Measurement and simulation of impact wear damage to industrial conveyor belts

Increasing the reliability of commercial conveyor belt systems results in an improvement of the service life and the economics of the belts as well as other technological components. The operational service life of a conveyor belt depends on several factors, such as the type of transported material, operating conditions, conveyor belt quality, and belt material properties. Important factors also include the methods used for conveyor belt storage. Long-term storage, which is not compliant with the applicable standards, contributes to the shortening of a belt's service life. The main objective of this article is to identify the effects of selected factors (i.e. storage, drop height, type of transported material) on the wear of rubber-textile conveyor belts. These experiments involved testing unused conveyor belts in two different phases of their life cycle: (1) a conveyor belt stored for 24 months, and (2) an unstored conveyor belt, put into service right from the factory, i.e. in the beginning of its life cycle. In total, 42 test samples were used. An analysis of the relative risk, and the use of decision trees, established the relationship between the selected variables.