The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for storing and transporting fibrous material, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for storing and transporting comminuted tobacco. Still more particularly, the invention relates to storage of tobacco shreds and/or otherwise configurated tobacco particles, and to pneumatic transfer of metered or randomly selected quantities of such particles from the locus of storage to two or more consuming stations, e.g., to the hoppers of several discrete cigarette rod making machines.
It is already known to accumulate a supply of tobacco particles in a storage reservoir and to transfer particles of tobacco from the reservoir to one or more consuming machines by way of discrete pneumatic conveyors in the form of pipes. A drawback of presently known apparatus of the just outlined character is that the pipes are likely to be clogged by accumulations of interlaced tobacco shreds and also that the consistency of the supply of tobacco particles in the reservoir is not uniform. This presents problems in connection with metering of the quantities of tobacco particles which are to be delivered to selected consuming machines. Moreover, the quality of products which are turned out by several machines is not uniform.