Abstract
Most of the industrial machines use the belt transmission for the power transfer. These mechanisms often use the round belts with a few millimetres in diameter, which are made of the thermoplastic elastomers, especially the polyurethane. Their production process requires the bonding step, which is often performed by the butt welding, using the hot plate. To design the automatic welding machine in a proper way, the authors analyzed this process. One of the most important parameter which describes the hot plate welding is plasticized distance. Knowledge about its value is necessary to predict the length reduction of the belt during welding and will be used during the quality of the joint rating. To obtain value of this parameter the temperature distribution calculations are needed. The paper shows the results of the analytical calculations of the temperature distribution and their comparison with analyses performed by the FEM implements. Calculations were performed for the thermoplastic elastomer during the heating phase in the hot plate welding process.
Highlights
Loops of flexible material, including conveyor and power transmission belts are, owing to their behaviour, commonly used in machine engineering
Conveyor belts are most often made of composite materials, consisting of polystyrene or polyurethane matrix reinforced with steel, aramid or polyester fibres [1, 2]
The amount of heat transferred by the thermal contact conduction – at the surface peaks (Qp3-1), by convection – through empty spaces filled with hot air (Qc3) and by radiation (Qr3) will be substituted with the equivalent contact heat conduction adopted for the entire surface (Qp3-1)
Summary
Loops of flexible material, including conveyor and power transmission belts are, owing to their behaviour, commonly used in machine engineering. The hot plate welding process applied for joining of belts comprises 5 phases [21, 22] These are: squaring the mating surfaces on the heated plate, heat soak phase, plate removal, pressing the ends against each other and, cooling down. The belt ends are matched (squared) by slightly melting the mating surfaces against the hot plate This reduces the probability of joint flaws and ensures consistent heat transfer conditions at the belt and plate interface (Fig. 2) [28]. The amount of heat transferred by the thermal contact conduction – at the surface peaks (Qp3-1), by convection – through empty spaces filled with hot air (Qc3) and by radiation (Qr3) will be substituted with the equivalent contact heat conduction adopted for the entire surface (Qp3-1) This makes the heat exchange conditions more predictable, at the same time enhancing the process efficiency. The side effects of heating include expansion of the heat penetration zone (distance h) and initiation of heat transfer to holders (Qp1-2 on Fig. 1 B)
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