THE HANDLING OF GRAIN

The Romance of Modern Mechanism by Archibald Williams is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. CHAPTER XVI

THE HANDLING OF GRAIN

THE ELEVATOR — THE SUCTION PNEUMATIC GRAIN-LIFTER — THE PNEUMATIC BLAST GRAIN-LIFTER — THE COMBINED SYSTEM

THE ELEVATOR

On or near the quays of our large seaports, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Hull, Leith, Dublin, may be seen huge buildings of severe and ugly outline, utterly devoid of any attempt at decoration. Yet we should view them with respect, for they are to the inhabitants of the British Isles what the inland granaries of Egypt were to the dwellers by the Nile in the time of Joseph. Could we strip off the roofs and walls of these structures, we should see vast bins full of wheat, or spacious floors deeply strewn with the material for countless loaves. The grain warehouses of Britain—the Americans would term them "elevators"—have a total capacity of 10,000,000 quarters. Multiply those figures by eight, and you have the number of bushels, each of which will yield the flour for about forty 2-lb. loaves.

In these granaries is stored the grain which comes from abroad. With the opening up of new lands in North and South America, and the exploitation of the great wheat-growing steppes of Russia, English agriculture has declined, and we are content to import five-sixths of our breadstuffs, and an even larger proportion of grain foods for domestic animals. It arrives from the United States, India, Russia, Argentina, Canada, and Australia in vessels often built specially for grain transport; and as it cannot be immediately distributed, must be stored in bulk in properly designed buildings.

These contain either many storeys, over which the grain is spread to get rid of superfluous moisture which might cause dangerous heating; or huge bins, or "silos," in which it can be kept from contact with the air. Experiments have proved that wheat is more successfully preserved if the air is excluded than if left in the open, provided that it is dry. The ancient Egyptians used brick granaries, filled from the top, and tapped at the bottom, in which, to judge by the account of a grievous famine given in the book of Genesis, their wheat was preserved for at least seven years. During last century the silo fell into disrepute; but now we have gone back to the Egyptian plan of closed bins, which are constructed of wood, brick, ferro-concrete, or iron, and are of square, hexagonal, or round section. They are set close together, many under one roof, to economise space; as many as 2,985,000 bushels being provided for in the largest English storehouse.

Such vast quantities of grain require well-devised machinery for their transport from ship to bin or floor, weighing, clearing, and for their transference to barges, coasting vessels, or railway trucks. The Alexander Grain Warehouse of Liverpool may be taken as a typical example of a well-equipped silo granary. It measures 240 by 172 feet, and contains 250 hexagonal bins of brickwork, each 80 feet deep and 12 feet in diameter. The grain is lifted from barges by four elevators placed at intervals along the edge of the quay. The elevator is a wooden case, 40 or 50 feet high, in which an endless band furnished with buckets travels over two rollers placed at the top and bottom. These are let down into the hold and scoop up the grain at the rate of from 75 to 150 tons per hour, according to their size. As soon as a bucket reaches the top roller it empties its charge into a spout, which delivers the grain into a bin, whence it is lifted again 32 feet by a second elevator to a bin from which it flows by gravity to a weighing hopper beneath; and as soon as two tons has collected, the contents are emptied automatically into a distributing hopper. After all this, the grain still has a long journey before it; for it is now shot out on to an endless, flat conveyer belt moving at a rate of 9 to 10 feet per second. It is carried horizontally by this for some distance along the quay, and falls on to a second belt moving at right angles to the first, which whisks it off to the receiving elevators of the storehouse. Once more it is lifted, this time 132 feet, to the top floor of the building, and dropped on to a third belt, which runs over a movable throwing-off carriage. This can be placed at any point of the belt's travel, to transfer the grain to any of the spouts leading to the 250 bins.

Here it rests for a time. When needed for the market it flows out at the bottom of a bin on to belts leading to delivery elevators, from which it may be either passed back to a storage bin after being well aired, or shot into wagons or vessels. From first to last a single grain may have to travel three miles between the ship and the truck without being touched once by a human hand.

The vertical transport of grain is generally effected by an endless belt, to which buckets are attached at short intervals. The grain, fed to the buckets either by hand or by mechanical means, is scooped up, whirled aloft, and when it has passed the topmost point of its travel, and just as the bucket is commencing the descent, it flies by centrifugal force into a hopper which guides it to the travelling belt, as already described.

Of late years, however, much attention has been paid to pneumatic methods of elevating, by which a cargo is transferred from ship to storehouse, or from ship to ship, through flexible tubes, the motive power being either the pressure of atmospheric air rushing in to fill a vacuum, or high-pressure air which blows the grain through the tube in much the same way as a steam injector forces water into a boiler. Sometimes both systems are used in combination. We will first consider these methods separately.

THE SUCTION PNEUMATIC GRAIN-LIFTER

is the invention of Mr. Fred E. Duckham, engineer of the Millwall Docks, London. The ships in which grain is brought to England often contain a "mixed" cargo as well; and that the unloading of this may proceed simultaneously with the moving of the wheat it is necessary to keep the hatches clear. As long as the grain is directly under a hatchway, a bucket elevator can reach it; but all that is not so conveniently situated must be brought within range of the buckets. This means a large bill for labour, even if machinery is employed to help the "trimming." Mr. Duckham therefore designed an elevator which could easily reach any corner of a ship's interior. The principal parts are a large cylindrical air-tight tank, an engine to exhaust air from the same, and long hoses, armoured inside with a steel lining, connected at one end to the tank, and furnished at the other with a nozzle. These hoses extend from the receiving tank to the grain, which, when the air has been exhausted to five or six pounds to the square inch, flies up the tubes into the tank. At the bottom of the tank are ingenious air-locks, to allow the grain to pass into a bin below without admitting air to spoil the vacuum. The locks are automatic, and as soon as a certain quantity of grain has collected, tip sideways, closing the port through which it flowed, and allowing it to drop through a hinged door. Two locks are attached together, the one discharging while the other is filling. An elevator of this kind will shift 150 tons or more an hour. Mr. Duckham claims for his invention that it has no limit in capacity. It is practically independent of everything but its own steam power; and the labour of one man suffices to keep its flexible suckers buried in grain. No corner is inaccessible to the nozzle. The pipes occupy only a very small part of the hatchway. They can be set to work immediately a vessel comes alongside. As many as a quarter of a million bushels are handled daily by one of these machines.

The pneumatic elevator is often installed on a floating base, so that it may be moved about in a dock.

THE PNEUMATIC BLAST GRAIN-LIFTER

differs from the system just described in that the grain is driven through the pipes or hoses by air compressed to several pounds above atmospheric pressure. A small tube attached to the main hose conveys compressed air to the nozzle through which grain enters the tube. The nozzle consists of a short length of metal piping which is buried in the grain. One half of it is encased by a jacket into which the compressed air rushes. As the air escapes at high speed past the inner end of the piping into the main hose, it causes a vacuum in the piping and draws in grain, which is shot up the hose by the pressure behind it. As already remarked, the action of this pneumatic elevator is similar to that of a steam injector.

THE COMBINED SYSTEM

Under some conditions it is found convenient to employ both suction and blast in combination: suction to draw the grain from a vessel's hold into elevators, from which it is transferred to the warehouse by blast. Special boats are built for this work, e.g. the Garryowen, which has on board suction plant for transferring grain from a ship to barges, and also blowing apparatus for elevating it into storehouses or into another ship. The Garryowen has the hull and engines of an ordinary screw steamer, so that it can ply up and down the Shannon and partly unload a vessel to reduce its draught sufficiently to allow it to reach Limerick Docks. Floating elevators of this kind are able to handle upwards of 150 tons of grain per hour.

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