Greetings and salutations Afsaneh,

Eliminating the tripper and installing 12 plows would be a waste of money, time and labor.

If your tripper is not working properly it probably needs work such as greasing the wheels, checking belt tension and the conveyor belt take up.

Has adequate maintenance such as shoveling out dust under the tail pulleys been done to remove dust build ups?

Are any of the troughing idlers or return idlers bad on the tripper frame? this will cause the belt to track improperly.

Is the troughing side of the belt belt tracking properly?

Is there a (troughing training idler) on the tripper to maintain belt alignment?

Is there a (return training idler) on the return idler side of the tripper to maintain alignment?

What condititon are the mechanical belt splices

in? if you use that type.

Is it exposed to the weather?-that is another factor.

Also the cable tension that pulls the tripper should be examined to see if it needs to be replaced due to stretching- the cable that moves the tripper must be under tension!!!!!!!!!!

If needed the gear box driving the cable or cables

operating the tripper should be looked at if needed.

The conveyor belt should be examined to see how much of it is stretched and you may need to cut out a section to increase tension.

The reason I say this is because if there is more than half the distance taken up by the take up you

should cut out some of the conveyor belt.

The maintenance must be done for this system otherwise it will not work well.

The tripper was installed simply because it is the best way and least troublesome way to move material to multiple locations.

You should look at the maintenance of the tripper first as this is what you are lacking in.

The smallest thing like not cleaning the build up off the tripper guide rails and not greasing the tensioning cable pullies will cause it to work poorly. ■

Dear Mr. Afsaneh,

It would be unusual to replace a travelling tripper by 12 numbers of ploughs. Firstly, the conveyor would have trough profile all along the length. This would require changes if you have to install discharge plough i.e. you will have to create flat belt at such location. The fully loaded trough belt when passing on say plough number 1 but which is not in a discharge mode, is likely to result into discharge at that location because flat belt has less material carrying capacity compared to trough belt conveyor. Also, the discharge plough conveyor has lesser speed compared to conveyor working in conjunction with tripper. So, you have to also see this point.

Travelling tripper is a regular item for material discharge at numerous locations. What type of tripper is this? Whether it is belt propelled, motor propelled, etc. The tripper layout also needs to be examined in relation to the belt tension and belt weight kg/m. The belt conveyor and tripper design is complimentary to each other and possibly the same requires design check and subsequent remedial measures for rectification to solve your problems. Well you have not mentioned what are the problems; you have only said it is not working satisfactorily.

Regards,

Ishwar G Mulani.

Author of Book : Engineering Science and Application Design for Belt Conveyors.

Author of Book : Belt Feeder Design and Hopper Bin Silo

Advisor / Consultant for Bulk Material Handling System & Issues.

Email : parimul@pn2.vsnl.net.in

Tel.: 0091 (0)20 25882916 ■

Genlemen

I can recomend the systems with ploughs.

I have made it for a large coal fired Powerplant for filling the siloes, 12 siloes and 10 ploughs, the two was filled at belt end.

It was a hydraulic system,lifting the belt for flattening, just under the plough in the discharge position.

It was equipped with a pre plough, remowing the main material not touching th belt. A main scraper in PE cleaning the belt , and a final scraper with PUR for the fines.

It worked extremely well at capacity up to 1000 t/h

It was wery less amont of dust passing the ploughs.

The interesting thing is that the shifting time between the siloes are extremely low, You do not waste time for moving tripper or traveling belts. Just activate the actual plough, and deactivate the working unit. Shift will be done with full capacity.

A very important and interesting matter. ■