Determining stress cycles for belt conveyor speed control in transient operations

Abstract

Belt conveyors are important equipment for large-scale bulk material transport and logistic distribution in very wide industry fields. In line with the variance of material loading degree, belt conveyor speed control has been proved as an effective way to reduce power consumption and to improve the service of the equipment with respect to system lifetime and maintenance. Since discrete control is preferred to regulate the speed of conveyor, control methods based on fuzzy logic can be applied. However, speed control is not always applicable for all conveyor operation scenarios. The stress cycles generated during fuzzy speed control in transient operations may lead to extra degradation of the equipment and should be limited. This paper presents the determination of the stress cycles during the fuzzy control for belt conveyor transient operations. After categorizing the loading scenarios that can be normally found in different application fields, the outputs of modeling and simulating a fuzzy speed control system display the effect of stress cycles on belt conveyor operations. The determination of minimum stress cycles along with maximum energy savings can be used to improve the algorithm and settings of belt conveyor speed control systems.