It's still active. We're not reporting any containment of the fires just yet.

The flames laid down a little overnight.

There is still critical fire danger throughout out that whole region.

In addition to being a very cost-effective solution, it can handle very extreme external conditions such as dirt, dust, water, or other liquid or solid contamination. The cylinder and valves used in this system are designed to withstand these elements. The control card is the only part of the system that must be in an enclosure, but it doesn't necessarily need to be located at the cylinder; it can be several feet away and still function as well.

We needed to reverse this operation because the gate closed only when the cylinder was extended. We couldn't risk leaving the chute gate even partially open, as the silo could completely empty on a stalled conveyor and create a costly clean-up operation.

This is the first time this type of automation has been used in aggregate mixing. Once we tackled the size issue — we needed a five-inch bore, which was a larger unit than we generally offer — the main challenge was the unit had to be fail-safe in the extended position.