Belt Weight

The following steps can be taken to calculate the required take up weight for a conveyor:
- calculate total resistance for the conveyor, this includes the lift of material, acceleration, skirt
friction, idler friction, belt indentation over the idlers and any other secondary resistance. When
you add all these up you get the Te - effective force to be produced by the conveyor drive at the
driven pulley shaft
- Now you calculate the required T2, the force at the slack side of the drive pulley. This force is
calculated as a function of Te, belt wrap angle over the pulley and the friction between the belt
and the driven pulley. This is the Euler formula that can b found in the CEMA book. The main
purpose of T2 is to ensure that the force can be transferred over from the drive pulley to the belt
- The tension force in the tight side of the belt at the pulley is T1=T2+Te
- You need to check if this T1 force is sufficient to ensure against excessive sag of the belt
between the idlers. If the drive is not at the head end you should check the belt tension force at
the head end of the conveyor
- If your gravity take up is close to the drive pulley then the required gravity take up weight is
twice the T2 tension.
- Things get a bit more complicated with double drives, tandem drives etc. the above is the
procedure for a single drive conveyor
- Gravity take up is used for bigger conveyors and have main advantage of keeping T2 constant
regardless of the belt stretch etc.
- Screw take up is used for smaller conveyors that utilize fabric belt. The tension is lost over time
due to belt stretch so they need to be adjusted periodically