A wear-resistant hopper and tapered chute for a grain handling client.
The challenge: A grain handling client had an existing hopper that was wearing through in 18 months, causing product loss and downtime. The replacement needed to last at least five years, fit the same footprint, and feed an existing conveyor below. The old unit was made of thin mild plate that abraded quickly.
Our approach: We switched the wear surfaces to hardened wear plate, kept the outer structure in mild plate to control cost, and designed the internal slope to improve flow. We divided the hopper into bolted sections so the wear plates could be replaced without cutting the whole unit out. The chute was tapered to match the conveyor infeed and flanged for bolt-on connection rather than welded in place.
The outcome: The new hopper slotted into the existing footprint, connected to the conveyor without modification, and — over the following harvest — showed a fraction of the wear of the original. The client later ordered two more units for adjacent silos. The bolted wear-plate design means future replacement is a half-day job, not a two-day cut-out.
Hardened wear plate on the internal surfaces, mild steel outer structure for cost control, bolted replaceable wear sections, flanged chute for bolt-on connection to the existing conveyor. Scope included workshop fabrication, delivery and bolt-on installation; the client removed the old unit.