Bucket elevator belt introduction
Bucket elevator belt needs to provide a high tensile strength, a low net weight and a low elongation, while simultaneous running in good alignment is demanded. This is achieved by a specialized production process and most of all by a high transversal rigidity. The bucket elevator belt has to be optimally designed for its attachments like buckets, rubber seals and endless splices in order to function as a reliable complete system in daily operation, even after many years. All this is ensured by the carcass construction of the MTR Bucket Elevator Belts. Closely spaced high-tensile steel cords act as continuous tensile members.
This allows belt strengths up to 3,000 N/mm for lift heights of more than 200 m. On the front side as well as on the back side of the tensile members steel cord transverse reinforcements strengthen the belt. In contrast to reinforcements with textile fabric inlays, the advantage of steel cord transverse reinforcements is the higher adhesion of the rubber. This higher adhesion ensures a permanent connection of the individual belt layers, even under the influence of temperature.
Newly developed rubber compounds based on ethylene propylene dienemonomer (EPDM) allow operational ranges up to a material temperature of PRESS INFORMATION150 °C for MTR Belt Bucket Elevators. Even peak temperatures up to 200 °C may be reached. Load tests under industrial daily routines proved that EPDM-belts are much more resistant to aging than belts made of styrene butadiene rubber (SBR).