Material or article handling – Process – Of loading or unloading load-transporting type vehicle and...
Reissue Patent
1999-12-02
2001-02-20
Werner, Frank E. (Department: 3652)
Material or article handling
Process
Of loading or unloading load-transporting type vehicle and...
C141S083000, C177S001000, C222S064000, C414S021000, C414S329000, C414S397000
Reissue Patent
active
RE037062
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention concerns coal loading or batching apparatus and method for loading moving railroad cars with precise weights of coal, e.g., maximum car weight capacity, from large silos substantially positioned above railroad tracks, and particularly concerns such apparatus and method in the forms required for adapting existing coal silos and car loading sites to accommodate larger capacity cars and their maximum load capacities while providing markedly improved loading weight monitoring and regulation.
In order to achieve the high capacity car loading rates required by certain mining operations in the limited loading space allowed, while maintaining the loading accuracy required, it was necessary to design a unique system and method of operation, and to optimize every part of that system. For example, space limitations under certain silos of long standing allow the use of only two weigh bins, each having a capacity, e.g., of about 45 tons. Therefore, the only way to load a 100+ton rail car with two such 45 ton bins is to dump, reload and dump again at least one of the bins.
Such multiple charging and discharging operations, in order to be commercially efficient, must be done at a rate which can accommodate a railcar moving, e.g., about one mile/hr. Due to the necessity for such double operations for each car, adequate time may not be available for some loading sites and their available equipment for precisely preloading both bins such that a target weight, of e.g., 120 tons can be accurately achieved. Consequently, the present unique structures and operations which have been designed for two bins under each silo, employ bins of similar construction but which have different but complimentary functions and are differently operated, whereby a high target weight loading accuracy is achieved due to the fact that one of the bins is adapted to make full bin capacity discharges, while the other bin is adapted to make precise, topping weight discharges.
2. Discussion of Prior Art
Certain types of apparatus and methods presently in use for loading large railroad cars of, e.g., 100+ton capacity, typically involve dumping large loads of approximate desired weights into moving cars from silos, weigh bins, conveyors, or other loading equipment. The use of such apparatus and methods however, often leads to significant weight inaccuracies in filling the cars, e.g., by running of the cars past the loading apparatus' discharge point with consequent spillage of the coal over the rear of the cars, or by spillage over the silos of the car as a natural result of the high discharging rates required, or by inadequate material weighing facilities on the apparatus which allows loading the cars to weights which are not within prescribed limits set e.g., by Federal Regulations, or by the coal mining site, or by the MAP railroad operators.
Such apparatus and methods are exemplified in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,460,308; 4,629,392; 4,284,380; 4,904,154; and 4,659,274, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein in their entirety by reference. None of these disclosures however, speak to the problem of how to efficiently and precision load large, e.g., 120 ton capacity cars which must pass beneath huge preexisting coal silos which provide only limited space thereunder for car loading equipment employing weigh bins which lie intermediate the silo and the car.
OBJECT OF THE INVENTION
Principal objects therefore, of the present invention are to provide the loading means and method for its operation whereby maximum size railroad coal cars can be filled to a desired target weight within close weight tolerances, e.g., less than about 0.5% deviation from the target weight, wherein overrunning of the coal discharge into the cars and other spillage are essentially avoided; and to provide such loading means in a structural form which is readily adapted to compliment existing undersized or highly restricted, e.g., low headroom silo loading sites.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The above and further objects and advantages hereinafter becoming evident have been attained in accordance with the present invention through the discovery of unique structural means and its method of use, which provides for precision loading a predetermined target weight of bulk particulate material into each moving car of a series of moving, connected, open top railroad cars progressively from front to rear of each car within a loading area from a loading unit having silo means and associated first and second weigh bin means supported above the railroad tracks, wherein each said bin means is independently supported under said silo means in a loading area and spaced apart from the other along said tracks a distance which is considerably less than the length of said car, wherein space limitations under said silo means require that the total material weight capacity of both said bin means combined be less than said target weight, wherein said silo means has first and second bin charging gate means, wherein each said bin means has a car loading discharge gate means, and wherein said cars are moving in a direction which places it first under said first bin means and then under said second bin means, wherein during each pass of a car thru said loading area, said first bin means is charged twice with material and discharged twice into said car, and said second bin means is charged once with a topping charge of material and discharged once into said car, and wherein the weight of topping material discharged from said second bin means is equal to—within close tolerances—the difference between said target weight and the combined weights of the two discharges from said first bin means.
In certain preferred embodiments:
(a) the charging of said material to said second bin means is controlled by progressive closing of said second bin charging gate means in response to a progressive series of charging gate closing signals generated from a progressive series of net weight determinations of the first and second quantities of material discharged from said first bin means;
(b) the charging of said topping material to said second bin means is initiated prior to the completion of the second discharge from said second bin means; and
(c) the weight of all of said charges to said bins are predetermined and are attained by careful operation of the bin charging gate means during the bin charging operations.
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Letter submitted Apr. 12, 1996 by Production Industries Corporation to Kennecott Energy Company, “Cordero Precision Train Loadout System.”
Text of presentation Mar. 22, 1996 by Production Industries Corporation titled “Kennecott Energy Cordero Mining Unit Train Loading System.”
J.R. Johanson, “Method of Calculating Rate of Discharge for Hoppers and Bins,” Transactions of SME, Mar. 1965, vol. 232. [Text included with Mar. 22, 1996 presentation above.]
Carter & Schnedler, P.A.
Werner Frank E.
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