subject: About Conveyors And Their Use In Material Handling [print this page] When it comes to material handling, not much can compare to a conveyor belt. Conveyor belts are great for moving materials over a long distance, some examples of this are in mines or airports. When it comes to moving luggage or any mined ore, you can same large amounts of money by using conveyors rather than large trucks. They are great in the right environments and when it comes to material handling, they offer a perfect solution.
History
Conveyor belts are not a new idea. In fact the first rendition of the modern material handling tool was a steel belt invented in 1901. They were used in steel mines in 1905 by Richard Sutcliffe as well as by Henry Ford at the assembly lines of Ford Motor Company in 1913. Conveyor belts have been around for a long time and have been reducing the workload of manual laborers for over a century.
Systems
The most commonly used conveyor system is the belt-conveyor. They are used in a vast amount of industries and can fit many needs. The belt-conveyor allows for big savings on labor expenses by moving a large amount of goods quickly. This leads to less need for storage space and savings on warehouse rent. They even work in green houses to move product from the assembly room to the storage or watering areas.
Benefits
Belt-conveyors are more than capable of handling a wide range of materials ranging from very fine to large and lumpy. There are not many things that a conveyor cannot be used to move.
They can be designed to handle capacities for any operation, moving as much as 10,000 tons per hour when unloading a cargo ship.
They can even be used to stock-pile or retrieve goods. It is not uncommon in material handling to see a radial stacker belt-conveyor used to create high piles of materials such as gravel, coal, or sand. Likewise a retrieval conveyor belt can placed under such piles to bring the materials back into the plant or transfer it to a truck.
Because the materials on the belt are carried on top of the belt itself and remain static, the needed horsepower to operate the conveyor is low. This means that you can save money on energy as well as on time.
A belt-conveyor can be configured to fight almost any need. They are incredibly versatile and are capable of almost any distance. On top of that they are capable of elevating materials as well as the opposite.
When it comes to material handling in large quantities, it is hard to pass up the belt-conveyor. This versatile tool is capable of filling almost any need and can be molded or shaped according to your needs. Conveyor belts have been in use for a long time and will not disappoint. If you think that a conveyor might be the right choice for you dont hesitate to ask someone who knows. There are many experts and distributers that will be more than happy the give you a hand.
