H & B Mining have over 40 years of experience in conveyor transfer design. We work closely with site personnel and maintenance crews on mine sites across Australia to achieve optimal conveyor transfer design.
A number of factors need to be considered in the design of conveyor transfer points for material bulk handling in the mining industry. These include functionality, ease of maintenance, belt loading and tracking, and wear reduction. Poorly designed conveyor transfer points can cause major problems resulting in unsafe work areas together with lengthy shut down times leading to loss in productivity.
Problems typically encountered may include:
- Dust emissions
- Material spillage
- Poor conveyor belt tracking
- Belt wear along the skirt lines
- Rapid skirt liner wear
The first principle for any new or existing conveyor transfer point design is to ensure consistent material flow together with central loading of material onto the receiving conveyor belt.
The inclusion of H & B Easy Maintenance Conveyor Products combined with a regular consistent maintenance program will achieve maximum flow and minimum spillage at any the conveyor transfer point.
The focal point of any conveyor transfer design is the transfer chute. Input from site personnel with firsthand experience on the material being carried and how the material behaves is essential for success. The style of chute design selected dictates the functionality of the chute from an operational and maintenance standpoint.
To help guarantee material flows centrally onto the receiving conveyor belt the chute design must include a loading boot or a training plate which is positioned at the base of the chute directly above and on top of the conveyor skirts. H & B Mining have invested many hours developing, designing and supplying adjustable training plates and loading boots for conveyor transfer points to mines throughout the Pilbara, Western Australia.
Access for maintenance is the most common problem encountered with training plate/loading boot design. Commonly, the installed training plate/ loading boot is sandwiched between the transfer chute and the conveyor skirts both vertically and horizontally. This makes access for conveyor maintenance and exchange of parts extremely difficult, at times impossible. For this reason, these areas do not get maintained as often as they should and the worn opening in the installed training plate/loading boot is no longer able to do the job it was designed for. H & B Mining developed the ‘Retractable Loading Boot’ to address these issues.
The photos below illustrate the difficulties in accessing the training plate and/or loading boot at the base of conveyor transfer chute.
Mining are leaders in conveyor transfer design. Our design team works to create maximum access to all conveyor transfer areas requiring maintenance to ensure maintenance tasks are made simple, quick and safe. H & B range of “Easy Maintenance” conveyor products can be incorporated into any new or existing conveyor transfer design. See H & B’s ‘Streamline’ Conveyor Transfer Design.
