Grain Milling, Dry Bulk Food & Feed Handling worked example

Elevator Capacity at 67% bucket elevator uptime: a worked example

Suppose bucket elevator uptime falls to 67%. This page works the full calculation at that level so you can see exactly which result moves and by how much. Estimate usable bucket elevator capacity for grain, feed, flour, pellets, or dry ingredients using tons per bucket cycle, available cycles, elevator uptime, and fill efficiency.

The inputs for this scenario

  • Tons moved per bucket elevator cycle: 6 tons / cycle (held at the documented default)
  • Available elevator cycles in the window: 80 cycles (held at the documented default)
  • Bucket elevator uptime: 67 % (the input this scenario stresses; the baseline uses 93)
  • Bucket fill efficiency: 86 % (held at the documented default)

Working through the calculation

  • The calculation starts from the formula this tool documents: Gross elevator capacity = tons moved per elevator cycle × available elevator cycles.
  • Usable bucket elevator capacity works out to 277 tons at these inputs, and this is the headline figure for the scenario.
  • Gross elevator transfer capacity works out to 480 tons at these inputs.
  • Elevator downtime loss works out to 158 tons at these inputs.
  • Bucket fill and transfer loss works out to 45.02 tons at these inputs.

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 27.96% below the baseline at 277 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. When the numbers land here, the stressed input is the lever to work; the walkthrough above shows exactly how much each output recovers as it climbs back toward the baseline.

Results at a glance

  • Usable bucket elevator capacity: 277 tons (headline result)
  • Gross elevator transfer capacity: 480 tons
  • Elevator downtime loss: 158 tons
  • Bucket fill and transfer loss: 45.02 tons

Run it with your numbers

  • To rerun this with your own numbers, open the live Elevator Capacity calculator, set bucket elevator uptime to your actual value, and adjust the remaining inputs to match your operation.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.