Conveyor Watch

Conveyor System Performance Audits:

Testing and Monitoring
(Extract from Conveyor Watch's literature)

This service is a valuable tool for conveyor users, designers and equipment suppliers. It improves the conveyor system's availability and reliability and decreases maintenance costs by quantifying system performance. Conveyor Watch offers over 30 years of experience and over 500 conveyor investigations.

The monitoring system identifies:

• Maximun and minimum belt tensions - TI, T2, and Te.
  

• Starting and stopping system dynamics.
  

• Belt safety/service factors.
  

• Friction factors, power/tonnage relationship and loading trends
  

• Drive performance, efficiency and load sharing.
  

• Motor performance including power, current, voltage, power factor and drive slip.
  

• Take-up performance.
  

• Brake performance.
  

• Belt tracking signatures and splice condition.
  

• Belt tension distribution for tripper/linear booster drive systems.

The five main areas of application are:

• Design verification to allow the designer/contractor to verify his calculations and modelling.
  

• Hand-over certification to give the user and designer mutual assurance of the quality and reliability of the system: a signature or performance blue print.
  

• Reducing downtime and preventative maintenance costs to assist the maintenance personnel with future problem identificafion.
  

• Failure analysis and forensic investigations to identity and differentiate between cause and effect of electrical, mechanical or belting related failures.
  

• Conveyor upgrade feasibilities for example, extending conveyor length or increasing tonnage handled. The existing performance is quantified and extrapolated.

The monitoring equipment comprises :-

• Modular transducers, adaptable to most conveyor systems.
  

• Easy installation with minimal conveyor stoppage time (usually 10 to 15 minutes.)
  

• Durable system suitable for surface and underground working conditions

The monitoring period:

This is variable, depending on the information required. A minimum of one week of continuous monitoring is usually required to capture all loading trends, as well as peak load starting and stopping conditions. in order to capture more specific events, such as belt breaks/splice failures or drive overload trips, a longer period of monitoring may be required. These events are recorded at high speed to allow analysis of the cause leading up to the instance of failure/overload.