Ensuring working conditions at reception points of feed mill production

The aim of the study is to create standardized conditions for workers and production equipment at reception points in feed mills. Grain material is delivered to the feed mill using a motor vehicle with specially designed loading stations, where cereal is unloaded into multi-section receiving bunkers. The operating area is characterized by dangerous, difficult, and harmful working conditions for operators of reception points, car drivers, and repair workers, based on levels of air dust, stress, and severity of work. All this required the study of the factors influencing the process of the wheat from the vehicle and the unloading hopper and the production of analytical dependencies establishing the relationship between the areas of the discharge holes of the hopper with a given uniform outflow of material (wheat) under conditions of safe operation of the reception point equipment depending on the hopper filling and the volume of material being poured. To achieve this, laboratory studies were conducted using an installation simulating wheat grain flow processes through baffles from bin compartments with varying degrees of bin fill and baffle opening width. The obtained dependencies showed slight differences in initial and final wheat flow rates when the baffle opening area was 0.002 m² (5.76 kg/s initially vs. 2.37 kg/s finally), but significant discrepancies emerged as the opening area increased (for instance, reaching 5.76 kg/s at the beginning and dropping to 2.37 kg/s at the end when the passage area was 0.008 m²). It was observed that the discharge rate was steady, during the middle of the bunker emptying process. These results will ensure even grain supply from the receiving hopper onto conveyors, leading to a reduction in workload by 23%, job stress by 25%, and dust emissions into the workspace by 8%.