Vacuum Power

Maybe. How dense is this gravel? Can you pick all of the largest pea sizes up with a wet/dry vacuum now? How much of an elevation rise is the 50 meters?

I would suspect that even if you could gather the gravel with a vacuum, you'll do better moving it the 50 meters with a conveyor system.

No real elevation. Maybe a metre or so at times. Density is 1.5 tonnes per cubic metre. Must be through max size 3 inch hose, no room to manover on this one. And must be transportable from site to site ie truck mounted. Cheers

Must a vacuum be used? Would you tell us why?

How about considering a bucket elevator , or maybe conveyor belt?

[edit] While composing this, I see one question stated and answered. Is there width enough for a conveyor belt? Drill/Screw conveyor maybe?

It's a collection service from mainly rear of buildings to be transported off site. We currently use a vacuum truck but it's taking too long . Maybe with the right system configured I could improve collection times.

In the oil fields I drove Super Vac trucks for a while which could easily move that amount of dry material an hour though a 3 inch hose at that length.

The secret is to be able to produce a high volume air flow and fair vacuum level at the same time which unfortunately takes a lot of Hp power to do.

The newer trucks I ran used gear type positive displacement blowers with 8 inch lines and the older trucks used massive rotary vane type pumps about the size of a 55 gallon drum.

I think both took around 50 -100 Hp at full power but they could suck up drilling mud, rocks, gravel, water, tools, gloves off your hands, and anything else that fit into the hose!

You just need a big enough sucker pump to make it work!

It looks the business but far too big for city centre collections. I know I'm looking for a lot here but I really need to get down to a size that I can put on a single rear axil chassis. The footprint of the vehicle being as small as psooible with a collection capacity as great as possible cheers for all the info

Bulk dry material trucks use a blower and venturi to move products like this into silos.

The trucks have roots-type blowers mounted.

How about a liquid-ring vacuum pump drawing the gravel into a tank, with a rotary airlock valve at the bottom to dump the gravel into the truck? One advantage would be quietness.

Any particular model in mind cheers

Yes it is VERY possible,

Try a search on google for a vacuum ship unloader.

these guys can help.

http://www.vigan.com/code/en/pres_13.asp

These systems have been around for many years. They unload bulk grain from cargo ships and barges at extremely high rates.

Impressive tonnage rates per hour , however I'm looking for similar tech but mobile and truck mounted thank you for your time and efort

You've got to choose: do you want high speed/volume, or small size/power? You can improve existing systems to some extent, but you can't have both of the above.

The last time I tried to rob 10 tons of change from a bank thru the drain I had a hard time spending it, had to go to vegas. but the Vacuum truck will work, you can rent or but them. buy it used with cash and you wont have the identification problems with renting, try to get it so it still has some time left on the registration, then it cant be traced that way either. good luck

My advice on this job is to control the intake precisely. If the hose is gulping slugs of product instead of a metered flow, there's room for improvement. You want the airflow to stay at maximum, not get choked by 'biting off more than you can chew'. A paddle wheel or something at the pickup to control intake will help you find the optimum flow of product.

A slug of product will block flow at the pickup, you won't have good suction until the slug gets to the tank.

all ya need are few bars over the intale, it acts like a size filter, keeps big climps out and still lets air and material thru

Maybe a modified version of a Mercedes Unimog?: