Basics

Introduction to Sandwich-Type Belt Conveyors

Dating back to the 1950's, sandwich belt conveyors were used for applications in the mining industry where bucket wheel reclaimers stripped overburden and mined coal. In these applications the depth of the cut could be increased without increasing the length of the boom, by employing sandwich-type belt conveyors.

Sandwich-type belt conveyors currently available in the market incorporate numerous changes and improvements to these early editions of the technology. These developments were mainly undertaken in the 1980's and 90's and transformed the sandwich belt conveyor into a commercially viable bulk materials handling conveyor. To date, in excess of 100 sandwich belt conveyors are in use on a variety of applications ranging from crushed ore to the conveyance of fertilizers.

Sandwich belt conveyor technology is considered to be proprietary equipment. The 'know-how', some features and intellectual property rights of the different brand names are often protected by patents and as such, the extent of information contained in the Ckit Engineering Handbook has been limited intentionally, in respect to the technology sources and patent holders.

This section 'Basics' is intended to introduce the visitor to the technology and to provide suitable levels of information to enable the engineer to develop an informed impression of the capability and features of the technology.

In addition to the 'Basics', visitors should drill through the different sections relating to sandwich conveyors to find additional information including Suppliers contact details.

In as much as he components used in bulk handling sandwich belt conveyors are often standard components seen on troughed-type belt conveyors, Ckit has included the appropriate sections dealing with these 'standard' components in this topic of sandwich belt conveyors.

As a general note to this section of the Ckit Handbook, it is important to draw distinction between 'bulk handling' of materials and 'unit handling'. The former refers to the transportation of particulate product(s) on a continuous basis for example, the conveying of lumpy ore from a mine to a processing plant or for transporting coal from a stockyard to a bunker above a crusher.

'Unit handling' on the other hand is generally described as discontinuous as this involves the transportation of for example, packed boxes, filled bags of cement and so forth.

Sandwich-type conveyors as described in this Handbook refers to conveyors which are used to convey products in bulk.