Design and Development of Truck Loader Chute Attachment for Cement Bags

Abstract

Cement plants are commonly producing cement bags at the rate of 3000 bags per hour with each bag weighing 50 kg. These are to be transported to various locations in heavy trucks. This typical truck loader has average capacity of carrying 1000 to 1500 cements bags at a time. These bags are required to be arranged and stacked in a manner to optimize the utilization of truck space within the maximum loading capacity of the truck. A special purpose mechanism is made available to assist the worker for loading and arranging the cements bag from outlet conveyor to the truck. This mechanism is typically called as truck loader.

Presently, J K Laxmi Cement plant is situated at Kalol, and is facilitated with two types of truck loader, manual and autonomous. The autonomous is an imported technology and very costly and also needs much space and other infrastructural supports. The manual loader is more convenient and also very handy to use for varieties of truck size and capacity. However, the present manual loader is not capable to stack the cement bags properly in the truck and hence need workers to arrange and stack it manually. The project is aimed to provide a solution in a manner to equip the existing manual loader with some sort of additional attachment that enable the worker to stack and arrange the cement bags properly in the track with less efforts. It is also needed to be thought to make this mechanism remote controlled so that the workers can be saved from dirty environments.

To make system semi-automatic a chute can be attached at the end of the loading belt for proper landing of the bag for stacking. A Peaucellier mechanism is used to keep the chute straight at the end of loading belt so that the bags will be delivered to the truck in proper orientation which eases the stacking process. Conceptual design is prepared for motor attachment to move the loading belt left.