Industrial Transport

transport used by industrial enterprises to move objects worked on and products in the production area. Industrial transport is both an integral part of the production process and an important link in the general transportation system. The annual volume of cargo carried by industrial rail and motor vehicle transport is about 1.5 times greater than the volume of freight hauled by general rail and motor vehicle transport (more than 12 billion tons in 1973). Handling operations exceeded 50 billion transfer-tons in 1973, with a mechanization level of about 70 percent. Workers employed in industrial transport constitute about one-fourth of the total number of industrial workers.

Industrial transport is divided into internal and external transport depending on the area in which the conveyance occurs and its relationship to the production process. In the manufacturing industry, internal transport includes transport within a production shop (intrashop) and between shops (inter-shop); in the mining industry, it encompasses underground transport, surface transport, and quarry transport (in open-pit mining). Intrashop industrial transport, an integral part of the production process, is used to move workpieces and assemblies between working areas, sections, and departments within a shop. Intershop transport, which is generally not related to the production process, is used to move materials, semifinished goods, and finished products between shops and warehouses located on the enterprise’s premises or in the same industrial area. Modern machine-building enterprises have organized “through” transport, which combines intrashop and intershop conveyance.

External industrial transport brings raw materials, fuel, and equipment to enterprises and carries finished products from their premises either to transfer points linked with main line transportation or directly to the purchaser.

In the USSR, industrial enterprises use the following types of transport: railroad, motor vehicle, water, industrial truck, conveyor, cable, monorail (cableways and monorail lines), and pipeline (hydraulic and pneumatic transport). The technical basis of industrial transport includes railroad and motor vehicle rolling stock; ships and barges; hoisting, loading, and unloading machinery; buildings, including depots, garages, and repair shops; and various installations, such as tracks, roads, wharfs, trestles, and tunnels.

Industrial rail transport accounts for 36 percent of the total carriage of free-flowing bulk materials. There are about 130,000 km of industrial railroad track. The ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy industries and the coal, logging, and machine-building industries have the most extensive railroad systems. The technical level of industrial rail transport is being raised through the introduction of more advanced types of locomotives (diesel and electric), 4-axle and 6-axle specialized freight cars (including self-unloading cars), automation and remote control equipment, and traffic control systems.

Industrial water transport equipment is mainly used for loading and unloading ships that belong to the general transportation system. If an enterprise has its own fleet, such equipment is also used for external conveyance. More than 25 percent of the dry cargo carried daily by general river transport is loaded and unloaded at wharfs belonging to industrial enterprises. There are more than 1500 such wharfs, with mooring lines totaling some 157 km. The equipment of wharfs, mines, quarries, metallurgical plants, and machine-building plants includes conveyors, shore and floating hoisting cranes and pneumatic loaders.

Motor vehicles carry 46 percent of the total volume of free-flowing bulk materials transported. Drop-side trucks and dump trucks, tractor dump trucks, truck-tractors, trailers, and trolley trucks are used at various industrial enterprises for internal and external transport.

Industrial trucks are used chiefly in manufacturing enterprises, where electric loaders, electric carts, and stackers transport loads within shops, and lift trucks and gasoline-engine and electric tractors with attached carts move loads between shops. Because lift trucks are highly mobile and can be adapted to different types of materials (they have interchangeable materials-handling devices), they can be used effectively in production processes as well.

Conveyor transport, which accounts for 12 percent of the total conveyance of free-flowing bulk materials, is one of the most efficient types of internal and external industrial transport. Conveyors make possible the complete automation of loading and transporting operations. By replacing rail and motor vehicle transport with conveyors, enterprises can fulfill their general plans more economically and transport bulk cargoes such as coal, ore, and sand more cheaply over distances of up to 100 km.

Cableways are used widely in the coal, building materials, metallurgical, and chemical industries for both internal and external transport. They are used to convey minerals from the mining site to their place of use or to other types of transport and to carry rocks to the dumping ground. Monorail transport is used primarily in manufacturing for intrashop and intershop conveyance. Technical devices for this type of transport include electric hoists and suspended electric tractors and electric carts.

Hydraulic and pneumatic transport has the same advantages as conveyor transport and is used for internal and external conveyance in machine-building plants and in the coal and ore mining industries. Hydraulic transport is used to carry foundry wastes to dumps, to move rocks in open-pit mining, and to transport minerals. Pneumatic machines are used for internal transport in machine building to convey materials to foundries and to carry filler material into mines. Pneumatic capsule transport, a new type of pneumatic transport, and hydraulic transport are being developed to carry loads over large distances.

A particular type of industrial transport is selected on the basis of cost-effectiveness analysis, which may be considerably simplified if the rational use of various types of transport has been previously worked out, taking into account such factors as the cargo flow, the distance the load must be carried, and the terrain.

Technical progress in industrial transport is taking several directions. The organization of operations is being improved by introducing integrated production technology regulating the entire production process, including operations performed by industrial transport. The operation of industrial transport is being more closely coordinated with main line transport. New ways of organizing rail and motor vehicle transport are being developed by combining these types of transport into large industrial and interindustrial enterprises and combines. Specialized repair bases are being established for transport equipment, as well as centralized intershop transport systems using routes and schedules planned in advance. Automatic control is being introduced in industrial transport as a subsystem of the enterprise’s automatic control system. Other new trends include the mechanization and automation of handling operations; the introduction of new technology, notably continuous transport; the scientific organization of labor; and the dissemination of know-how and scientific and technological advances.