Conveyor Belt Design
Conveyor belts are critical to transporting bulk materials throughout a process or facility. Good conveyor belt
design is important to ensure conveyors are reliable and can be safely maintained and operated. A well designed and properly installed conveyor increases productivity. Ingenium Design can layout your next belt conveyor from the napkin stage through all the minor details. Details that will effect your routine maintenance and the safety of your personnel. Ingenium Design values safety and does not believe in taking shortcuts when it comes to conveyor belts.
Our “War Room” approach to safety allows us to get input from engineers, operators and maintenance personnel. Every facility has their own safety requirements to incorporate into the conveyor belt design. Ingenium Design will provide you years of experience to deliver a system that exceeds your safety requirements. For the reasons mentioned above, every conveyor belt is custom designed and engineered to meet the design requirements. Complete construction of a conveyor belt can be broken down into a few phases and we are happy to help anywhere along the way.
Basic Engineering Phase
Establish conveyor belt design requirements, conveyor capacity, belt speed, work-points and general layout. This phase includes general
arrangement drawings and a 3D model for client review. We can determine the critical interfaces with other material handling equipment or chute-work. If this work is part of an existing system or structure, we can create a 3D model of the existing structure and any potential interfaces with the new conveyor. In our experience, a 3D model greatly reduces installation costs by avoiding interference’s with existing structure or equipment. When complex geometry is not modeled, there tends to be expensive rework and down time that far exceeds the cost of creating a 3D model. Fortunately for you, creating a 3D model is where we excel.
This phase is highly collaborative in order to make all of the important decisions early in the design. A 3D model can be easily manipulated to present design decisions to the stakeholders. Stakeholders can make informed decisions because a 3D model provides them with all the information in a clear and understandable manner. We understand that not all stakeholders will have the time to wrap their minds around hundreds or even thousands of 2D drawings and many stakeholders are not familiar with reading engineering drawings. This can make it difficult for stakeholders to make informed decisions and get the input from the people that matter. We highly advocate a 3D model and why this is our standard method of design.
Once the 3D model is reviewed and approved, then detailed engineering can begin. Often times at the end of this phase, a preliminary cost estimate is established to begin setting project budgets.
Detailed Engineering Phase
Whether we helped you with the basic engineering phase and created a 3D model or you just have 2D drawings, we can pick it up from there. In either case, we will end up with a detailed 3D model with structural member sizes and accurately modeled conveyor components. Ingenium Design can provide as much or as little scope as you need to get the job done right.
Design of the stringer tables, trusses, walkways, galleries, bents, towers, pulley frames, take-up carts, skirt-boards, head-chutes all the way down to the foundations can be provided. We would also love to design your transfer towers and can optimize these structures based on conveyor work-points and required transition distances.
You may have preferred vendors for conveyor components. These can be incorporated into the design. If you need to go out for bid for certain components, then we can help you through that process as well.
The conveyor may require passive or active dust collection or suppression. These are systems our engineer’s can provide to deliver more than just the conveyor belt design.
Procurement Assistance Phase
Conveyors components and steel are purchased either during or after the detailed engineering phase depending on the project timeline. If you need help purchasing the conveyor components, we will work with component vendors to get hard quotes that are ready for purchase to make sure technical requirements, part numbers and quantities are correct.
We can also help with the bidding process and provide bid evaluations and recommendations for vendors and steel fabricators. Ingenium Design will work closely with the steel detailer to ensure the integrity of the 3D model. The 3D model created in the engineering phase can greatly reduce the time required to detail and fabricate the steel because many steel detailer’s can import our 3D model with the structural member sizes.
Construction Assistance Phase
We find that projects are more successful if we have an eye on the construction. A couple site visits or regularly scheduled visits may be required depending on the complexity of your project. Oversight gives us an opportunity to catch any mistakes that may go unnoticed or foresee and avoid potential future issues. The earlier any issues are corrected, the less expensive they typically are. Our presence also gives the contractor opportunities to ask questions or address concerns without bogging down the schedule and producing piles of unnecessary paperwork.
CEMA Members
We are proud members of the Conveyor Equipment Manufactures Association (CEMA). CEMA provides the conveyor industry with standards, best practices and technical information as well as safety information. We are always striving to push the conveyor industry forward and collaborating with other CEMA members has been a valuable way to achieve this.
Project Approach and Delivery
Every project is different and the project approach may vary. Let us work with you to find the approach that makes sense for you. Ingenium Design can show you how conveyor belt design and installation can be performed successfully. We continue to develop our designs and delivery methods as technology changes and we have the flexibility to provide you exactly what you need on your next project.
What’s Next?
At Ingenium Design we are always working hard to give you a better solution. We are working to integrate some of our engineering software with our design and modeling software. This allows our engineers to explore design options and better understand how their decisions affect the overall design. These powerful tools give us a leg up early on in the design to make informed decisions that will ultimately lead to a better conveyor. These tools also allow us to optimize the conveyor layout and run “what if?” scenarios with less effort. We are excited about where this effort will take us.
