On A Roll
I remember as a kid seeing silo filled by a pneumatic conveying system and thinking it would really suck to be stuck at the bottom of that silo. It bugged me enough that I had to ask several adults if it had ever happened. Even if the honest answer was yes, they were all kind enough to lie to me.
I’ve since learned that similar pneumatic conveying systems are used in many different industries to move granular and/or powdered materials. Many even feature dust control or elimination features to prevent worker exposure to hazardous materials. A far cry from the dusty demons of my childhood memories.
However, once my twisted mind gets on a roll it’s hard to distract it, and the though of someone being stuck under one of these still haunts me though. I can almost feel the panic of impending doom when I think about it. Of course, I’ve yet to hear of such a thing happening and I’m sure that there are tons of safety procedures in place that prevent this from happening in an industrial setting. Too bad I can’t convince my over active imagination of that.
Perhaps I’ll do a search on pneumatic conveying accidents and see what I can find. It will either quell my fears or fuel them, either way it could be educational. Maybe I’ll even get a NaNoWriMo idea out of it.
