With a silo purchase, you’ll also need to consider liners, dischargers, chutes, doors, as well as cleaning, repair, and inspection. An advantage of fabric silos is their relatively low cost compared to conventional silos. Some fabrics have a metal thread that provides a static conductive path from the surface of the fabric to the ground. To create a vent filter while the silo is being filled, the upper areas of the bag fabric often have a slightly larger pore size. Usually, polyester-based fabrics are used for the bag material. Fabric Silosįabric silos consist of a fabric bag and a stiff frame that suspends the bag. They require less silo maintenance and repair than other types but have the disadvantage of not being mobile, so more equipment is required to move the cement. Static upright silos are large capacity silos, from 200 to 800 tons. This system is to help control the discharge of cement or powder and to provide an accurate count of what remains inside the silo. They usually have an electronic weighing system with a digital display and printer. Low-level mobile silos are simple to transport and are easy to set up on site. Two types of cement storage silos are the low-level mobile silo and the static upright cement silo. An advantage of bag silos is they’re inexpensive and are often used as a temporary fix for when growth or harvest conditions require more space, although some farms use them every year. The bag is usually torn off in sections during unloading, but it can be saved and reused if not torn. The silo unloading equipment used is a loader or a tractor. Bag Silosīag silos are large cylindrical plastic bags that are filled with silage before both ends are sealed. Bunker silos are inexpensive because they are easy to construct, and are well suited for sizeable operations. Once the trench is filled, it is made airtight with a plastic tarp covering it. Bunker Silosīunker silos are long ditches, usually sided with concrete walls, that are used to hold silage such as dry goods. At night when the silo cools, the air inside contracts and the bags expand again. During the day, as the sun heats the silo, the gas trapped inside it expands, and the bags collapse. The silo is open to the atmosphere, but outside air is separated from internal air by large impermeable bags sealed to openings in the silo. Low-oxygen silos are only opened directly to air during the initial loading process, and even the unloader chute is generally sealed to prevent air from getting in. They are used to hold fermented materials and to prevent mold and decay in other types of silage. Low-oxygen silos keep silage in a low-oxygen atmosphere at all times. You can find Suppliers of Concrete Silos via Thomas’ Supplier Discover Platform. They can be made taller according to the needs of the farm and purchasing power of the farmer or can be completely taken apart and reassembled somewhere else if they’re no longer needed. The pressure of the silage pressing outward on the staves increases towards the bottom of the silo, so the hoops are usually spaced closer together the nearer they are to the bottom of the silo so as to prevent the creation of seams on the sides of the silo.Īn advantage of concrete stave silos is their flexibility. The vertical stacks are held together by the intermeshing of the ends of the staves on each layer, and the hoops which are tightened directly across the stave edges. Concrete is much stronger in compression than in tension, so steel hoops encircling the tower are used to reinforce and compress the staves into a tight ring. Concrete Stave SilosĬoncrete stave silos are made of small precast concrete blocks locked together by their ridged grooves along each edge, creating a high strength shell. However, this can be a disadvantage for stored materials such as chopped wood. The material stored in tower silos, also known as the silage, usually packs well because of its weight, except for the top few feet where there is less weight to press it down. Rail cars, trucks, and conveyors are used for unloading.

Grain, cement, and woodchips typically unload from tower silos with air slides or augers. Tower silos are vertical cylindrical structures. This article looks at those types, as well as cement storage and fabric silos. The three types of silos most commonly used today are tower silos, bunker silos, and bag silos. These structures store bulk materials, and not just the agriculture grain that may come to mind immediately. Many business communications talk about “workplace silos” as a bad thing, but actual silos have real value. They are most often used for agricultural purposes such as the bulk storage of grain, coal, woodchips, cement, food products, and sawdust. Silos are structures that store bulk materials.

Agricultural silos