Dear Mr.Graham,

Could you please post the general arrangement drawing of the conveyor belt installation in which the belt needs to be changed?

You have mentioned shaft conveyor. Is it normal troughing belt conveyor ( as you have posted at this forum section ) or steep angle conveyor or is it some thing else ?

I have not heard keeping one kilo meter belt in a drum. Would this be possible ? What would be the belt drum weight , outer diameter of the drum ?

Waiting for yours and others postings in this thread.

Regards, ■

Hello Graham,

About the belt issues; 3300 feet in one spool,

What we always did underground was to attach the new belt to the old one and

TUUUUGGED and tugged and simply dropped the old belt on the old upper level as it

was hot vulcanised on the lower level and easier to splice it on the lower level

and tug the old belt out on the the mine floor and simply drop it there and leave

it.

I think we had 4,200 feet total for the two strands of belt between both levels so they

used 8 rolls the last time they did it.

Ideally you would clamp the top and bottom belts and secure the both the

top and bottom belts with several clamps and chains before you cut it in half.

After you yank the old top strand you could then pull the bottom strand out and then

install the new belt from the bottom up using heavy rope to pull the belt up

to the top through the drive pulleys and then back down to the bottom the issue is

deciding where to park the vulcanising station or having two of them if available. ■

I was involved with changing out around 8000' (2.4 KM) of 48" belt underground on a slight incline with a 50' (15m) drop head to tail. We set up a vulcanized splicing station on the ground just near the take-up (near the head end) on the tail end side. We clamped off the top side of the belt to the frame near the head pulley and the return side just behind the take-up to prevent it from rolling back as we raised the counterweight as high as it would go. This allowed us to cut the belt about half way between the two clamps letting one end drop down to the splicing table and the other to pull out from the head pulley.

We had a new roll of belt set up at the splicing station and mechanically spliced the old belt to the first new roll (we had 5 rolls at 1600' each). We made up a clamp for the other piece to connect it to a CAT 988 loader. With the holding clamps now removed the loader started pulling off the old belt (uphill) as the new belt was being pulled onto the return side of the system. Once the first roll was completely on we re-clamped the belt and placed a new roll and vulcanized the 2nd roll to the first.

While the splicing was going on the crew prepared for the next pull by cutting off the first piece removed and moved the loader back into place for the next move. The old belt was simply piled on top of the old in 5 pieces until it could be re-rolled at a later time and scrapped. We kept repeating this process until all 5 rolls were on the system. Once the last roll was on we removed the last piece of old belt and let the new belt roll back on the top side to a bit away from the head pulley. Then we fed a cable through the take-up pulleys and pulled the other end up and over the head pulley so that we could do the last splice up on the frame of the conveyor.

I can't remember how long it took us to do this (it was back in the late 90's) but taking that a vulcanized splice is usually a 12 hour job I would say we probably did it in 4 days working around the clock. ■

Hey Gary,

Did you have the guys from Goodyear in Buffalo do the hot vulcanised cooking?

Did they use a tent to keep all the dust away from the splices too?

The fumes from the glue were something else according to the guys that

were assigned to haul water and help in the tent with the splices. ■

Originally Posted by lzaharis

Hey Gary,

Did you have the guys from Goodyear in Buffalo do the hot vulcanised cooking?

Did they use a tent to keep all the dust away from the splices too?

The fumes from the glue were something else according to the guys that

were assigned to haul water and help in the tent with the splices.

The belt was Goodyear but we used Quality Belt Maintenance (QBM) from Hamilton, Ontario for splicing and no tent was used. Those guys are constantly exposed to the fumes of the glues used. It must be a tough life for them. ■

Hey Gary,

Hopre the weather is cooperating up yonder-its becoming a scorcher down here again.

I have always had a preference for hot vulcanised belts versus mechanicals

simply because the splices do not leak but we never invested in an electric splice cooker

as the belts were four ply for the ore belts and 3 ply for the waste salt belts.

They always cut out 20+- feet or so every year and then splicing in

a new patch to eliminate the old splices every year.

I listen to CHML every night almost for the old radio shows and I

hope that Hamilton AKA the Hammer has been recovering since they

lost the Labatts brewery and the commercial bakery. The Labatts folks

wanted to consolidate the all the brewing to the Toronto Brewery.

I do not remember what the name of the commercial bakery in

Hamilton that closed before that.

Now I have become addicted to Ben Guyatt's sunday night show on CHML and

I am able to listen to them with my CCRadio or the internet if I miss the live show on Sunday.

leon ■

Not particularly innovative, though, consider the tail, where the tension is (generally for a "typical" layout) minimum, suitably attach the new belt to the old belt and "drive" (powered pinch rollers etc) through.

Obviously more detailed thought / controls need to be applied in real life.

A number of users / Contractors (in AU, at least) have suitable cassettes / winders etc to facilitate the change out in one attempt, if desired.

Regards,

Lyle ■

Hi Graham,

The Australian's have built some massive cable spools / winders that can handle about 3 rolls of steel cable belt. These are commonly used at the ports - Port Hedland and Karratha - where space to lap out significant amounts of belt on the ground in limited.

In Chile and the US it is common to lay out several (kilometers worth of spliced belting) that is pulled directly onto the conveyor.

To do this properly you need properly sized (and possible multiple) winders and belt clamps / air brakes to safely handle the belt.

Let me know if you need more information.

Best regards, ■

Hi Graham,

The Australian's have built some massive cable spools / winders that can handle about 3 rolls of steel cable belt. These are commonly used at the ports - Port Hedland and Karratha - where space to lap out significant amounts of belt on the ground in limited.

In Chile and the US it is common to lay out several (kilometers worth of spliced belting) that is pulled directly onto the conveyor.

To do this properly you need properly sized (and possible multiple) winders and belt clamps / air brakes to safely handle the belt.

Let me know if you need more information.

Best regards,

Andrew ■

Hi Graham,

Sounds like a beautiful place to be thinking about conveyor installations!

So you are going to splice and lap out 1000m of belt on the surface. I follow that.

You are going to clamp, cut your belt at the head of the conveyor, and splice the new belt to the old on the carry side. I follow that too.

How are you going to safely release the clamps and lower the new belt down on the carry side without a winder or break to control lowering the belt down the slope?

At the bottom you are going to have a jumbled pile of 500m of belt how are you going to wind this up?

Will you also lower the next 500m of belt on the return side down the slope? How with a wire rope?

How are you going to pull the new belt back up the slope from the tail?

I must be missing something.

Best regards,

Andrew ■

Dear experts,

How do you dispose old, unusable , worn-out belts ? I think that they pose a threat to environment. Having belt winder/unwinder may help to handling of old belts in simpler way. Can the used belts be recycled in anyway ? How efficient may be the repaired belts ?

Regards, ■

I tend to lean toward what Mr. Hustrulid mentioned. Lap the new belt on the ground in long runs, splicing the new belt together in a controlled location and then begin to change-out the belt by either winding on to multiple cores or pulling with a piece of equipment. This limits the variable for splicing conditions to a maximum of two positions. In a tight shutdown deadline, the lapping and splicing can be completed ahead of the outage and limit the actual needed downtime to complete the project. Good luck! ■