Published 2 minutes read
Contents
We have started the assembly of a hopper-bottom silo at Laon, in northern France. The equipment comes from Silomasters.
The numbers
| Model | I1015-45 |
| Capacity | 1,100 tonnes |
| Diameter | 10 metres |
| Overall height | 26.3 metres |
| Bottom | hopper |
A tall, narrow silo
26.3 metres at 10 metres diameter is a height-to-width ratio of more than two and a half. For a grain silo, that is a lot.
A short, wide silo forgives. A slender one does not: a few millimetres out at the base are amplified over the whole height, and by the top it is a problem that cannot be corrected any more — it has to be taken apart. Which is why verticality is checked on every ring, as the structure grows, not at the end.
The hopper bottom raises the structure as well. The cell does not sit on the raft; it sits on a support structure, and the cone discharges by gravity into whatever is underneath. You gain complete emptying, with no machine needed to clear the last of it off the floor — in exchange, everything that gets installed, gets installed up at height.
How a silo grows: from the top down
The photographs show the method, and it surprises anyone seeing it for the first time: you start with the roof.
The roof is assembled low down, close to the ground, on the first ring. Then the whole assembly is lifted on chain hoists fixed to the orange frames around the cell, and the next ring goes in underneath. Lower, bolt, lift again. The silo grows from the top down, ring by ring.
The advantage is that almost everything is done at low level: the roof joints, the handrail, the vents, the sheet of every ring. People climb only as far as they have to, and at 26 metres that counts — for safety and for speed alike.
The jacking frames are ours. They travel with the crew, from one site to the next.
Beside a plant that keeps working
The silo is going up between existing buildings, next to a cell already in service.
That changes the organisation more than people expect. The crane cannot stand just anywhere, material cannot be unloaded where the truck arrives, and the programme fits the client's, not the other way round. Each ring reaches its position when it is needed, not a week early.
What comes next
We continue with the remaining rings, the cone and the support structure, then the connections to the existing flow and the tests.
We will come back with photographs as the silo rises.
See also grain silo mechanical assembly or anchoring steel grain silos.
