When we were approached by a new customer requesting conveyor belt tensioning equipment, it was made very clear that an urgent fix was required to a basic problem with their linear conveyor systems – ingress.
With the customer being in the food processing industry, this meant strict guidelines around health and safety had to be adhered to and this included conveyor systems and other material transportation methods they employed. A change in manufacturing process had resulted in the specific conveyor system in question now handling food materials of a more particulate nature, namely sugar.
The problem stemmed from the choice of suspension and lack of tensioning used on the system. A conveyor belt designed to carry solid items such as eggs or glass bottles will not need to consider the damage that ingress into machinery parts could cause, due to this being a rare occurrence. However, machines designed for particulate, slurry or liquid transfer such as raw meat, sugar or flour must pay careful attention during component selection to ensure the longevity of their investment. It was clear that such attention had not been paid during transfer from solid to particulate loads and this regular ingress into suspension components was causing tracking issues, unnecessary downtime and considerably lower efficiency.
Solution:
After reviewing the current solution, our engineers determined that two components needed to be changed. Primarily, the rubber suspension system employed was failing due to high levels of ingress and therefore a new full-fill unit would need to be implemented to prevent this in the future. Full-fill construction features on our semibond and fullbond suspension systems and allows no ingress into components due to being formed of one solid piece of rubber. Secondly, some form of belt tensioning should be employed. A loose slack side was aiding in the tracking problems being suffered and a belt tensioning system would not only help to alleviate this, but also increase efficiency of the whole system.
New units were designed and built at Peak Dynamics to the precise specification agreed by the customer, made to our usual high standards. The customer now has a belt system which will be more efficient, require less down time and perhaps most importantly, will now have a considerably lengthier useful life.
If you want to know more about how we can help your engineering needs or you have any further questions please feel free to call on +44 (0)1789 778 041, email [email protected] or complete our general enquiry form today.
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