Grain Milling, Dry Bulk Food & Feed Handling worked example

Elevator Capacity at 99% bucket elevator uptime: a worked example

Push bucket elevator uptime up to 99% and the picture changes. This example computes every intermediate figure at that operating point. Use it when checking whether a bucket elevator can support receiving, transfer, milling, loadout, or packaging without becoming the bottleneck.

The inputs for this scenario

  • Tons moved per bucket elevator cycle: 6 tons / cycle (unchanged)
  • Available elevator cycles in the window: 80 cycles (unchanged)
  • Bucket elevator uptime: 99 % (raised for this scenario; the documented default is 93)
  • Bucket fill efficiency: 86 % (unchanged)

Working through the calculation

  • Applying the documented formula (Gross elevator capacity = tons moved per elevator cycle × available elevator cycles) to the inputs above produces each figure below.
  • At this operating point the engine returns 409 tons for usable bucket elevator capacity, the number this scenario is built around.
  • At this operating point the engine returns 480 tons for gross elevator transfer capacity.
  • At this operating point the engine returns 4.8 tons for elevator downtime loss.
  • At this operating point the engine returns 66.53 tons for bucket fill and transfer loss.

How this compares with the baseline

  • Against the tool's baseline example, where bucket elevator uptime sits at 93% and the headline result is 384 tons, this scenario comes in 6.45% above the baseline at 409 tons.
  • It computes gross elevator capacity from tons per cycle times available cycles, then derates it by uptime and bucket fill efficiency to give usable tons. The value of this scenario is the size of the gap it exposes: that gap, priced out over a year, is the budget you can justify spending to close it.

Results at a glance

  • Usable bucket elevator capacity: 409 tons (headline result)
  • Gross elevator transfer capacity: 480 tons
  • Elevator downtime loss: 4.8 tons
  • Bucket fill and transfer loss: 66.53 tons

Run it with your numbers

  • Every input above is editable in the live Elevator Capacity calculator, which recalculates instantly and can be shared with the inputs intact.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.