Abstract

The purpose of this project is to design and develop fast and efficient machines for manufacturing high quality coal logs. During the last three months, efforts were focused on the revision and improvement of the design of the 300-ton hydraulic press machine for coal log production. The conceptual design of the machine has been sent to Automated Resources, Inc. for review. Experiments were conducted on threshold binder (orimulsion) concentration. It showed that for binder concentrations below 1%, the initial weight loss of coal logs (due to chipping of corner) is unaffected by the binder concentration unless the binder concentration is 1% or more. For binder levels above 0.25%, more binder causes less coal log wear after long time or or large number of cycles of circulation through pipe. After 250 cycles in the pipe, binderless coal logs suffer approximately twice the wear of the logs with 1% binder. Document type: Report