H.G. Kevenaar
Design of a pipe conveyor based tripper car.
Engineering Assignment,
Report 2006.TL.7095, Transport Engineering and Logistics.
Dry bulk terminals use storage yards to temporarily store the bulk solid
material on stockpiles. Stacking and recovering onto and from the stockpiles
is done by a stacker-reclaimer, which is fed by a main yard conveyor. A
device called tripper car is used to connect the main yard conveyor to the
stacker-reclaimer. The tripper car lifts the upper strand of the main yard
conveyor out of its idlers and brings it up to the height of the boom of the
stacker-reclaimer. At the moment these main yard conveyors are practically
always of the conventional belt conveyor type.
The past twenty-five years have seen the rapid development in the field of pipe
or tube conveyors. All over the world pipe conveyors have been installed. Pipe
conveyors have some important advantages in comparison with conventional belt
conveyors. One of these advantages is the better dust control of pipe conveyors.
Another advantage is the ability to cope with steeper inclination angles.
By using a pipe conveyor as main yard conveyor on a storage yard, some of
the advantages of the pipe conveyor can be adopted at dry bulk terminals. As
a result of the increasingly getting stricter regulations on emissions, it
is preferable to use enclosed transport of the bulk solid material on the
storage yard.
This report presents the design of a pipe conveyor based tripper car. A
functional analysis is used to reveal the main functions of a tripper car.
Subsequently, sub-solutions have been found for each function. Two solutions
are composed by using a morphological chart containing the determined
functions and sub-solutions. Both solutions are evaluated on basis of the
qualitative and quantitative design requirements.
The solution that suits best with the requirements uses the main yard
conveyor to incline the bulk material to the boom of the stacker-reclaimer.
The idler frames of the main yard conveyor are opened and the pipe belt is
taken out of its idler frames. The tripper car has got its own idler frames,
which are mounted on a truss construction. Discharging of the bulk material
is done at the top of the tripper car. The idler frames of the main yard
conveyor have the ability to open at once; this is done by a hinging
mechanism which is assisted by push-rods. The top idler is operated by a
lever, in this way the opening width of the idler frame of the main yard
conveyor is enlarged.
This report shows it should be possible to use a pipe conveyor as a main
yard conveyor to feed the stacker-reclaimer. The part of the trajectory
where the belt is lifted out its idler frames is the most critical part.
During this handling the belt is unsupported over some distance and the pipe
shape of the belt is not maintained by idlers.
Further research is needed to understand the behaviour of the belt while it
is unsupported (e.g. on basis of Finite-Element-Modelling). Further research
is also needed for the detailed design of the pipe conveyor based tripper
car and the idler frames of the main yard conveyor. Last aspect for further
research is a financial study for the costs of installation, operation and
maintenance of a pipe conveyor based tripper car.
Reports on Transport Engineering and Logistics (in Dutch)
Modified: 2006.11.25;
logistics@3mE.tudelft.nl
, TU Delft
/ 3mE
/ TT
/ LT.