[ RadSafe ] coal unloading in cold weather

[GEOelectronics at netscape.com]

Bottom hopper railroad coal cars cannot unload when the water in the 
coal is frozen.


Bottom hopper cars must has steep, sloped sides making the load somewhat 
top heavy.


Gondola cars have straight sides, lower center of gravity for the 
same rail load.

These types of coal cars are used in high volume operations, and the 
coal is removed by Rotary Dump.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_car_dumper

The Rotary Dump automatically uncouples each car, turns the whole 
track/car unit upside down,
tipping or dumping the coal in a few seconds. Water jets control coal 
dust very effectively. Modern cars have rotary couplers, do not require individual 
decoupling, making the whole process seamless and automatic.

I have worked at plants using the Dowell Rotary Dump, while very small 
plants still use bottom hoppers.

One installation took the coal car overhead, bottom dumping the load right 
onto the boiler grate!


On the rolling blackouts in TX, they had about 50 power plants offline at the 
time. Mexico was helping to fill the shortfall.

Also search 'Black Start Power Plants'


George Dowell
New London Nucleonics Lab

GEOelectronics at netscape.com








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