Component Design

Although Overland Conveyor Co specializes in system design and simulation, it is also very important to have a complete understanding of each individual component in the system. An understanding of individual component performance characteristics is vital in determining their influence on the system and the systems influence on them.

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) of conveyor pulleys is necessary to accurately determine stresses on and in shafts, end disks, rims and locking devices. This is particularly important in the engineered pulley class when dealing with non-standard end disks such as turbine and T section.

Non-linear FEA is used in several areas of conveyor belting analysis when it is important to understand the load sharing complexities of composite materials (i.e. steel cord reinforcement imbedded in a rubber matrix). This is particularly necessary when analyzing the most important area of belting design; the splice.

Whether the component being reviewed is a pulley, idler or belt, each has a unique loading cycle. And each will eventually fail due to dynamic cyclic fatigue. Fatigue life predictions run the gambit from relatively straight forward for a pulley to very complex for a belt splice.

Stress and strain are generally the easier types of engineering analysis that can be performed. Other analysis such as wear prediction can be just as or more important to perform as wear is quite often the determining factor in life. However, wear prediction is much more difficult to perform and is often left to the “experience” of the engineer.