TECH NOLOGY
BULK TRANSPORT. Dry bulk transport built by Butler Mfg. pulls up to loading hopper. Truck's pressure differential air
delivery system operates at about 15 p.s.i., is designed to handle both pulverants and granular products
Dry Bulk Handling Creates Equipment Demand Growing list of equipment for dry bulk handling results from increased use of technique to cut transportation costs In the search for ways to cut costs, more and more chemical companies are going to dry bulk handling. And the quickened tempo hasn't gone unnoticed by equipment suppliers. An increasing number of manufacturers are bringing out handling and transportation equipment to compete for a share of this growing market. This week, for instance, Fruehauf is making its bid with a new hopper pressure tank trailer. And Fuller recently introduced a portable pneumatic transfer unit for handling pelletized or granulated plastics. From the user standpoint, bulk handling has resulted in sizable savings for many companies making this move. A small plastic film maker, for example, pays the rent on its plant from the savings gained by using an in-plant bulk handling system. Another company paid off its entire system from savings in just six months. Over the past few years, 16 major producers of polyethylene granules have gone to shipping in bulk. 58
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Some of the companies that make bulk handling equipment Pneumatic Conveying Daffin Corp. Dracco Co. Dunbar-Kapple, Inc. Flo-Tronics, Inc. Fuller Co. Sprout Waldron & Co., Inc. Young Machinery Co., 1nc.
Hopkins, Minn. Cleveland, Ohio Batavia, III. Minneapolis, Minn. Catasauqua, Pa. Muncy, Pa. Muncy, Pa.
Rail Cars ACF Industries, Inc. General American Transportation Corp. Greenville Steel Car Co Magor Car Corp. Pullman, Inc. Thrall Car Mfg. Co.
Greenville, Pa. Clifton, NJ. Chicago, III. Chicago Heights, III.
Trailer Trucks Fruehauf Trailer Co. Heil Co. Trailmobile, Inc.
Detroit, Mich. Milwaukee, Wis. Cincinnati, Ohio
New York, N.Y. Chicago, III.
This upswing in oulk shipping and handling takes in a variety of solid materials, powders, and granules— not only plastics such as polyethylene, polypropylene, and polystyrene, but other dry solids as well. Included are such materials as starch, clays, rubber pellets, detergents, fertilizers, solid rocket propellants, lime, soda ash, Dacron fibers, and cut nylon film. Behind this surge is the recognition that transportation is an area where costs can be shaved. Three major places are containers, in-plant han dling, and labor costs. In plastics, for instance, savings amount to l 1 / 4 cents per lb. in going from bag to bulk on a 100,000-lb. basis. Savings on in-plant bulk handling systems are not as easy to pin down. But the systems do re duce warehouse space, give cleaner operation, and save on manpower. As use of in-plant pneumatic con veying has been increasing, its impact has traveled back to manufacturers of transportation equipment. A number of firms now make rail hopper cars or trailer trucks for dry bulk shipping. General American Transportation, for instance, has two rail cars for this purpose. Its Air slide car handles powders ranging from activated carbon to powdered aluminum, bentonite clays, Aureomycin solids, and para formaldehyde. In operation, air passes up through a fabric and aerates the lading. This makes it possible to unload hard-packed ladings easily and quickly, General American says. T h e company also builds a series called Dry-Flo. These units are designed to haul granular materials such as plastic pellets. American Car and Foundry division of ACF Industries also makes two dry bulk rail cars—Shipomatic for pneu matic or gravity unloading and Chemomatic for gravity unloading only. The latter is especially built for ship ping plastic pellets. North American Car, on the other hand, takes existing units and modifies them for a specific material. One example is a rail car for dry sodium chlorate. This unit has a special lining that resists corro sion, is emptied by flushing with wa ter. Trucks, Too. Truck manufacturers are also getting more and more into the act. Fruehaufs hopper pressure tank trailer is one example. It carries cylindrical compartments from 32 to 40 ft. long, has capacities of 645 to 1100 cu. ft. To unload the car, Fruehauf applies air pressure on top of the
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stalling a 10-in. diameter pneumatic conveying pipeline at its Texas City plant to move polyethylene pellets from storage to trucks. Dobeckmun, Fresno, Calif., uses a pneumatic system to unload bulk cars of polyethylene, saves $1500 per carload in material and handling costs alone. Another user of polyethylene cubes installed a system at a cost of $28,000. The company used 1,570,000 lb. of the plastic in six months, saved $32,630 in that period on the cost of handling material. Thus the equipment completely paid for itself in a short time. And these figures do not include the savings the company realized in labor and warehouse space.
HOOKING UP. Worker connects pneumatic suction hose to General American Transportation's Dry-Flo rail hopper car designed to haul granular material
load and uses a slightly lower pressure in the discharge line. In one test, the company unloaded 720 cu. ft. of cement in 26 min. over a 70-ft. horizontal distance, capped by a 30-ft. rise. Heil Co. offers a twin-tank unit equipped for self-unloading by air. The Jet-25 unloads up to 4000 lb. per min. of dry bulk through a 4-in. pipe using high pressure with low air volume, according to Heil. Trailmobile is another truck manufacturer with a share of the bulk handling equipment business. To handle the problem of transporting resins, for example, the company designed a truck with an agitator that keeps the material in motion, prevents it from fusing together. Butler Mfg. also makes pneumatic bulk transports in addition to bulk storage tanks. Its truck uses a P. D. ( pressure differential ) air delivery system that operates at about 15 p.s.i. This system prevents packing or bridging, empties tanks completely, according to the company. Butler's line of steel storage tanks includes round and square, resin-coated, and bulk feed units. Sprout-Waldron builds some dry bulk trucks, too. However, the company is primarily a maker of pneumatic conveying systems. Such systems can move 20,000 to 25,000 lb. of material per hr. on the average, are mostly air operated. For in-plant handling, many manufacturers now offer controlled atmosphere systems to the chemical industry. 60
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Some chemicals are sensitive to or may explode in oxygen-containing atmospheres. Dracco Co., for instance, has installed a nitrogen gas system for polyethylene fluff as it comes out of a dryer in the manufacturing process. The plastic may still contain traces of ethylene, thus may explode in contact with air, the company explains. Fuller Co. furnishes different classes of equipment, including Fuller-Kinyon for finely divided material such as starch; low pressure, high velocity Airveyor for granular solids like wood chips; Airslide fluidizing gravity conveyor for finely pulverized substances; and Fuller-Fluxo blow tank for long conveying distances. One of its newest units is the portable Airveyor for handling plastics in pelletized or granular form. Daffin Corp.'s Fluidizer Division also makes closed circuit, inert gas systems, has installed units to handle such materials as pesticides, detergents, fertilizers, and solid rocket propellants. And a newcomer to the field, FloTronics, offers not only pneumatic conveying systems but supplies electronic equipment to program and operate the systems. Pneumatic Line. Numerous plastics makers are taking advantage of the savings inherent in dry bulk handling. In Orange, Tex., Spencer Chemical ships polyethylene from its plant via a V 2 -mile pneumatic conveying line to Crown-Zellerbach. That company then uses the plastic to coat paper products. And Union Carbide is in-
Beryllium Oxide Moderated Assembly Goes Critical A nuclear assembly moderated entirely by beryllium oxide has gone critical at General Dynamics' John Jay Hopkins Laboratory for Pure and Applied Science, San Diego. General Dynamics' General Atomic Division will use the assembly to study core characteristics of the Beryllium Oxide Reactor Experiment (BORE) for the A E C The purpose of BORE is to determine the feasibility of a high temperature, helium cooled, beryllium oxide moderated reactor for small to medium power plants (up to 100,000 thermal kw.). With beryllium oxide, fewer neutrons are wasted than with other moderators, General Atomic says. This leads to high efficiency, long fuel life, and compact designs, could make beryllium oxide reactors useful for marine power, portable electric generators. In getting initial criticality, General Atomic used metallic fuel foils of highly enriched uranium-aluminum alloy. In the BORE reactor, however, the company will use ceramic uranium oxide pellets mixed with beryllium oxide and clad with Hastelloy X. The new nuclear assembly is positioned in a 9-ft. aluminum honeycomb cube. In the cube are more than 1600 1-in. by 6-in. slots running the length of the assembly· Beryllium oxide blocks can be placed in these slots in any desired arrangement for studying various core configurations. General Atomic is designing BORE for helium outlet temperatures to 1500° F., pressures to 1120 p.s.i.a., and power levels to 10,000 thermal kw. If BORE is successful, a higher power core and a closed cycle turbine may be added.
