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Nur Sabrina Nor Jaeman, Mohamad Aznan Mahmud, Siti Nur Aida Damanhuri, Siti Nur Aisyah Mohamad Othman,
Siti Nur Amalina Mohd Sabli.
Department of Biology and Agricultural Engineering, University Putra Malaysia.
Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
ABSTRACT
Mechanical handling conveyor is a system used for the transportation of material from one
location to another. In agricultural and food process engineering field, the most commonly use is
belt conveyor. This is because belt conveyor has high load carrying capacity, large length of
conveying path, simple design, easy maintenance and high reliability of operation. This paper
provides on the belt conveyor operation and how to calculate the performance of the belt
conveyor. There are a few things being measured and calculated such as the peripheral force,
material discharge rate, material efficiency, the pre-tensioning and cord check. Belt conveyor
used is made by rubber with drive power of 1.5kW, while the experimented materials are mung
beanss weighed around 200g. The mung beanss were released at one end of the conveyor and the
total mung beans that equipped the conveyor are weighed again as the output. The time taken for
the first beans to reach the end of the conveyor is also measured. The experiment involved
different frequency usage.
Keywords: mechanical; handling; conveyor; belt; performance; agriculture; food process;
efficiency; frequency; mung beans.
1. INTRODUCTION
Mechanical handling conveyor is a common piece of mechanical handling equipment that aids in
transporting materials especially the bulky and heavy one from a location to another location.
Conveyor systems allow quick and efficient transportation for a wide variety of materials, which
make them very popular in the material handling and packaging industries. Mechanical
conveyors can include various types such as bucket conveyor, belt conveyor, chain conveyor and
etc. The most common conveyor used in agricultural and food processing engineering are belt
conveyor, bucket conveyor and pneumatic conveyor.[1]
As for the belt conveyor, it is either flat or troughed and are often used for transporting materials
over long distances. Flat conveyors are usually used to move bulky packages or boxed goods,
and on the other hand, troughed conveyors usually transport loose items such as aggregates or
solid fuel. Belt conveyors are generally consisting of a metal frame with rollers at either end of a
flat metal bed. The belt is looped around each of the rollers and when one of the rollers is
powered (by an electrical motor). The powered pulley is called the drive pulley while the
unpowered pulley is called the idler pulley. A conveyer belt can be a slide and be controlled by
the force of gravity.
There are a few parameters that that can be used to check on the performance of the belt
conveyor such as the peripheral force, material discharge rate, and material efficiency.[2] The
objectives of this experiment are to study the operation of belt conveyors by the mean of
measuring the parameters involved.
output weight of mung beans is weighed and the data is recorded. The same steps are
repeated for 30Hz, 40Hz and 50Hz of frequency.
If the peripheral force (Fu) is known, the tensile force occurring within the belt can be
calculated for conveyor applications.
When the belt is operating there will be an elongation proportional to max traction load. It
can be calculated by:
By this experiment, the material efficiency shows are from the input and output material,
which can be calculated material efficiency using:
According to the result in Table 1, the material efficiency obtained at the end of the
experiment shows that the valid result since the average percentage in the range of 75% 90%. For conveyor speed 259.3 rpm at 20 Hz of frequency, the material efficiency is 83%.
While material efficiency 82.3% when the speed at 397 rpm. When the conveyor speed
increase to 525.4 rpm for 40Hz the material efficiency drops to 79.35%. There is no a huge
difference in the material efficiency. Since there is an increase in speed, the material
efficiency decreases. This is due to the value of the output of mung beans obtained was
slightly drop from the input which is 0.2 kg. For the frequency of 50Hz, the speed of
conveyor increases to 653.7 rpm. The material efficiency also increases to 87.9%. This is due
to the error in the experiment where the container used to collect mung beans at the end of the
conveyor has been replaced with other container that increases in width. So, the losses can be
reduced, but should the same container be used until the end of the experiment.
Table 1: values obtained from the experiment
Frequency, Hz Peripheral
N
20 Hz
30 Hz
40 Hz
50 Hz
Material efficiency,
%
736.60 N
481.11 N
363.53 N
292.18 N
26.73 g/s
42.21 g/s
52.03 g/s
68.14 g/s
83.00 %
82.30 %
79.35 %
87.90 %
Based on the conveyor speed and the material efficiency result, it shows an increasing value
as shown in Figure 1. Theoretically, the graph should show decreasing value, since the speed
of conveyor will affect the material efficiency.
Based on the results, the error occur due to the experimental error include human
error, systematic error and random error or error caused by environmental conditions or other
unpredictable factors. Other than that, the machine used also a little bit old where some
defects were detected such as the conveyor belt taking a little longer to stop making the
outcome of the experiment to be affected. Other than that, there were some mung bean that
stuck at the side of the belting conveyor that reduce the output of the conveyor. Tus, the
experiment design and apparatus should be performing at its optimum condition so that the
experiment
could
seeks
to
minimize
experimental
error,
Belting conveyer is one of the simplest conveyer in transporting the bulk materials but not
very suitable for the grains which is in granular size. This is because of the loss during the
transportation of the grains looks higher. However, that loss can be overcome with
improvement on the belt conveyer because from the experiment, the grains loss only to the
side of conveyer. Besides that, the experiment shows that higher speed of belt conveyer
giving better result since the loss is reducing. So, with improvement, this conveyer could give
better results.
5. REFERENCES
[1] CONTINENTAL BELTING-BELTING FOR AGRO INDUSTRY. (13 3, 2016). Retrieved
from www.conveyorbeltworld.com: http://www.conveyorbeltworld.com/belting-agroindustry.html
[2] Ananth, K. N., Rakesh, V., & Visweswarao, P. K. (20 4, 2011). DESIGN AND
SELECTING THE PROPER CONVEYOR-BELT. Retrieved from
www.technicaljournalsonline.com: http://www.technicaljournalsonline.com/ijeat/VOL
%20IV/IJAET%20VOL%20IV%20ISSUE%20II%20APRIL%20JUNE%202013/Vol
%20IV%20Issue%20II%20Article%2012.pdf
6. APPENDIX
DATA SHEET
Belt width
: 20.9cm
Belt length
: 391.7cm x 2
d1
box)
Input weight : 200g
No.
: 5.3cm
(frequency)
20 Hz
30 Hz
40 Hz
50 Hz
1
243.7
393.4
526.7
649.5
2
267.6
398.5
521.0
658.4
3
266.6
399.2
528.5
653.3
Average
259.3
397.0
525.4
653.7
Time
Input
Output
taken (s)
weight
weight
(g)
(g)
200
200
200
200
166.0
164.6
158.7
175.8
6.21
3.90
3.05
2.58
FU =
19.1 x 10 P
(d 1 .n 1)
Frequency, Hz
20 Hz
30 Hz
Calculation
6
19.1 x 10 (1.5)
150(259.3)
19.1 x 10 (1.5)
150(397.0)
FU
19.1 x 10 (1.5)
150(525.4)
FU
19.1 x 10 (1.5)
= 150(525.4)
FU
FU
40 Hz
Fu, N
736.60 N
481.11 N
363.53 N
50 Hz
292.18 N
Pre Tensioning
For conveyor, FP = FU
Cord check
Frequency, Hz
Fp, N
20 Hz
30 Hz
40 Hz
50 Hz
736.60 N
481.11 N
363.53 N
292.18 N
: 13650 N
: Kevlar
: 209 mm
FP
2
+ ( F U . CS )
13650 >
20 Hz
736.6
2
+ ( 736.6 x
481.11
2
+ ( 481.11 x
363.53
2
+ ( 363.53 x
292.18
2
+ ( 292.18 x
1.4 )
13650 >
30 Hz
1.4 )
13650 >
40 Hz
1.4 )
13650 >
50 Hz
1.4 )
FU . 4
max .traction load
Frequency, Hz
20 Hz
Calculation
736.60 x 4
13650
0.22
30 Hz
481.11 x 4
13650
0.14
40 Hz
363.53 x 4
13650
0.11
50 Hz
292.18 x 4
13650
0.09
Calculation
1.66
= 6.01
164.6
3.9
42.21 g/s
158.7
3.05
52.03 g/s
175.8
2.58
68.14 g/s
Material efficiency
material =
output
input
x 100
Frequency, Hz
Calculation
Material efficiency, %
20 Hz
material =
166.0
200
x 100
83.00 %
30 Hz
material =
164.6
200
x 100
82.30 %
40 Hz
material =
158.7
200
x 100
79.35 %
50 Hz
material =
175.8
200
x 100
87.90 %