing the loose material into the path of the lower buckets.

• A machine of this type is marketed by the Allied Machinery Co., Ltd., of 70, Victoria Street, London,

8.W.1. It is built to cope with very heavy work, and is actuated by a petrol engine of 30 h.p. It has a capacity. of 1i cubic yds. per minute, and can easily load a five-ton lorry in five minutes. The lifter has 25 buckets, and the whole machine is mount e.d on creeper tracks, on which it can travel at 4 m.p.h. and turn round in the length of the tracks. It is priced at £,1,050.

Such a machine as this can, of course, be used to load railway trucks, as• the height f r .o m the ground to the bottom of the spout is 9 ft. 6 ins.

Another path digging wagon loader of the selfcontained petrol driven type, mounted upon a truck with chain tracks and provided with a selffeeding device, was exhibited two years ago by Millars Timber and Trading Co., Ltd., Pinners' Hall, London, B.C. The same company also showed a small machine, driven by a 3 h.p. petrol engine,

which consisted of a bucket elevator with a feeding attachment at the lower end.

A self-propelled machine, which is stated to have a capacity of 60 tons per hour of broken Stones, sand, coal or similar material, and which can be fitted with a petrol or electric motor as required, is the Jeffrey wagon loader marketed by Hugh Wood and Co., Ltd.", of 65, Fenchurch Street, London, E.C.3.

Other machines of smaller h.p. arid capacity have been built, and for certain of them i.t is claimed that, with one man operating the machine, vehicles can be loaded at the rate of one cubic yd. per minute. As this quantity of gravel weighs slightly aver one ton, this means that loading is performed at over one ton per minute and, according to the calculations referred to at the beginning of the article, this would necessitate an actual expenditure of 12 h.p.

As a matter of fact, the average loading heighk may be considerably above the 3 ft. allowed, for when using a machine of this type it would be usual to load right over the side or the tailboard of the body, which • might easily double the loading height and necessitate an actual expenditure on lifting the material only of quite 24 h.p., to which we must add the power absorbed by forcing the buckets into the material, or by any special feeding device, and that taken by the friction of the machine itself.

We believe, however, that there is a big future for small machines designed to have a loading capacity of, say, 5 cwt. a minute, so that a five-ton lorry could be loaded in 20 minutes. Even with such a moderate attainment as this such machines show a great saving . over loading by means of man power, both as regards cost and time.

Henry Simon, Ltd., 20, Mount Street, Manchester, are very well known in connection with their labouraiding appliances, andthey market portable loaders driven by petrol engines or electric motors, which should meet many requirements.. For loose materials they have a special band conveyor which can easily be fed by one man.

Bucket conveyors of various types are made by The Ewart. ChainbeltCo. Ltd., of Colombo Street, Derby, whilst Messrs. W. and C. Pantin, 147, Upper

Thames Street, London, E.C.4, market petrol-engineel loaders for dealing with from 10 to 30 tons of loose materials per hour.

Other in of suitable machines are the Economical Conveyor Co., Ltd., Acres Iron Works, Stalybridge, and Spencer (iyfelksham), Ltd.. Wilts.

'It should be thoroughly understood by prospective buyers of such apparatus that, in requesting information from the makers of loading appliances, they should give the fullest possible details of their requirements and the exact circumstances in which t h'e machines will be employed, as, in many cases, it is advisable to design machines particularly . for 'certain classes of work, or to modify existing types. In our issue for April 17th last year, we published illustrations and description of a bucket-typemachine known as the Speciality Loader. This was carried on a Fordson tractor by means of powerful stanchions, the loader being gear-driven off the power shaft of the tractor and raising the material on to an overhead conveyor forming part of the equipment and provided with an 18-in, rubber belt. This requires the services of two men, one to control the feed by driving the tractor .in reverse, and the other to Supervise the disposition of the material.

Since writing the foregoing we have received par ticulars' of the inclined loader built by Spencer (MelkSham), Ltd.. This machine consists of a conveyor fitted with a rubber and canvaii belt arranged to run at a speed of 350 ft. per minute. The bolt is carried by a number of idler rollers, so arranged that the outer edges form a trough. The length of the 'conveyor is 25 ft., and for the sake of portability it is mounted on wheels. The lower end. of the belt is protected by steel plates, which can be buried in the material and so allow this to be scraped into the feed hopper instead of being lifted. The device can load at the rate of 25-30 tons per hour. .

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