Drummed asphalt is a primary mode of long-distance transportation for asphalt, such as asphalt imported from Iran to my country, or asphalt imported from China by countries without refineries. Asphalt is poured into drums as a liquid, but solidifies as the temperature decreases. To address this need, equipment called asphalt drum unloading equipment has emerged. Today, we'll discuss the drum loading methods for bitumen decanter equipment.

The time it takes for drummed asphalt to enter the equipment is one of the main factors limiting the equipment's production capacity. We'll discuss several drum loading methods currently available on the market:
1. Pallet-type drum loading.
In this method, the drums are placed upside down on a pallet. After the pallet is full, it's manually or mechanically pushed into the bitumen decanter equipment. Then, heating is applied. This method requires manual or mechanical inversion of the drums. Drums are placed one by one into the designated position. They cannot be tilted. The placement efficiency is low. However, this platform can be placed on a weighing device to ensure all drums have been completely unloaded. If even one drum is not completely unloaded, it cannot be pulled out.
II. Hydraulic Cylinder Push Type: This method uses a small gantry crane to lift the buckets to the infeed position, and then pushes them into the melting chamber using hydraulic cylinders. The standard gantry crane is typically 1 ton, with a lifting speed of 8 meters per minute. Lifting 2 meters takes 15 seconds, and lateral movement and lifting are completed simultaneously (ideally). Lowering and placing takes 15 seconds, and pushing takes 40-60 seconds. We calculate the shortest time at 70 seconds. A maximum of 50 buckets can be processed per hour, pushing a maximum of 8 tons of asphalt. This is a completely ideal scenario. This method has two problems: 1. The buckets must be placed under the cantilever beam; 2. Tilting the buckets manually on the ground is too labor-intensive, and the buckets may be deformed, affecting their trajectory inside the unloading equipment. Therefore, the following improved version was developed:
Solve Problem 1: Increase the operating range of the rotating crane.
Solve Problem 2: Use hydraulic cylinders for tilting, but this adds about 10 seconds to the tilting time. The number of buckets pushed in is also reduced.
III. Tilting-in Type
This infeed method simply involves placing the drum of asphalt on the platform, then operating the hydraulic cylinder to insert the drum into the equipment. Tilting and loading are completed in one step. This method takes only 20 seconds to complete a cycle. A video demonstrating the rapid infeed and automatic asphalt drum unloading equipment is available.
Currently, there are three main infeeding methods for asphalt drum unloading equipment. Which one is best? Comments are welcome. Feel free to leave a message if you have any good ideas.