BETHLEHEM, PA — A new TIP-TITE^® Drum Dumping System from Flexicon automatically conditions fiberboard drums containing bulk solid material, dumps the material into downstream equipment, and accumulates empty drums on a roller conveyor for removal.

The system is intended for low- to high-volume handling of drums containing material that has solidified or agglomerated during storage or shipment, while eliminating the dust, spillage, labor cost and potential injury associated with manual drum handling.

A powered roller conveyor moves each full drum into a conditioning station where hydraulic rams press and release it on opposite sides. A turntable then rotates the drum in user-selected increments for

subsequent press and release cycles sufficient to loosen the material.

The conveyor automatically sends the conditioned drum to a TIP-TITE^® dumping station that hydraulically raises and seats the drum rim against a discharge hood equipped with a slide gate. A second hydraulic cylinder lifts and tips the drum to an angle of 45, 60 or 90 degrees with a motion-dampening feature. At full rotation, the slide gate opens to allow controlled discharge of material into downstream process equipment.

Once the empty drum is returned to its upright position, the rollers are reversed, sending it to a pneumatically-actuated ram that pushes it onto a separate roller conveyor where empty drums are accumulated for removal.

Photoelectric sensors located along the roller conveyor relay the position of empty and full drums to the system controller, which powers the rollers to advance and stop drums as desired during each phase of the process.

The system is designed to accommodate fiberboard drums of all popular sizes weighing up to 750 lb (340 kg), and is also offered in high-lift configurations for dumping into elevated receiving equipment.

The company manufactures dust-free and open-chute dumpers offered as stand-alone units and as automated systems integrated with upstream and downstream equipment.