Grain Silo

A silo is a structure for storing bulk materials. Silos are used in agriculture to store grain (see grain elevators) or fermented feed known as silage. Silos are more commonly used for bulk storage of grain, coal, cement, carbon black, woodchips, food products and sawdust. Three types of silos are in widespread use today – tower silos, bunker silos and bag silos. Missile silos are used for the storage and launching of ballistic missiles.

Tower silo

Storage silos are cylindrical structures, typically 10 to 90 ft (4 to 30 m) in diameter and 30 to 275 ft (10 to 84 m) in height with the slipform and Jump-form concrete silos being the larger diameter and taller silos. They can be made of many materials. Wood staves, concrete staves, cast concrete, and steel panels have all been used, and have varying cost, durability, and airtightness tradeoffs. Silos storing grain, cement and wood chips are typically unloaded with air slides or augers. Silos can be unloaded into rail cars, trucks or conveyors.

Tower silos containing silage are usually unloaded from the top of the pile, originally by hand using a silage fork, which has many more tines than the common pitchfork, 12 vs 4, in modern times using mechanical unloaders. Bottom silo unloaders are utilized at times but have problems with difficulty of repair.

An advantage of tower silos is that the silage tends to pack well due to its own weight, except in the top few feet. However, this may be a disadvantage for items like chopped wood. The tower silo was invented by Franklin Hiram King.

In Australia and the United States, many country towns or the larger farmers in grain-growing areas have groups of concrete tower silos, known as grain elevators, to collect grain from the surrounding towns and store and protect the grain for transport by train, truck or barge to a processor or to an export port. The transport system simply can not handle the peak load due of the harvest needs which depend upon the weather. In bumper crop times, the excess grain is stored in piles without silos or bins, causing considerable losses.