Sweep auger construction for a bottom unloading mechanism

摘要

A sweep arm construction for a bottom unloading mechanism used to unload generally free flowing material from a silo or storage structure. The sweep arm is mounted to rotate about the center of the silo and undercut the stored material and convey it to the center of the silo where it is delivered to a discharge auger that operates in a radially extending trough in the silo foundation. The sweep auger is composed of a series of shaft sections of different diameters with the innermost shaft section having the largest diameter. A helical flight is associated with each shaft section and the flight on each shaft section has a progressively increasing radial depth in a direction toward the inner end of the sweep arm to provide a uniformly increasing rate of delivery to the auger.