Capsule-Hoist System for Vertical Transport of Minerals

In the capsule hoist system, cylindrical capsules, loaded with minerals, are inserted into the lower end of a vertical water-filled shaft. The capsules having low mass density are lifted due to natural buoyant forces. These capsules are taken out at the upper end of the shaft. The attractive feature of the system is that it only requires power for inserting the capsules. Compared with slurry transport no mechanism is required to separate the transported mineral from water, and it does not require a continuous supply of water. Although some research work has appeared in this area, the design equations have not been attempted as yet. In this paper the design of a capsule transporting hoist system has been formulated as a constrained geometric programming problem having zero degree of difficulty. The solution of the problem yielded the design variables in the form of explicit equations.