Taking the rough on the smooth
The moulded rubber belt pockets from REMA TIP TOP Material Handling GmbH without ceramic liners are already established on the market. For the transport of sharp-edged, coarse or fine-grained materials, they have not only proven wear-resistant, the rubber covering prevents the material conveyed sticking the conveyor. These benefits are useful in numerous applications in mineral processing, the chemicals and metal processing industry. Thanks to the increased transport volume, conveyors with moulded rubber belt pockets operate more efficiently in the mid and long term. Now the company is supplying moulded rubber pockets with ceramic liners for continuous conveyors (Fig. 1). The lining on the impact side improves resistance and is especially suitable for the transport of abrasive materials.
Ilchmann Fördertechnik GmbH designs, engineers and installs conveying equipment and components to meet national and international requirements. On the search for an efficient and at the same time resistant conveying solution for a customer in the lime industry, in April 2011 Ilchmann opted to order the moulded rubber belt pockets with ceramic lining from REMA TIP TOP Material Handling GmbH. 96 moulded rubber conveyor belt pockets and ten corresponding bucket liners have been manufactured and delivered by the end of June.
The rubber pockets are suspended with a steel frame in the transport chain of the conveyor and empty automatically at the discharge zone. They have a larger capacity than corrugated edge belts and, with almost double the lifting height, achieve a consistently high delivery rate. Besides the wear- and corrosion-resistant properties of the flexible moulded rubber, the ceramic liner ensures useful and durable impact protection.
Efficiency is ensured already in the manufacture of the moulded rubber pockets. This requires numerous manual production steps (Fig. 2), which are performed with the highest precision. The skilled operatives at REMA TIP TOP Material Handling GmbH glue the ready-cut Al2O3 ceramic reinforcements together with the rubber substructure to the pre-fabricated rubber walls of the pockets. With every single work step, the wear resistance is defined for the later use: from preparation of the steel-plate-reinforced rubberized side sections by punching, application of the adhesive coating to the vulcanized-on rubber lip profile to the fitting and fixing of the ceramic lining. After delivery, the pockets are suspended on the steel frame in the elevator with circulated transport chain.
Overall the rubber pockets with ceramic lining provide the following advantages:
• Easy installation
• Quick replacement requiring just a few manoeuvres
• Hardly any maintenance expense
• Precise positioning of the material conveyed
• Transport of large volumes of material
• Much lower cleaning and maintenance requirement
• Continuous flow of material conveyed
• Even lower wear with ceramic as impact protection
