Head Chute Design, Modifications

The headbox of Kinder Morgan’s 564 Conveyor was experiencing high impact from the material stream that caused premature wear through the liners and steel shell of the head box. The dust, material build-up, and flow problems eventually caused a fire inside the head box. LNS was contracted to design, supply, and install a new chute that would solve these issues.

LNS analyzed the transfer zone’s material flow using Discrete Element Modelling (DEM) software in order to re-design the headbox and chute. The results show LNS’ re-design resulted in a more efficient transfer of material with reduced flow separation, controlling dust creation, while maintaining a constant material cross-section.