Belt conveyors are used for the transportation of bulk materials in a number of different branches of industry, especially in mining and power industries or in shipping ports. The main component of a belt conveyor is its belt, which serves both as a support for the transported material along the conveyor route and as an element in the drive transmission system. Being crucial to the effective and reliable operation of the conveyor, the belt is also its most expensive and the least durable element. A conveyor belt comprises a core, covers and edges. A multiply textile belt, in which the core is constructed of synthetic fibers such as polyamide, polyester or aramid, is the oldest and still the most commonly used conveyor belt type. The plies are joined with a thin layer of rubber or another material (usually the material is the same as the material used in the covers), which provides the required delamination strength to the belt and allows the plies to move relative to each other as the belt is bent. Belts are installed on the conveyors in a closed loop in order to join belt sections, whose number and length depend on the length and type of the belt conveyor. Belts are joined with each other in a splicing procedure. The cutting of the belt core causes belt splices to be prone to concentrated stresses. The discontinued core also causes the belt to be the weakest element in a conveyor belt loop. The article presents the results of strength parameter tests that were performed on laboratory and industrial splices and indicated the reasons for the reduced strength of conveyor belt splices. Splice strength is reduced mainly due to incorrect preparation of the spliced surfaces and to different mechanical parameters of the spliced belts.
Damage detection in complex mechanical structures is important for cost-effective and safe operation. Conveyor belts with steel cords are used for bulk material transport in mining companies. Due to harsh environmental conditions, both covers and cords are subjected to damage. As lengths of conveyors may vary from dozens of meters to kilometers, a belt loop consists of many connected belt pieces. Thus, the condition of splices between belt pieces is also critical. For both steel cord damage/wear detection and splice condition evaluations the NDT techniques based on magnetic field measurement and variability analysis are used. To obtain appropriate resolution, multi-channel data are collected. Here we propose a pre-processing technique developed for signal synchronization for biased splices data. The biased splices mean a phase shift between signals from a multi-channel sensor due to the design technology of the splice. As the quality of the splice is related to the appropriate precision of splice production, splice evaluation is defined as a similarity analysis of each signal with respect to the estimated pattern. Due to the mentioned phase shift, signals should be "synchronized" first, before final analysis. In industrial conditions, many factors may influence the signal shape. Thus, the problem of automated synchronization by shifting the signals may be defined as a multidimensional optimization problem. Here, we proposed to use a genetic algorithm with an algorithmically simple cost function for that purpose. In this paper, the authors propose an automated procedure applied to real measurement data and final results. A multidimensional optimization has been compared to simple signal shifting according to several criteria, and GA-based results were the best.
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