A SELF-DUMPING BARGE

Grey River Argus, 8 April 1911, Page 1

A SELF-DUMPING BARGE

Various and many have been the efforts ot inventors to devise a more serviceable -system of self-emptying baisc^ than that so extensively practised to-day by opening the bottoms, 'ill- uiiliiy of such is strictly limited,- they are expensive both in first cost and maintenance, and the dimensions Jof individual portions of til,' (.ontents must not exceed the hunts of the opening dooi'a iv the bottom. It is for this ivasou that the, recent invention of ;i *J»\edf&h ship-fJuilder, and engintri, Mr A, L-\ Wiiang, has aroused considerable attention, The craft is of thu >.>idinary type, but discharging is effected by the simple means of suddenly upsetting- the vessel's equilibrium, causing it to cant over, and thus shooting its contents into the water. To do this there is a long- cylindrical tauk mounted the length of the Darge a few feet above the deck and on one side of it. Beneath the deck, on the opposite side to the elevated cylinder, and so arranged as to come at the lowest point of the hull, is another similar tank. This hull tank is normally filled with water, and keeps the /barge on an even keel. When the barge is loaded, and the site for dumping has been gained, a . valve is opened and compressed an- contained in another, tank in the hull is admitted into the under-deck water tank. • The compressed air drives the water out of the lower tanic into the elevated cylinder, causing the craft to beccutie topheavy, so that it heels owi, and as the deck is inclined the amtents are shot off into the" sea- It requires only a slight inclination of the deck to cause ifto slide off, as the vessel has no 'bulwarks. At the side of the barge there are no doors hinged -at the bottom which fall down, as the vessel cants. Consequently, is theory, at any rate, instantly the load has been cut off, "the water in the upper (cylinder commences to iflow back into its former tank by gravity, and the balance of the craft is restored.