Designing of the Machine for Cutting Transport Belts: Conceptual Works

Belt conveyors are commonly employed in manufacturing and excavation processes. One of the basic components of such equipment are flat transport belts which can be monolithic or composite. In both cases, the belts are most often made of plastic materials. The manufacturing process of flat transport belts usually involves two stages. During the first stage, belts of very high length of up to several hundred meters are manufactured with use of the correct technology for a given belt type. In order to be usable in the finished conveyor system, correct length of such belts is to be achieved. Considering the above, the subsequent stage of manufacturing requires cutting the belts down to the appropriate length and very often joining the ends to form a closed loop with specific circumference. In an attempt to answer the demand of the manufacturing industry, the authors took up design works on an automated device for crosswise cutting of monolithic and composite belts. This article presents three construction concepts of the authors’ own design together with an analysis of construction and operating factors which affect their usability. The presented discussion leads to selecting one of the solutions for which a drive system concept designed by the authors is proposed. Additionally, an analysis of the influence of the cutting knife geometry on cutting force is provided