Track Hoppers

Track Hoppers

Track Hoppers are mainly used for coal storage & handling in power plants. The coal is generally transported from coal mines either by BOBR wagons (Bottom Open Bottom Discharge), Top open wagons & rarely by trucks. As there is a huge demands of coal in the industry, so wagons are very scarce in time. If the wagons are delayed during unloading of coal in power plants, huge demurrage charges are levied. To avoid a repetitive demurrage charges it is highly recommended to use Track Hoppers for BOBR wagons.

Track hoppers are used to unload the BOBR wagons in no time. A standard Track hopper is approximately 210m long. This length of track hopper can accommodate at least 15 wagons. Each BOBR wagons has a total volume of 57.2 cum carrying approximately 45Mt of coal (BD 800 Kg/cum). Hence each length of track hopper, carrying 15 wagons can unload 675Mt of coal in approximately 30minutes. If we try to unload the same 15 wagons manually, then it will take at least a day. Hence a track hopper not only increases the productivity of the power plan but can also make huge savings in the form of demurrage charges.

Common Constructions

A track hopper is not only a hopper, but an assembled Track Hopper is made from a huge number of mechanical items. To name a few items are as listed below:

• Reinforced cement concrete (RCC) hopper of 210m long and 8m wide
• Steel Gratings covering the RCC hopper (210X8) sqm
• Two parallel rail tracks running at the center of the hopper (210m length).
• Paddle/Plough Feeder located at the discharge side of the RCC hopper
• Trough Conveyor located at the discharge of the paddle feeders.