Exploring conveyor belt maintenance solutions

Flexco indicated at ConExpo-Con/Agg that it intends to launch its steel cable belt fastener in the third quarter of 2023. Photo: P&Q Staff

A nonoperational overland conveyor is a significant problem for an aggregate operation.

Nevertheless, conveyors go down. Getting one back up and running isn’t exactly an easy task for maintenance personnel, though.

“Usually, these belts are pretty critical when they go down,” says Ryan Grevenstuk, the business unit director at Flexco who focuses on the company’s heavy-duty product lines. “And you can’t always get a vulcanizer.”

Splicing alternatives that can get an operation back up and running promptly are desirable, Grevenstuk adds. That’s where heavy-duty belt fasteners can offer advantages, serving as a solution in a pinch.

“One of the newer products that’s just getting ready is our steel cable belt fastener,” says Grevenstuk, indicating at ConExpo-Con/Agg that his company plans to make such a fastener available in the third quarter this year. “A typical quarry may use this on an overland belt, but it is popping up more and more.”

A conveyor belt can be spliced with a steel cable belt fastener in as few as four hours, Grevenstuk adds, delivering a fix that can last anywhere from two to six weeks. That’s enough time to get an operation online again.

As Flexco describes, the vulcanization of heavy-duty conveyor belts – whether hot or cold – is a time-consuming process requiring special skills, expensive equipment, extreme accuracy in the cutting and stripping of belt ends, and a knowledge of solvents, bonding materials, and compatible cover and fill materials.

“Just getting the belt strung onto the conveyor can be a challenge,” Grevenstuk says. “A lot of the time [operators] can vulcanize a belt so they can string it on. Now, instead of vulcanizing, they can use half the number of fasteners, get that mounted and then string the belt on. That’s another use case for [steel cable belt fasteners], as well.”

Leveraging tech to aid maintenance

Elevate i3 devices can be attached to the ends of Flexco belt cleaners to capture insights about the equipment. Photo: P&Q Staff

Software also positions operators to better manage their conveyors. Take Flexco Elevate Belt Conveyor Intelligence as an example.

Flexco Elevate was developed in partnership with an industrial AI and IoT data science provider to reduce the need for on-site inspections and allow operations to access real-time insights about equipment performance.

“If there’s maybe a vulcanized splice that’s starting to delaminate or a mechanical splice starting to do some separation – or maybe a tear starting to form – that comes through, hits our [belt] cleaner and has a slightly different feel,” says Travis Vliem, digital product manager of Flexco Elevate. “Our device knows there’s something a little different about that, and it can shoot out an insight – whether that’s a high-g event or an abnormality.”

Vliem says Flexco Elevate also gives operators the knowledge to squeeze the maximum life out of belt cleaners.

“[Belt cleaners] oftentimes get changed out because a shutdown is scheduled for a certain time, and operators are going to change them out regardless,” Vliem says. “But that blade may have 50 percent life left in it. It could potentially go another shutdown [before a changeout].”

Vliem shares a case in point that further illustrates how operators can experience efficiency gains.

“There was a site that installed about 20 of these and saw productivity increase by 0.6 percent,” he says. “That’s seemingly ‘small potatoes,’ but that’s $1 million a year for that site. That’s not ‘small potatoes’ anymore.”