Abstract: Bulk material is fed by a conveyor (10) into a hopper at the upper end of an upright extendible conduit (12). A fractionally opening gate (14) at the lower end of the conduit controls the rate at which the material in the conduit is discharged onto a discharge conveyor (15). Level sensors (13) detect the level of material in the hopper (18). A programmable logic controller (17) has its inputs connected to the sensors (13) and a belt weigher (11) associated with the conveyor (10), and controls the opening of the gate (14) to maintain a substantially full column of material in the conduit (12). The material discharged into the hopper (18) therefore moves slowly down the conduit in a controlled fashion, with minimal dust generation and product degradation.

Abstract: A disc brake assembly has a pair of pivoted brake arms carrying brake pads located on respective opposite sides of a disc. The brake arms are biased towards each other by springs to clamp the brake pads against the disc. The disc brake assembly also includes a cam member having two double-sided cams, each of which co-acts with a cam follower mounted on a respective brake arm. The cam member is connected to an actuating cylinder. When the cylinder is energized, the inner cam surfaces drive the cam followers apart to release the brake. When the cylinder is not energized, the outer cam surfaces prevent outward movement of the cam followers thereby positively locking the brake pads against the disc. The disc brake also includes a mechanism for automatically adjusting the position of the brake pads to compensate for wear.

Abstract: If a conveyor belt creeps sideways, belt training idlers are used to return it to a central position. Conventionally the training idlers do this by pivoting about an axis normal to the conveyor belt surface (i.e. they "slew"). The slewing of the present training idlers however is also accompanied by a sideways tilting movement to increase the realigning influence of the idler. The combined movement of the idler is enabled by spherical bearing (10) which lines frame (4), carrying idler roller (5), to base frame (9). This bearing acts as a modified universal joint, with one degree-of-freedom removed by support rollers (11) attached to a shaft through the spherical bearing along axis (12) in the direction of belt travel on each end of the shaft. When respective servo roller (3) [alternatively pairs of servo rollers (13) may be used] is contacted by a misaligned belt edge it serves to slew the frame (4) to which it is attached about axis (6) passing through the bearing.