When the roof of your silo is so rusty that it collapses, you know it’s past time to replace the whole unit. This is what occurred to one of our customers. However, instead of installing a new, traditional silo, the owner wanted something different—a containerized storage with a live reclaim system.
The owner whittled down the options to two suppliers: BE&E and a competitor. We presented him with a doubled-stacked, 20′ SMART Container system equipped with SMART Floors, our stroker-based reclaim system. Of course, the owner went with BE&E (hence this article).
What won him over was the simplicity of our SMART Floor reclaim system. The competitor’s design reclaimed material with a traveling screw, while ours did so using two hydraulically powered strokers. Our customer understood that the complexity of the competitor’s system meant it was more likely that something would go wrong with it than with our SMART Floor. Maintenance would be more intensive with the other system, as well.
Three years since we installed our SMART Container, low maintenance and trouble-free operation is precisely what our customer has experienced. It’s run without issue.
As our customer recognized, complexity is worth considering when comparing live floors. An articulating screw obviously involves more moving parts than our stroker-based floor, but consider how a more common alternative—live or slat floors—compares.
- Slat floors employ a minimum of three hydraulics in an 8′-wide system. SMART Floors require two.
- Slats floors house their hydraulics underneath the floor, where they can be difficult to access. The hydraulics for SMART Floors are housed behind the strokers, where they are easily accessible.
- Slat floor systems have more moving parts than SMART Floors. The entire floor moves in a slat floor system, whereas in a SMART Floor system, only the two strokers move.
- Base-package slat floors typically come with aluminum slats. SMART Floors use steel strokers.
SMART Floors have proven themselves as a long-term solution with low operational costs in applications from Texas in the U.S. South to High Prairie in Alberta, Canada. Chances are they’ll work for your application, too.
So, why not learn more? Additional information is available at https://beande.com/material-handling-equipment/smart-floors/.
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