Bulk material handling is an engineering field that is centered around the design of equipment used for the handling of dry materials such as ores, coal, cereals, wood chips, sand, gravel and stone in loose bulk form. It can also relate to the handling of mixed wastes.
Bulk material handling systems are typically composed of stationary machinery such as conveyor belts, screw conveyors, stackers, reclaimers, bucket elevators, truck dumpers, railcar dumpers or wagon tipplers, shiploaders, hoppers and diverters and various mobile equipment such as loaders, various shuttles, combined with storage facilities such as stockyards, storage silos or stockpiles. Advanced bulk material handling systems feature integrated bulk storage, conveying, and discharge.(web site)
The purpose of a bulk material handling facility may be to transport material from one of several locations (i.e. a source) to an ultimate destination or to process material such as ore in concentrating and smelting or handling materials for manufacturing such as logs, wood chips and sawdust at sawmills and paper mills. Other industries using bulk materials handling include flour mills and coal fired utility boilers.
Providing storage and inventory control and possibly material blending is usually part of a bulk material handling system.
In ports handling large quantities of bulk materials continuous ship unloaders are replacing gantry cranes.
Bulk Materials Handling Products Manufacturer - Prime Manufacturing (Australia)
Read more about Bulk Material Handling: Other Materials Handling Classifications (non-bulk)
Famous quotes containing the words bulk, material and/or handling:
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Would it not be worth while to discover nature in Milton? be native to the universe? I, too, love Concord best, but I am glad when I discover, in oceans and wildernesses far away, the material of a million Concords: indeed, I am lost, unless I discover them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)