Institute of Transport and Automation Technology Research Publications
Linear direct drive for light conveyor belts to reduce tensile forces

Linear direct drive for light conveyor belts to reduce tensile forces

Categories Konferenz
Year 2019
Authors Kanus, M.; Hoffmann, A.; Overmeyer, L.; Ponick, B.
Published in Proceedings AST 2019
Description

Due to increasing demands of the mass flow and transport lengths, the use of intermediate drives for continuous conveyors for both packaged and bulk materials is constantly growing. Intermediate drives allow the transmission of drive forces along the conveyor and thus lead to a reduction in the maximum belt tensile force. This paper presents a new drive concept for light conveyor belts. To reduce the belt tensile force, intermediate drives in form of linear direct drives are allocated along the transport distance. In the first part, a new belt design is presented which enables the implementation of the linear direct drive runner elements. The conveyer belt is characterized by low additional weights of the runner elements and has only a slightly higher bending stiffness compared to conventional conveyor belts, whereby small pulley diameters can be achieved. The second part explains the drive concept in the form of an Integrated Linear Flux Modulating Motor in more details. In particular, possible problems and the developed solutions, which were implemented and verified in a demonstrator, are presented. The results of the research show the high potential of the new drive technology. [650]