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Colin-Transfer Chute Design
Colin-Transfer Chute Design
Research Associates
to cause dust. easily aerate so it will spiral chutes work
add bulk through well. See the section
the transfer if this is on dust transfers. With
not considered in the other types of chutes
design. aeration can be a World Leaders with Over 30 Years
factor.
Experience in Bulk Solids Handling
Fine material that can
absorb water.
This material will
usually stick and build
Flow control is the
key. Hood and spoon
Research and Consulting
up when wet. To chutes work well as
avoid this make sure can simple deflectors.
the material velocity Cascade chutes may
through the transfer is require additional
maintained. height and reliance on
some lump material to
keep such fines from
building up. Chutes
that do not control
the flow should not be
used.
Clay material, highly Very difficult to The best starting point
cohesive. manage. Must keep is a hood and spoon
material speed high. chute.
Could consider
maintaining a wetted
surface on the key RESEARCH AND CONSULTING
transfer elements.
CAPABILITIES...
Highly abrasive Chute maintenance The key is designing a
material. is the key as site will chute that promotes Materials Testing
modify any design that ore on ore flow. • Flow Properties Testing
does not manage this Cascade chute and • Dust (Environmental) Testing
issue. rock boxes incorporate
that in their design • Abrasive Wear, Erosion & Attrition
concept so they are the • Conveyor Belt Testing
starting points. • Idler Roll Testing
Combination highly Not only chute The starting point is • Pneumatic Conveying
abrasive and wet fines. maintenance is a factor a cascade chute. You • Hydraulic Conveying
but chute blocking due need height. Could be
to build up. a combination chute. Conveying Materials Handling Equipment
Very large lumps. Energy absorption is Best solution at Consultancy
the key. Hopefully the low speeds is the • Bin Design, Wall Loads & Flow Patterns
belt speed is low. If autogenous rock box.
not there is a serious At very low belt to
• Stockpile Draw-Down Geometries
management problem. belt heights a bash • Stockpile Live Capacity Estimates
plate could be looked • Belt Conveying Design Reviews and Audits
at. If the belt speed is • Conveyor Motion Resistance Calculations
greater than 2.5m/s
then first look at
• Feeder Performance and Load Calculations
modifying the rock box • Pneumatic Conveying Scale Modelling
so that it can handle • Transfer Chute Conceptual Designs
the material volume • Wear & Flow Design Optimisations
otherwise some form
of cascade chute with
• Hydraulic Conveying
much larger ledges • Instrumentation
should be looked at. • Fatigue Testing
• General Materials Handling Design Audits
• Site Visits
2. Belt speeds • Professional Development Courses
In combination with the above we need to consider the material
volumes we need to handle and weigh this up against the capi- Contact us at...
tal cost. In the past if we were handling large abrasive materials
we made sure that the conveyor speeds were very slow. This is www.bulksolids.com.au
not happening today, in most cases the choice is being made in-
dependent of the material characteristics. The consequence is
or call
that wear and impact damage become very significant operating
factors that maintenance must manage. Tests on some iron ores
+61 2 4033 9055
have shown that wear on a substrate (liner material) can be accel-
erated by a factor of four by doubling the material speed through
the transfer.
3. Differential stopping times between belts then the trajectory will be lower), belt angles of inclination
If you have an inclined belt immediately after a flat belt then in an (inclusive of the transition angle), if there are ore variations
emergency stop situation the inclined belt will stop a lot quicker (e.g. wetter ores) then the trajectory will vary.
than the flat belt. This has to be managed. It may be possible to
solve the problem through incorporating some sort of delay in the
PLC logic, it may for safety reasons require brakes. What cannot be
ignored is that if the issue is not addressed at the design stage we
have the capacity to bury a belt at the transfer point.
5. Samplers, trippers, bifurcated chutes • It is better to overestimate the top flow trajectory by a small
Generally all these situations demand more height between amount than underestimate it at all. Be conservative as this won’t
the belts. affect your transfer design, the converse can lead to disasters.
• It is better to overestimate the bottom end trajectory than to un-
Calculating the trajectory der estimate it otherwise you will not be handling the wet and
The key to modern transfer chute design is calculating the trajec- more cohesive particles in a manner that avoids build up.
tory of the ore flow off the head pulley of the delivery belt. The • Remember that as the ore flows along a conveyor belt the fines
researchers in this area have published many papers. The topic is and water laden material separate for the larger lumps such that
also too complex and detailed to go through in the time we have the top flow of a trajectory will be the larger, abrasive material,
therefore we will summarise a few points. the bottom flow the wetter, more cohesive material. This separa-
• If you can access conveyors carrying similar material at simi- tion occurs with all sizes of materials where there is differential
lar speeds you can get a pretty good idea of the trajectory by size so the effect can be seen with minus 6mm ores just as easily
observation. Just remember if you use this approach you must with minus 300mm material. Failure to recognise this and allow
make allowance for the flow rate (if the belt is only 50% full for it can result in a very poor transfer outcome. See above.
Tailored Solutions
Whether it’s a micron, a metre, or any size in between, we can help you separate it.
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CONVEYORS
Managing the flow • Skirt maintenance issues – poor presentations leads to high
The next key step is to manage the material flow through the skirt maintenance and spillage that no amount of skirt de-
chute. Simply, if you do not control the flow, your design out- sign will address.
come is questionable. The key to flow control is intercepting Photo above shows a typical case where presentation was ignored.
the material trajectory at shallow angles. This angle varies with
transfer types but a good rule of thumb is 20 degrees or less. Checking the design
The second important aspect is to make sure you intercept all There are two generally accepted methods: using a computer
of the flow, not just part of it. This is where the bottom half of based method (DEM) and the far less popular dynamic scale
your trajectory calculation comes in. modelling. Without going into detail we:
• Rarely do any evaluation when we are designing transfer for
Controlling the material speed free flowing materials as the science is pretty sound and the
High material speed means higher wear; with iron ore, for in- experience levels high as far as what creates a successful
stance, the wear rate factor is four times the speed increase. If transfer.
the material speed is too low, cohesive materials may build up • If we are looking at a difficult transfer design, or one where
and block the transfer. we are handling difficult material, we will always use dy-
The key therefore is understanding the materials you are namic scale modelling as we believe it is more accurate and
dealing with, knowing the more cohesive fines will be at the the science far better developed at this stage when com-
bottom of the trajectory and creating a design that is best fit for pared to DEM.
the issues you are facing. • We always go back to look at the results of any transfer we
work on as this is the best way to grow our knowledge and
Presentation of the material onto refine our techniques. As we have been doing this for a very
the receiving belt long time, we believe we are able to achieve pretty good and
If you do not present the ore to the receiving belt centrally and very predictable outcomes even in the most challenging of
correctly you can end up with: situations.
• Severe spillage – This can be extremely serious in the case of • We remain very interested in DEM both for the ongoing re-
reverse loading, i.e. where the receiving belt is inclined and search that occasionally creates additional insight and be-
the transfer drops the ore vertically down. cause eventually it will catch up. We do however caution any
• Excessive belt wear – This occurs if the belt has to re–accel- engineer about using some of the commercial programmes
erate the ore flow. that are freely available.
• Belt tracking issues – This occurs if the ore presents off cen- Concluding, there is a way forward for us to design far better
tre or with some lateral flow. transfers. It is not about complicating life but following basic
• Increased power consumption – all the above translates to steps, being aware of what is best practice, picking the right
wasted energy, i.e. excess power consumption that in extreme transfer for the challenge and not looking for miracles.
cases can see belts bog out for no easily apparent reason.
• Belt damage – you do not load correctly then there is a real
risk of damaging the belt catastrophically. Contact: Colin Benjamin, email cbe10699@bigpond.net.au