During manufacturing of uranium-di-oxide pellets at NFC, bulk handling of radioactive material in powder form is required across processes. At present, this is being carried out manually by using bunkers and valves. Problems associated with this are, man power intensive, more cycle time, requirement of heavy duty handling equipment and occasional leakage of radioactive material resulting in higher air-borne activity. To overcome these problems one fully concealed system based on flexible spring conveyor concept has been developed. Flexible spring conveyors offer specific advantages for transport of materials in a process layout requiring flexibility, containment of activity and flexibility. In this paper, the material flow behavior in a flexible spring conveyor suitable for transport of active materials has been studied. Experiments on the developed system have been conducted by rotating the spring element at different speeds and inclination angles. The variation in material flow rate as a function of design & operating parameters have been studied in order to evaluate the performance of the conveyor. Particular attention was given to develop analytical models for velocity distribution of powder flow and integrate it to get flow rates.

Keywords: Flexible spring conveyor, Bulk and active materials, Spring element, Material flow rate, Design and analysis of spring conveyor.