MATERIAL HANDLING

Bases on Design features and operational characteristics, material handling equipment may be broadly classified as:

Hoisting Equipment’s:

It constitute a group of equipment which are employed mainly for lifting or lowering of unit load or piece goods in batches. This group of equipment’s can be further sub classified into:

1. Pure Hoisting Machineries

• Jack
• Winches
• Hand Hoists
• Pulley Blocks

2. Cranes

• EOT Crane
• Jib Crane
• Cantilever Crane

3. Elevators

• Lift
• Bucket Elevators

Conveying Equipment’s:

It comprises of a number of equipment which are employed for handling principally bulk load (occasionally piece goods or unit load may also be handled) in continuous flow. Such machines do not have separate lifting or lowering gear. This group of equipment also can have further sub classifications as:

1. Belt Conveyor

2. Hydraulic Conveyor

3. Pneumatic Conveyor

4. Apron Conveyor

5. Screw Conveyor

6. Flight Conveyor

Surface/ Overhead Equipment’s:

These are the group of equipment’s which are employed for handling unit load or bulk load in batches on a horizontal surface. This group of equipment may be further sub classified into:

1. Truck and Lorries

2. Railway Cars and Wagons

3. Fork Lifts

4. Overhead mono-rail / Equipment

5. Scrapers and Skidders

Types of Material Handling Equipment Loads:

It usually classified into:

1. Unit Load

2. Bulk Load

Unit Load:

Unit loads are those which are counted by numbers or units. A component of a machine, a complete machine, a structural element, a beam, a girder, building block are some examples of unit load.

Sometimes certain quantities of free flowing materials can be placed in a container and can be handled as unit load. Hoisting equipment are primarily used for handling unit load. Unit loads are usually specified by it’s weight.

Bulk Load:

When the load is in the form of particles or lumps of homogeneous materials or powder like materials, which can not be counted by numbers, it is called as “Bulk load”.

Examples are:

Sand, Cement, Coal, Mineral, Stone, Clay etc.,

A bulk material may be classified by it’s:

1. Bulk Density

2. Lump-Size

3. Flowability

4. Abrasiveness

5. Miscellaneous Characteristics

POISSON’S RATIO

When an element is stretched in one direction, it tends to get thinner in the other two directions. Hence, the change in longitudinal and lateral strains are opposite in nature (generally). Poisson’s ratio ν, named after Simeon Poisson, is a measure of this tendency. It is defined as the ratio of the contraction strain normal to the applied load divided by the extension strain in the direction of the applied load. Since most common materials become thinner in cross section when stretched, Poisson’s ratio for them is positive.

For a perfectly incompressible material, the Poisson’s ratio would be exactly 0.5. Most practical engineering materials have ν between 0.0 and 0.5. Cork is close to 0.0, most steels are around 0.3, and rubber is almost 0.5. A Poisson’s ratio greater than 0.5 cannot be maintained for large amounts of strain because at a certain strain the material would reach zero volume, and any further strain would give the material negative volume.

Some materials, mostly polymer foams, have a negative Poisson’s ratio; if these auxetic materials are stretched in one direction, they become thicker in perpendicular directions.Foams with negative Poisson’s ratios were produced from conventional low density open-cell polymer foams by causing the ribs of each cell to permanently protrude inward, resulting in a re-entrant structure.

An example of the practical application of a particular value of Poisson’s ratio is the cork of a wine bottle. The cork must be easily inserted and removed, yet it also must withstand the pressure from within the bottle. Rubber, with a Poisson’s ratio of 0.5, could not be used for this purpose because it would expand when compressed into the neck of the bottle and would jam. Cork, by contrast, with a Poisson’s ratio of nearly zero, is ideal in this application.

It is anticipated that re-entrant foams may be used in such applications as sponges, robust shock absorbing material, air filters and fasteners. Negative Poisson’s ratio effects can result from non-affine deformation, from certain chiral microstructures, on an atomic scale, or from structural hierarchy. Negative Poisson’s ratio materials can exhibit slow decay of stress according to Saint-Venant’s principle. Later writers have called such materials anti-rubber, auxetic (auxetics), or dilatational. These materials are an example of extreme materials.

POISSON'S RATIO

When an element is stretched in one direction, it tends to get thinner in the other two directions. Hence, the change in longitudinal and lateral strains are opposite in nature (generally). Poisson’s ratio ν, named after Simeon Poisson, is a measure of this tendency. It is defined as the ratio of the contraction strain normal to the applied load divided by the extension strain in the direction of the applied load. Since most common materials become thinner in cross section when stretched, Poisson’s ratio for them is positive.

For a perfectly incompressible material, the Poisson’s ratio would be exactly 0.5. Most practical engineering materials have ν between 0.0 and 0.5. Cork is close to 0.0, most steels are around 0.3, and rubber is almost 0.5. A Poisson’s ratio greater than 0.5 cannot be maintained for large amounts of strain because at a certain strain the material would reach zero volume, and any further strain would give the material negative volume.

Some materials, mostly polymer foams, have a negative Poisson’s ratio; if these auxetic materials are stretched in one direction, they become thicker in perpendicular directions.Foams with negative Poisson’s ratios were produced from conventional low density open-cell polymer foams by causing the ribs of each cell to permanently protrude inward, resulting in a re-entrant structure.

An example of the practical application of a particular value of Poisson’s ratio is the cork of a wine bottle. The cork must be easily inserted and removed, yet it also must withstand the pressure from within the bottle. Rubber, with a Poisson’s ratio of 0.5, could not be used for this purpose because it would expand when compressed into the neck of the bottle and would jam. Cork, by contrast, with a Poisson’s ratio of nearly zero, is ideal in this application.

It is anticipated that re-entrant foams may be used in such applications as sponges, robust shock absorbing material, air filters and fasteners. Negative Poisson’s ratio effects can result from non-affine deformation, from certain chiral microstructures, on an atomic scale, or from structural hierarchy. Negative Poisson’s ratio materials can exhibit slow decay of stress according to Saint-Venant’s principle. Later writers have called such materials anti-rubber, auxetic (auxetics), or dilatational. These materials are an example of extreme materials.

PORTABLE SOLAR POWER PLANT

In many areas of the world, and also during times of natural disasters, clean drinking water and access to power are scarce.  The company The Essential Element has designed the Hydra water purifier and fuel cell to take care of both of those problems at once.

The Hydra is equipped with a 2.88 kW solar panel array that runs a pump that pushes water through a self-cleaning filtration device (capable of purifying 87,000 liters a day), juices up lead-acid gel batteries and runs an electrolyzer that splits some of that water to fill a .37 cubic-meter tank with pressurized hydrogen.

The fuel cell can be used to power communication devices or a camp stove.  The whole device can easily be set up and collapsed for easy transport and includes PV mats that can be plugged into the device for extra power.