Coal Bunker

What is a coal bunker called?

Formally known as a coal bunker, a coal bunker is used in coal mines and thermal power plants to store coal. ‌ In a coal mine, a coal bunker is a place used for temporary storage of coal, usually located at the bottom of a coal mine shaft‌. In thermal power plants, coal bunkers are used to store granular materials such as raw coal and coal slime, and are usually called raw coal bunkers.

Coal bunkers are one of the main components of any coal-fired power plant. They are specially designed spaces used to store coal before it is used by boilers and other power generation equipment. The technology used in these coal bunkers is relatively simple, but it plays a vital role in ensuring the seamless operation of power plants, especially coal-fired power plants. Coal bunkers may seem to be a small component of a power plant, but they are essential to the operation of power plants. They represent a significant investment in construction, maintenance engineering and safety for power plants. Therefore, their proper design, control and maintenance are essential to ensure the efficient and safe operation of coal-fired power plants.

There are many types of coal bunkers, which can be divided into the following categories based on their structure and purpose:

‌Fully enclosed circular coal bunker‌: mainly composed of stacker-reclaimer, spherical crown steel grid structure, etc., suitable for large-scale storage and efficient retrieval‌.

‌Fully enclosed strip coal bunker‌: mainly composed of cantilever bucket wheel stacker-reclaimer, large span truss or grid closure, etc., and widely used‌.

‌Fully enclosed rectangular closed coal yard‌: adopts the method of stacking and retrieval separation, suitable for coal-fired power plants‌.

‌Cylindrical silo cluster‌: It is composed of multiple cylindrical silos in parallel, suitable for large-scale storage and coal blending operations‌.

The design and selection of coal silos need to consider many factors, including the nature of the surrounding rock, the relative position of the uphill and transportation tunnels, etc. Vertical circular coal silos are widely used due to their high utilization rate and easy maintenance.‌