Beginners Guide

Functional Description

An endless conveyor belt in a conveyor structure is dragged from the tail pulley where material is loaded onto the conveyor, to the head pulley or drive pulley where the material is discharged. Between a conveyors' tail and head pulleys, whether the distance is a number of kilometres or merely a few metres, the carrying and return strand belting is supported on idler sets.

There are two basic types of conveyor idler sets namely,

- Carrying idler sets These idler sets support the carrying-side (top) conveyor belt onto which the material is loaded and transported.
- Return idler sets  These idler sets support the return-side (bottom) conveyor belt which returns to the tail pulley after having discharged product over the head pulley.

Carrying or troughing idler sets usually comprise between two and five individual idler rolls mounted into a common base, which is attached to the conveyor structure.

Each idler roll in a 'set' comprises its own set of bearings, seals, shaft and outer shell as can be seen in the following section.