MODIFICATION OF EXISTING BELT CONVEYOR BY
OJIEBUN, JOEL EHIME MATRIC NUMBER:
2007/0573
A PROJECT REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING, COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING,
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING (B. ENG) OF THE FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE, ABEOKUTA, OGUN STATE, NIGERIA. JULY, 2012.
ABSTRACT
Conveyor system is mechanical handling equipment that moves materials from one location to another, which often contains inclined sections to change the elevation of the material as it is moving. Conveyor serves to increase quality control at a manufacturing or a storage location. In the warehouse or farm gate, there is need to increase the quality control required in moving agricultural produce from one place to another as damages done to the produce while throwing them can open them to pest and disease infestation thereby making them unattractive. Hence a dual power source inclined belt conveyor was modified to a hydraulic jack dual power source inclined belt conveyor. The component parts of the inclined belt conveyor modified include; the bed frame, the inclined system (changing the mechanical jack to a hydraulic jack), tensioning of the conveyor belt, the protractor and provision of a bearing at the load end to ease rotation. Hydraulic jacks provide a means of lifting loads that otherwise could not be lifted by conventional mechanical (screw and scissors) jacks. A common hydraulic jack with a lever arm and pump has two Mechanical Advantages (MA) built into it. One MA is due to the lever arm and the other is due to the ratio of the ram piston diameter squared (D2) to the pump piston diameter squared (d2), D2 / d2. The two MA’s combine in a manner that results in a multiplying effect rather than an adding effect, which yields a much larger overall MA. The efficiency of a jack can be determined from the basic definition of efficiency, which is output / input. The conveyor loading height (input height) is 600mm (2ft) and the maximum discharge height (output height) of 100mm (6ft) with a maximum inclination angle of 30o. The conveyor was tested at different angles of inclination (0o, 10o, 20o, 30o) at a speed of 25 rpm (0.17 m/s) and the efficiency was evaluated. The discharging efficiency obtained as the angle of inclination increases from 0o to 30o ranged from 2.54tonnes/hr to 1.8tonnes/hr, and efficiency which ranges from 84.5% to 61.2%. This shows that the efficiency of the conveyor decreases as the inclination angle increases due to loss of power in moving the material up an inclined plane against gravity. The efficiency showed that the optimum performance of the modified belt conveyor is gotten at inclination angle of 0o. It is therefore recommended that the speed of the conveyor belt should be increased as the inclination angle increases in other to get the optimum efficiency of the conveyor.
