Belt conveyor is the most cost-effective and convenient mode of bulk material transportation for short to medium distance conveying particularly inside the plant. Real life application of belt conveying is so extensive that its total number in the industry is practically innumerable. Short and straightforward belt conveyors do not require much design engineering expertise to compute different running conditions. On the other hand modern belt conveyor systems are long, high capacity and are with complex conveyor geometries having various apparatus fitted on them. Detail investigation of belt tensions and power for such systems at diverse conditions is a necessity for selection of appropriate components of the belt conveyor and to economise the selection.

It will be erroneous to utter that computation of complex belt conveyor is unattainable by hand calculations, but it is certainly very tedious, mistake prone and may necessitate considerable technical skills since such calculations require for many iterations and recalculations. It can even be summarized that investigation of a high capacity long complex belt conveyor system by hand calculation is not practical and lacks professional approach.

Fortunately computerised software programs for belt conveyor system have eased the conveyor engineers’ job to a large degree and have given belt conveyor industry a boost with improved accuracy and confidence. Such software programs permit engineers to model the belt conveyor in detail using the user’s gears and concurrent analysis of many cases by one click. Accurate and instant output saves hours of computation time and provides analyst the insight of the various conditions. Conversant engineers then can research by altering the component parameters as required and move towards to the best possible or most cost-effective solution in a very little time.

While on the topic, it will be meaningful to examine the available methods/codes for the belt conveyor tension and power computations. The foundation of the belt conveyor tension and power calculation is firmly based on fundamental physics, but still different codes and methods do vary chiefly in calculation of frictional resistances which are derived from experimental data and user feed backs. Main international codes which are broadly acknowledged for belt conveyor power and tension analysis are as under:

ISO

CEMA

DIN

National Standards

It is regrettable that perceptible differences still there amongst the earlier referred standards, which perturb the engineers and plant managers. However, it is comforting to note that with the incessant advancement and successive revisions the differences are getting reduced steadily. It is not the objective of this writ-up to do a relative analysis of different codes and standards but to make a point that a good conveyor engineer is likely to be familiar with the fundamentals of the major standards.

A review of the publicly accessible key belt conveyor software programs reveal that most of them give acceptable output with reasonable correctness and they agree closely to each other. However easiness of use differs from one to the other particularly in the modelling feature and availability of in-built databases. For mere publicity, many of them have planned the input/output format of nearly the same stuff in diverse fashion to make them more attractive and consequently the cost of many of them has been jacked up very high and in few cases with small justification.

It is vital, before buying one of such programs, to assess few of them by downloading the demo version (where available) considering one’s necessity concerning modelling, limitations, input/output and accuracy in regard to the price. Watchful scrutiny is required to make a distinction between commercial gimmicks and actual qualities. Price is the significant aspect to be weighed because currently it has become a tendency to make these software programs very expensive.