Re: Material From The Pipe Conveyor Sticking To The Rollers
I am aware, what I guess is similar, on troughed belt conveyors, though apparently not the extent of your installation.
The situations that I have seen was apparently caused by materials left over from the belt's construction, and or, for its protection.
I believe that I have heard of the build up being removed through aqua blasting.
Regards,
Lyle ■
Re: Material From The Pipe Conveyor Sticking To The Rollers
The residual is wax and it is very difficult to remove. It is usually part of the release agent the manufacturer has used to stop the belt sticking to the curing press during manufacture. In extreme cases I have seen maintenance people having to remove it physically by hand. It will eventually disappear as you run the belt. Using warm water with a surfactant and then putting this through a high pressure cleaning device is the best solution. You need to alert your manufacturer of the belt and tell him that unless he changes his release agent to a water soluble or non residual release agent he will no longer be able to supply you belt as this is avoidable. This problem is definitely not confined to pipe conveyors as I have seen it with normal troughed belts as well
Cheers
Colin Benjamin
Gulf Conveyor Systems Pty Ltd
www.conveyorsystemstechnology.com ■
One Raw Pom
This is a new one for me and I take on board Lyle's and Colin's experiences. However I am/was an engineer and can definitely tell you that your belt is not fit for purpose as installed. There has been a lack of communication along the way. Belting sales should have been aware of a coating that required removal and the splicing crew could then be warned. I am interested to know how the cleaning can be done. Suppose I had a belt of 5km centres. It means unravelling 10 km of belt, cleaning it and then rolling it back up again. Almost as much work as making the thing in the first place. Didn't the splicing crew have to clean the coating off??
On Linkedin I am besieged daily, yes daily, by Chinese belt suppliers who shamelessly show me photos of belt reel resting on their factory floor. No doubt they copy the storage recommendations of more established belt manufacturers to their users. One team had a belt of over 4.5m width resting snugly on the floor with a highly suspect core, or no core at all. ■
John Gateley johngateley@hotmail.com www.the-credible-bulk.com
Chemistry Ok?
Dear Mr. March,
i take it from your description, that your installation encounters this issue not only during run-in period, but continually during years of service?!
so, from a similar, however not comparably equal experience:
please allow me to ask whether
- an in-depth analysis of the chemical contents of the biofuels, especially for solvents and / or solvent-like and / or volatile constituents has been made?
- a complete research was done over the full range of the fuels you mention, over the full range of especially the operational temperatures
- were materials added to the list of fuels / were the operational conditions extended after belt specification was given to the belt manufacturer?
- does the chemical resistance of the cover material possibly differs at some places? How does the belt look like, is there distinct areas where rubber is missing?
As what concerns the rollers, as their running surface is finely polished by the belt (usually), they cannot in my opinion be the root cause of the issue. Maladjustment however could add to this effect, through the additional friction.
Regards
R. ■
Information About The Material And Maintenance Schedule
Hello all again and thanks for the comments.
I wanted to add some information about the material that we transport and the maintenance that we have to do to keep the belt running.
The material "climafuel" consist of Human household waste, mainly plastic, paper and cardboard but also some unwanted products such as glass and metal. Its consistency as well as the chemistry changes depending where it comes from.
If the material escapes the belt and stays on the system(covers, floor) it starts to decompose and the it has a corrosive nature (please see pictures provided). The material on the belt doesnt decompose as is transported to the screws. There is some condensation on the head end of the belt.
To keep the belt running we normally have to do a full inspection at least every three months, this includes cleaning/inspecting all the rollers. The life of the belt in average is around 9 months at this moment. I notice a difference between the belt that we removed last week (was 800 mm width) and the one install recommended by manufacturer( 780mm).
Any more comments will be appreciated.
Regards
Attachments
■
Advancing To ..
Dear Mr. March,
apart from the chemistry (did you check?) and the surface of the belt where in contact with the material (how does this surface look like?), I would think you'd perhaps approach your belt supplier to see whether something can be done on the belt cover material, not only for its chemical but also for abrasion resistance.
Then furthermore you might like to think over the issue of belt cleaning and approach a knowledgeable supplier e. g. Martin Eng. (no relations). However, you might like to check / identify on the system, how / where possibly sticky material may wander from the carry side of the belt to the return side.
In your latest post you start to mention a lifecycle of the belt deemed rather short. This is news, perhaps you could enlighten as to the specificalities (damage, deterioration, elongation, other) leading to discarding of the belt.
Regards
R. ■
Chemistry And Material Accumulation
The information I've got on the chemistry of the material is very limited. Most of the information is to obtain the calorific value of the product and is after the fuel is burned to 550 degrees. The components of the fuel are dry when they are transported and are mainly plastic, wood and cardboard.
I've been checking the belt for accumulation of material and found that on the return of the head end of the conveyor there is material only a week after it was completely clean. I think the design of the belt doesn't help also, the belt is completely incline and the section where it opens and delivers the material is around 3 m long. A possibility is that the air that comes up with the material doesn't have anywhere to go so it tries to come back on the return and doing so is taken part of the material the density of the climafuel is 0.32t/m3. (The belt is completely enclosed)
My understanding is the belt premature failure is due to damage on the plies once it has twisted few times (it becomes impossible to track the belt). The belt twisting could be due to build up on rollers or wear (Material sticking to the rollers). That is only my opinion as I havent got a lot of feedback on the previous failures.
Regards
P.S Can anyone tell me how to delete the old attachments so I can upload more photos?
Thanks ■
Big Issue - Big Resources
Hello Mr. March,
the easy one: You go (upper right edge of forum screen) into Settings and manage your Attachments here:
Attachment 44617
the other one: For your pipe conveyor I do think that a bigger scale overhaul, done by a specialized company, seems to be required. For the twisting / mistracking issue you might also like to approach Mr. Nordell, aka nordell, here on the forum.
Regards
R. ■
Pipe Belt Issues
I will ask the dumb question first:
Is it possible the non carry side "Bottom" is carrying your bio fuel as the"Top" side??
You are in dire need of a "V" belt plow at the tail pulley end if you do not have one already
on the bottom belt.
.
Have you talked to anyone about an air knife belt cleaner for the discharge end or a
water nozzle array with a standard hard rubber scraper???? ■
Air Knife On The Return
Hello Izaharis
I've contacted my supplier to see if we can install one. The pipe conveyor is down for cleaning today, the return side is full of material again (from head end 15m down). I took the measurements for the space after the head snub drum to install the air knife or some sort of rubber scrapper.
Regards
href="https://forum.bulk-online.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=44618&d=1438953539" id="attachment44618" rel="Lightbox86623" target="blank">■
Pipe Belt Issues
Originally Posted by Vicente March
I've contacted my supplier to see if we can install one. The pipe conveyor is down for cleaning today, the return side is full of material again (from head end 15m down). I took the measurements for the space after the head snub drum to install the air knife or some sort of rubber scrapper.
Regards
=======================================================================
Judging by the image you have so kindly provided to us, I think you need
a central vacuum system as well to remove the build ups along the conveyor path.
A positive displacement "Roots" type Rotary Lobe Blower powering an air knife
with a vacuum nozzle sized for the entire width of the belt with a 13 HG generated
pressure gradient would help along with a full length vacuum system to clean up
any build up.
FYI fines build up is the number one issue with conveyor belts and not keeping
up with the dust and fines generated by the transfer of materials and static electricity
build ups that eventually dissipate allow the material to drop off and then accumulate
on tube and troughing idler frames as shown in the image you so kindly provided to the
forum.
Installing an industrial sized central vacuum system will also be a big aid in fire prevention
with your system as you have a huge amount of build up that is a magnet for fire risk that
will create a huge amount of toxic smoke. The parallel HUGE issue is the potential for your
pipe belt to also burn.
The fines could be returned to the feed stock for the boiler without returning it to the
conveyor(providing you have room to dump a container of waste fines into
the hopper feeding the stoker.
I am assuming you use a flat bed stoker for the burn.
I always tell folks to tell us everything to help us help you and you have done much to aid us
with your inquiry to us about your Pipe Conveyor and the issues you have. ■
Re: Material From The Pipe Conveyor Sticking To The Rollers
Hello,
Famous companies like Bridgestone, Rulmeca, SIG seem to have some first hand information about your problem. So better take their help / advice about the subject matter. As a general check:
1) Firstly check that the material being conveyed by you do not have adverse effect on rubber covers (chemically and physically). Get it tested in the appropriate laboratory.
2) Possible / unexpected impurities in material, and its adverse influence on rubber.
3) It is understood that roller ends are overlapping and avoid nipping.
4) Observation about grease leakage from rollers. Roller speed ? Too hot ambient temperature ? Problem more in which season ?
5) Whether such problem at radial zone only or for entire length. If at radial zone, then adequacy of conveyor radius. What about idler pitch ? Is this usual or unusual ? Sharp starting factor can have adverse effect at radial zone due to high pressure between belt and roller. Also problem more near head end zone or rear zone ?
Hope the above information could be of use to you in tackling your problem.
Ishwar G. Mulani
Author of Book: ‘Engineering Science And Application Design For Belt Conveyors’. Conveyor design basis ISO (thereby book is helpful to design conveyors as per national standards of most of the countries across world). New print Nov., 2012.
Author of Book: ‘Belt Feeder Design And Hopper Bin Silo’
Advisor / Consultant for Bulk Material Handling System & Issues.
Pune, India. Tel.: 0091 (0)20 25871916
Email: conveyor.ishwar.mulani@gmail.com
Website: www.conveyor.ishwarmulani.com ■
Re: Material From The Pipe Conveyor Sticking To The Rollers
For posterity, I found the following while searching for another matter:
1. Beckly states, and
On trough idlers, the wax from the surface of a new belt combined with dust will build-up on the surface of the rollers...
2. Pratt states:
During commissioning, wax from the belt manufacture transferred to, and built up on, the idlers. Idlers were pressure cleaned several times to remove the build-up.
Beckly, D, 2005, Practical Belt Conveying, Conveyor Design Consultants of W.A., TBA.
Pratt, A, 2005, Application of Conveyors for Underground Haulage, Ninth Underground Operators’ Conference, Perth.
Regards,
Lyle ■
Material from the pipe conveyor sticking to the rollers
Hello all
I've got an issue with our pipe conveyor, the rubber from the belt seems to be sticking to some rollers. We changed supplier of belt from Bridgestone to SIG. I've been in charge of the area after the changed was made so I dont have the feedback from 2011. The build up on the rollers is causing the belt to lose alignment and finally to flip over. The rollers were also change from Rulmeca to a external manufacturer. At this moment in time I just come back to Bridgestone and Rulmeca rollers and I will check the results.
Has anyone any idea why the material of the belt will stick to the rollers and how can I avoid such a problem??
The pipe conveyor is enclosed and transport alternative fuels (climafuel), is 260m long and type 780x 3+2 mm , speed 3m/s.
Thanks for your help in advance I attached a couple of pictures.
Attachment 44592Attachment 44593 ■