Zinc Concentrate Bagging Bin
This is an example of a bagging bin designed specifically to handle difficult flowing cohesive materials such as zinc concentrate and cobalt hydroxide filter cake.
Why Conventional Bagging Hoppers Suffer from Chronic Plugging and Inconsistent Discharge
Standard bagging bins use small or narrow hoppers discharged using a range of feeders include screw feeders, vibratory feeders, and rotary feeders.
In summary, standard bagging systems suffer from chronic plugging when handling difficult flowing cohesive materials for two reasons: 1) incorrect bin geometry, including poor choice of bin shape, too small openings, and improper choice of sloping wall angles; and 2) the feeder behavior promotes a funnel flow discharge pattern. Funnel flow (which is a first-in, last-out discharge pattern) can be made to work with large bins with large discharge outlets. However, when the discharge outlet is small, gravity is insufficient to overcome the strength of the bulk solid at the discharge outlet, and hence chronic bridging and rat-holing is expected.
Kamengo’s Solution
The solution to a reliable bagging bin that is capable of handling difficult flowing cohesive materials has two parts. The first half of the solution is to choose a bin with correct geometry. Kamengo typically recommends a plane flow hopper shape with a wide and long discharge opening. A plane flow hopper only converges in one plane at a time, and is vertical in the opposite plane. The plane flow hopper is the most conservative hopper shape. The purpose of using a conservative bin shape with a long and wide discharge outlet is to employ a geometry where if the Feeder were removed, the entire bin would self-empty with gravity in a mass flow or first-in, first-out discharge pattern.
The second half of the solution is to pair the plane flow hopper with a fully effective feeder such as a Kamengo Feeder. A fully effective feeder is one that withdraws material evenly from its entire opening, which by definition is necessary to actually achieve a mass flow discharge pattern in the hopper, which is necessary when handling a difficult flowing, cohesive bulk solid.
Learn More
To learn more about the physics of storage bin and feeder design as well as the root causes of bin plugging, please visit KamengoU.