If there is any belt cleaner it should be ahead of the pulley and in any case it isn't working so well for the duty. Whatever secondary cleaner you choose, they are legion, is going to be subjective. Your goal is one of collection and transport for the debris. My underlying question is how far away is the crusher and why? Surely if there is that much debris from the crusher there ought to be dust extraction at the crusher exit. If there is a large distance then you really need another dust extraction plant because combining the airstreams would not balance. So, you need a hood to collect the dust and direct it to a screw, scooby-doo, for onward feed. The presence of a hood which almost encloses the belt then limits your choice because of the maintenance access requirement and that requirement will be very, very frequent. This will be the main factor in your selection process. Discard any cleaner which might jeopordise the regular adjustment and replacement. Remember that you will only notice wear when the belt is running ore and so if you want a cleaner operation you must minimise the adjustment time. Auto adjustment helps here and is a major consideration...if it is proved reliable. Also you need to design the hood so that various cleaners can be fitted and observed. It is very rare to get it right first time. ■

My experience is that a tungsten carbide cleaner can work very well on iron ore. Importantly, the cleaner must not only be a good quality product but also the installation must match manufacturer's standards and the maintenance regime is critical.

The link below should take you to a 1 second video of a tungsten primary cleaner performing beautifully on a 2000 mm wide iron ore shiploader.

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Hello,

Following points may be taken into consideration at your end, while choosing the suitable type of belt cleaner (scraper), for the subject matter:

1) Iron ore abrasiveness can vary considerably from moderate abrasive to quite abrasive, as per literature. It can be in the range of A2 or A3 or A4, on a scale A1, A2, A3, A4. The abrasiveness in your case will be specific to the applicable mine.

2) Moisture content in the iron ore. Whether the percentage of moisture content remains steady or fluctuates from dry to sticky? The moisture content most of the time matters.

3) The belt joint whether mechanical or vulcanized.

You may decide the cleaner (scraper) suitable type in consultation with your suppliers for this item.

I think you are primarily concerned about the external scraper which faces the more harsh conditions. The internal scraper can be usual Vee-type, gravity action, resting on return belt, in a drag mode, Vee point facing to conveyor head end.

Sometime buyers have varied expectations about trouble free operations, life, etc. One should remember that external scraper works in a very harsh condition wherein its tip is continuously rubbing with belt. In a day the tip will be rubbing / cleaning thousands of square metre of belt surface. As an example 1 m wide belt running at 3 mps implies surface being cleaned by the cleaner in a day is 1 x (3 mps x 3600 seconds x 15 hours) = 162000 square metre i.e. in a month of 30 days, it amounts to 4860000 square metre.

Ishwar G. Mulani

Author of Book: ‘Engineering Science And Application Design For Belt Conveyors’. Conveyor design basis is 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 ■

Hello,

It is not proper on my part to suggest specific type or brand because it may not have relevance to your organisation’s specific need or choice. However I suggest following course of action.

You can decide suitable type and brand considering evaluated yearly cost / expense as below:

- Initial price

- Life

- Maintenance efforts / cost

- Disturbance to production if any during maintenance and its reflection on the cost

- General consensus between yourself, plant operation engineers, purchase department, etc.

If there is difficulty to assess the evaluated price as above then, just order trial installation for one or two conveyors and see their performance, as an all time solution for your organisation, rather than decision based on expectation / speculation. You can have trial installation of one type for one conveyor and second type for second conveyor or as you like. Both the conveyors should be causing fairly equal strain on the cleaners.

It is a reality that choice varies from company to company about the product type to be used, and so everybody’s business goes on.

Ishwar G. Mulani

Author of Book: ‘Engineering Science And Application Design For Belt Conveyors’. Conveyor design basis is 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 ■

... Seem to be a good idea, especially if the burden remains consistent.

Spare blades & such should not present much of a problem either. ■