S. Howes was approached by a rubber sheet manufacturer to help reduce worker back injuries by replacing a manual loading method with a mechanical loading system. The one critical need was that the system needed to be compatible with an explosive environment.
The first requirement was to design a cart that could receive an entire batch of material, transport it to the sheeting mill area, and dump into the receiving hopper of the screw conveyor. A portable dump cart made entirely of aluminum and brass was designed and built for this purpose. The cart could then be rolled to the work are and lifted by the customer’s fork to the proper dump height.
The second requirement was a split tube conveyor to move the product from the receiving hopper to the feed table of the sheet mill. The receiving hopper was sized to accept a full cart load of material. The conveyor itself was an S. Howes Split Tube Conveyor on a portable base. A control panel was built to provide the operator with an on-demand operation of the conveyor.
This system allows the operator to control the amount of feed to the mill while eliminating the need to manually lift 40 to 50 pound of material to the mill. The payback in this system is in the reduction of lost time back injuries.
Components
· 6″ Split Tube Conveyor
· Non-sparking Dump Cart · Batch-sized Receiving Hopper
· Explosion-proof Control Panel