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BRIEF | FROM AIRPORTS TO MINES, IT’S A LONG STORY


The first recorded conveyor belt is widely thought to have been designed by the New York inventor Thomas Robins in 1892 as part of a series of inventions into ways of transporting the likes of coal and ores. Nine years later, the Swedish multinational, Sandvik, produced the first steel belts, and four years after that, it was those developed by the Irish mining engineer Richard Sutcliffe - renoun for being the inventor of the first coal- cutting machine - that are credited with revolutionising the mining industry with the first underground conveying systems. In 1913, Ford introduced conveyor-belt assembly lines at its car factory in Michigan and, as recently as 1972, the French society REI created what was then the longest straight- belt conveyor in the world at 13.8 km, although the longest ever recorded is said to be that of the Moroccan Bou Craa phosphate mine in Western Sahara in 1973. Built by Friedrich Krupp GmbH (now thyssenkrupp) it comprised 11 sections covering 98 km. The longest at an airport is in Dubai, installed by Siemens in 2008 at 63 km.


What’s more, it can be used with all belt widths from 350 to 2,400mm and conveyor capacities from 4 t/h to 5,000 t/h. VSR Industrietechnik GmbH of Nordrhein- Westfalen, Germany, has developed a scraper for use on belts involved in everything from lignite and hard coal mining to power plants. Additional uses cover the likes of cement works, gravel, stone and sand pits as well as foundries, aluminium works, chemical works, lead and steel works, harbour warehouse, water and sewage plants, and even refuse incineration plants. Individually spring-mounted, wear-resistant scrapers are


pressed flexibly against the conveyor-belt and continually adapt to the surface and to wear, resulting in long-term effectiveness, protecting the belt, which is important, given that many belts have actually been known to wear out because of bad scrapers. The international supplier, germanBelt Group, which has seven locations in the country, recently introduced their germanWell corrugated sidewall belts for transporting materials vertically, everything from fine sand to “lumpy” materials. And ABB has launched a digital condition- monitoring technology for belts that allows users to track speed, misalignment, damage, thickness and wear, slippage and the temperature of their belts in real time. The ABB Ability condition-monitoring service, which is aimed mainly at installations at mines and processing plants, helps to anticipate maintenance, avoid unplanned


downtime, and improve belt reliability and lifetime.


Meanwhile, Drachten-based Dunlop has recently released an app to help users access technical guidance and calculation tools. Their Belt Buddy allows the user to make a wide range of on-the-spot calculations including belt thickness and weight, roll size and even length from a coiled roll, transition distance and convex curve layout. It’s a fact of modern industry that technology is playing an ever-greater role. Their Ultra X is backed by a series of sensors carefully installed at strategic points of the belt equipment. It has been designed to withstand harsh environments and function consistently. Damage to conveyor belts can also have a significant impact on production time. While physical inspections are incredibly important, only continuous monitoring can provide the sort of troubleshooting overview that can give rise to an early warning of deterioration. A switch of emphasis from preventive to predictive maintenance now allows operators to avoid the sort of costly failures only usually detected at the physical inspection stage. And importantly, it also limits the time that their workforce have to spend in dangerous areas. As Dr. Michiel Eijpe, Dunlop‘s Development Director in the Netherlands, has pointed out: “Accidental damage is something that all conveyor operators have to contend with.” He added: “Objects that get trapped and belts can now be destroyed very quickly.”


“companies should carry out a profitability evaluation beforehand, but in the end, the operator needs to consider the total cost per ton over time when evaluating both (conveyor belt or truck) transport options”


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