Heyl & Patterson Blog

Since 1875, the United States has been one of the world's main steel producers.  Steel has been an important factor in the American economy for over 100 years, providing jobs to many generations of American families, and it continues to be a booming industry today.  Production of steel takes place in two different ways.  One method uses integrated smelting involving a blast furnace, followed by a basic oxygen furnace, and the other involves an electric arc furnace.

Bulk cargo is a commodity that is transported unpackaged in large quantities.  The main purpose of bulk material handling systems is to transfer the material as quickly and cleanly as possible as it is moved from one place to another.  Loading and transporting are just two stages in the process of transferring bulk materials from the producer to the consumer.  When transporting by rail, they must be unloaded from railroad cars, which is usually done with rotary dumpers or turnover dumpers, which discharge loads parallel to the rails.

Heyl & Patterson manufactures Rota-Side Wagon Tipplers and side arm chargers for the Indian market through an exclusive relationship with FLSmidth India.  While some tippler manufacturers are capable of offering either Turnover Wagon Tipplers or C-Frame Rotary Tipplers, Heyl & Patterson offers both models.  Either style can be installed at a customer's site, depending on the site conditions, and both tippler designs comply with the latest RDSO specifications, G33 Rev 1.

Rotary Railcar Dumpers, also known as Wagon Tipplers in some parts of the world, are the primary mechanisms used for unloading open-top railroad cars.  A dumper holds a railcar to a section of track and rotates the track and car together in order to spill the car's contents.  Together with bottom discharge railcars, the rotary dumper is one of only two accepted methods for unloading these types of railcars.

The expense involved in old high lift railcar dumpers led to the evolution of a side discharge machine that remains popular today.  This Rotary Dumper, just as with its predecessor, required no modifications to existing railcars, and in turn led to a significant development in how railcars were utilized.  A railcar's center of gravity is in the same plane as its coupler, so if railcars rotate about their own couplers, there is no need to uncouple the cars to dump them.  This led to the development of the rotating coupler and the “unit train.”

Heyl & Patterson's Dumper User Group Conference is now available online via LinkedIn social media.  Linkedin is a business-oriented social networking website that connects people with their trusted contacts and helps users exchange knowledge, ideas and opportunities with a broad network of professionals.  This functionality makes Linkedin a great way for Heyl & Patterson to keep in continuous communication with railcar dumper users.

Users of railcar dumper systems are invited to discuss the technologies and issues that affect their jobs, at the bi-annual Heyl & Patterson Dumper User Group Conference.  Originally formed in 1984 as the first conference of its kind, the Dumper User Group promotes the efficient and economic operation of rotary railcar dumpers and establishes best practices for the safe operation and maintenance of dumper systems.

The approval of new regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency regarding air pollution, water pollution and waste disposal could result in the retirement of 35-70 gigawatts of coal-fired power generation nationwide.  Electricity rates will most certainly rise, and many believe that even if construction jobs are created in the green industry, virtually no manufacturing jobs are likely to be created from the replacement of coal.  Transmission grid stability will emerge as a major issue, both because of power plant shutdowns and the intermittency of renewables.

The main purpose of coal handling systems is to transfer the coal as quickly and cleanly as possible as it is moved from one place to another.  Loading and transporting are just two stages in the process of moving coal from the producer to the consumer.  When transporting by rail, coal must be unloaded from railroad cars and a number of options are available, including rotary dumpers and turnover dumpers, which discharge loads parallel to the rails.

As railroad cars evolved, there needed to be a more efficient way to unload bulk materials from them than to use a shovel.  There were two obvious ways of improving the situation, and a debate began on the merits of “turning the whole car upside down” versus allowing the bulk materials to “fall out of the bottom.”