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The article studies Automatic Oil Spraying Machine design and manufacture for baking device. In a current baking process, the workers manually spray the oil onto the trays. The spraying cycle increases the cost of man power in small scale industries. An automated oil spraying system is designed to solve these issues, where they can automatically spray the oil on the baking tray easily and effectively. The main components of this device are the mechanical and electrical components. The mechanical portion consists of conveyor belt, roller, bearing, gear, nozzle and tank, and mechanical structure. The electrical components include the IR sensor module, the dc motor, the dc pump, Arduino, and the source of the batteries. The key advantages of this approach are high precision oil spraying; improve efficiency, cost reduction and manpower. This model system's gross weight contains 15 kg (roughly). The efficiency of this device is checked for product production under different working conditions to track the performance of the work and the time durations.

With the development of technology, the application of intelligent coal gangue sorting is more and more favored by coal mining enterprises. The coal gangue intelligent sorting system has higher requirements on the coal conveyor belt. The traditional transmission system has the problems of slow speed response, unstable operation, high energy consumption and jitter in the process of speed change. Using PLC, touch screen, frequency converter, RS-485, sensors and so on, the speed control and speed monitoring system of belt transport mechanism is constructed. By analyzing the error law of the system speed control and using Numpy system analysis and calculation, speed pre-compensation can be made. Then by controling speed precision through the PID and monitoring display through the time-speed curve, the real-time automation gives an alarm for abnormal speed situation. According to the speed requirement of the intelligent sorting system of coal gangue, the system can quickly reach the predetermined speed value, and effectively eliminate the shaking phenomenon in the process of changing speed. The system has strong universality, easy maintenance, and stable speed control, which is conducive to improving the reliability and efficiency of the intelligent sorting system for coal gangue and reduceing transmission mechanism wear caused by dithering.

This article presents a conveyor belt fire classification model that allows for the determination of the most effective firefighting strategy. In addition, the effect of belt design parameters on the fire classification was determined. A methodology that involves the use of numerical simulations and artificial neural networks was implemented. An approach previously proposed for modeling fires over conveyor belts was used. With the objective of obtaining some required modeling input parameter and verifying the capacity of this approach to get realistic results, computational fluid dynamics model calibration and validation were carried out using experimental test results available in the literature. Results indicated that scenarios with belt positions closer to the mine roof and greater tunnel heights require a higher longitudinal air velocity to be attacked directly. Furthermore, the belt fire classification model provided by the artificial neural network had an accuracy around 95% when test scenarios were classified.

text, 学術雑誌論文 / Journal Article, In order to improve the finishing efficiency of the Magnetic Abrasive Finishing process, we proposed a new MAF process with renewable abrasive particles using compound magnetic finishing fluid circulatory system in this paper. This new finishing process has a circulating system that uses a conveyor belt to renew the mixed abrasive particles. This not only maintains the stability of the finishing but also ensures that the processing does not need to be interrupted. In this study, we investigated the magnetic field distribution, finishing force, and finishing behavior of the processing area. Furthermore, we designed experimental device to finish the sus304 stainless steel plate, to verify the feasibility of this process and understand its characteristics through processing experiments. Moreover, the influence of important process parameters, including magnetic particles, abrasive particles, conveyor belt line speed and working gap, on the surface quality of the workpiece is studied through the experiment. The experimental results indicate that the present process can achieve stable processing of the material surface without interruption, and the surface roughness of the sus304 stainless steel plate has been improved from 273 nm to 23 nm through this process.

Machine failure on the M-145 bucket elevator contributed to downtime in January 2021, as much as 605 minutes or 6.75 hours, starting from January 17-20 2021 with a total of 17 production downtimes. The purpose of this study was to analyze the damage to the M145 elevator to determine the root cause of the damage and in this study used the fishbone diagram method. From the results of research conducted there was damage to the M145 elevator that the cause of the overflow was due to the peeling of the rubber coating on the top pulley of the upper motor pulley so that the belt became loose and caused friction on the conveyor belt, the tightness of the conveyor belt which was rarely checked, from the beginning of the construction of the bucket which caused the material to be indirect. lifted to the top but first stirred at the bottom so that it inhibits the speed of the bucket elevator. In preventing overflow damage on the M145 elevator machine by repairing or replacing the top pulley with a new pulley or repair by providing a good pulley rubber coating, as well as changing the direction of the elevator inlet so that the bucket is no longer stuck with raw materials

Disassembly is an important part of green manufacturing and remanufacturing. The disassembly line is an optimum form for mass and automatic disassembly in the industry. To optimize the disassembly system and the use of resources, the disassembly line balancing problem (DLBP) has attracted much attention. Compared with the conventional one-sided straight disassembly line, the two-sided disassembly line can use both the left and right sides of a conveyor belt for disassembly operation, thereby improving production efficiency, especially for large-sized and complicated products. On the other hand, due to the constraints and precedence among parts, it is a challenge to plan the disassembly scheme for a two-sided disassembly line. In this paper, a model is established to solve a two-sided disassembly line balancing problem (TDLBP). First, a hybrid graph is utilized to express constraints and precedence relationships, and a novel encoding and decoding method is developed for the disassembly scheme planning of a two-sided line for handling the challenge caused by constraints and precedence among parts. Then, a multi-objective TDLBP optimization model is proposed including the number of mated-workstations, idle time, smoothness index, the auxiliary indicator, and a meta-heuristic based on an artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is designed to solve TDLBP. Finally, the proposed model and method are applied to an automotive engine case, and the results are compared with NSGA-II, hybrid artificial bee colony algorithm (HABC), and multi-objective flower pollination algorithm (MOFPA) to verify the practicality of the proposed model in solving the TDLBP.

The Discrete Element Method (DEM) is increasingly used to analyse the design of conveyor systems. In this study, the capability of, and accuracy with which DEM can predict the flow of a non-cohesive granular material through a transfer chute was investigated. The model included a Chevron patterned belt, an impact plate, hood, and rock box. The results were compared to measurements using high-speed footage. The model parameter values were determined and the particle shape modelled as single spheres and multi-spheres. To decrease computation time, particle up-scaling, simplification of the shape model, and decreasing the contact stiffness were investigated. Results showed that DEM could accurately predict the flow characteristics, and was more accurate than analytical approaches. It is concluded that DEM can be used with confidence in modelling similar applications if a calibrated parameter set is used, and the guidelines presented here in terms of particle scaling, are adhered to.

We experimentally design an integrated system composed of a conveyor belt and a posts array, which can simultaneously implement the function of size separation and transportation of disk particles. Differently sized particles through the post array exhibit two types of distinct migration modes that are responsible for the size separation. Furthermore, the dividing line between the two migration modes depends on the critical radius found in experiment. The relationship between the separation efficiency and the length of the post array and the packing fraction of particles is investigated quantitatively. Finally, a simplified model is proposed to predict a critical particle radius which is verified to be in accordance with experimental measurements. This research has a potential application prospect in some fields of industry.

Despite the meticulous attention of food industries to prevent hazards in packaged goods, some contaminants may still elude the controls. Indeed, standard methods, like X-rays, metal detectors and near-infrared imaging, cannot detect low-density materials. Microwave sensing is an alternative method that, combined with machine learning classifiers, can tackle these deficiencies. In this paper we present a design methodology applied to a case study in the food sector. Specifically, we offer a complete flow from microwave dataset acquisition to deployment of the classifiers on real-time hardware and we show the effectiveness of this method in terms of detection accuracy. In the case study, we apply the machine-learning based microwave sensing approach to the case of food jars flowing at high speed on a conveyor belt. First, we collected a dataset from hazelnut-cocoa spread jars which were uncontaminated or contaminated with various intrusions, including low-density plastics. Then, we performed a design space exploration to choose the best MLPs as binary classifiers, which resulted to be exceptionally accurate. Finally, we selected the two most light-weight models for implementation on both an ARM-based CPU and an FPGA SoC, to cover a wide range of possible latency requirements, from loose to strict, to detect contaminants in real-time. The proposed design flow facilitates the design of the FPGA accelerator that might be required to meet the timing requirements by using a high-level approach, which might be suited for the microwave domain experts without specific digital hardware skills.

Hops are an essential raw material in beer brewing, providing typical flavor and aroma characteristics to beer. Freshly harvested hop cones must be dried immediately. While conveyor-belt dryers are...

Water content or moisture of materials is a parameter widely used in the industry. In mining, it is an important variable to control in iron ore production. High moistures may cause instability of iron ore piles and may make transport by ship unfeasible. Therefore, this paper presents the development of a system for measuring iron ore moisture on a conveyor belt (laboratory-scale). The structure that supports the sensor has two degrees of freedom, which allow perpendicular and parallel movements. The parallel movement makes the relative velocity between the measurement cell and the ore almost zero. The vertical movement allows the sensor to be placed at different depths in the ore. These sets enable real-time and in situ measurements. The system uses the capacitive method to determine the dielectric constant of the iron ore located between the sensor electrodes and, consequently, the moisture. This system has a measuring range of 0 to 14% on a dry basis and presents an uncertainty up to 0.07 percentage points for a 2-standard-deviation confidence level. In the validation process, the absolute error was less than 0.34 percentage point in the mining interest range of 6 to 14%. The founded results achieve a significant advance in the development of real-time equipment for measuring ore moisture since there is no device capable of doing it with the necessary level of accuracy and precision. For mining, this kind of system represents a big step to take corrective and preventive decisions around iron ore moisture control.

Conveyor belt dryers have been applied extensively in the drying process even though the problem of uneven drying along the dryer length exist. The general solution is to install an auxiliary device in the chamber to adjust the arrangement of air passages. A series of problems, however, are observed, such as occupying internal space and increasing flow resistance. A novel flow field improvement technology has been developed and conducted by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with a modified heat and moisture transfer model and validated by physical verification. The results show that specific stacking of feedstock characterized as vertical serration stacking with 30° angle and 43.0 mm interval can help to improve drying performance. Three indices (Integrate area, Mavg, and Mu) for the evaluation of velocity distribution confirms that most uniform moisture of products is obtained with the specific characteristics. This work presents an unconventional method to solve the problem of uneven air-distribution and thus improving drying efficiency.

In this paper, the influence of some ingredient concentrations such as SBR ratio, DCP/S, CBS/DPG accelerator, EPDM-g-AM and cord surface on mechanical, thermal aging properties and adhesion between rubber compounds and cord have been investigated. The results showed that with suitable ingredients loading such as EPDM/SBR is 85/15 phr, DCP/S is 2.0/1.5 phr and EPDM-g-AM content is 2.0 phr with respect to rubber, the vulcanizates had good mechanical properties, thermal stability and adhesion level to the zinc/copper galvanized cord. The highest tensile strength, elongation at break and pull out strength reached 18.1 MPa, 432% and 60.3 N/mm respectively, and the highest retention after thermal aging at 150°C for 168 hours was about 0.76.

The utility model discloses an automatic packaging machine. The device comprises a machine tool, stand columns and fixing pieces. The lower end of the machine tool is connected with a strut; non-slipmats are mounted at the lower ends of the supporting columns; the stand columns are distributed on the two sides of the upper end of the machine tool. A top cover is fixed to the top ends of the standcolumns. The fixing part is arranged at the lower end of the top cover, a transmission wheel is connected to the inner side of the fixing part, a motor is installed in the middle of the back face ofthe fixing part, a first belt wheel is embedded in the middle of the motor, a connecting belt is fixed to the left side of the first belt wheel, and a second belt wheel is arranged at the left end ofthe connecting belt. The automatic packaging machine is provided with the machine tool, the machine tool and the supporting columns are horizontally and vertically distributed, the supporting columnsare attached to the non-slip mats, the supporting columns play a good role in supporting and fixing, it can be effectively guaranteed that the whole device is horizontally and vertically distributed in the using process, and it is guaranteed that the whole device operates in a normal state during operation.

In this paper, we study the limit cycle of a nonlinear conveyor belt system by utilizing the perturbation incremental method. We first divide the system into two subclasses. On account of the former is heteroclinic orbit and the latter is not, there are some differences in the process of employing this method. Next two steps are introduced, the perturbation part provides the zero-order perturbation solution and takes it as the initial value of the incremental part, and in the incremental part, the corresponding limit cycle is obtained by controlling the value of the parameter $$\lambda $$ . Under this circumstance, approximate analytical expressions of limit cycles of those classes are found. Then, numerical simulations are presented to prove the effectiveness of the results by comparison with numerical integration using the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method. Finally, some conclusions and expectations are given.

Dentre as muitas atribuições de um engenheiro eletricista, o controle de sistemas é uma tarefa primordial para o sucesso de um negócio. Esse gerenciamento é fundamental para garantir o controle da produção, reduzir custos, evitar prejuízos e visar lucros. No entanto, gerenciar sistemas de controle é um desafio que pode consumir muito tempo do gestor, inviabilizando outras ações de extrema importância para a produtividade e o crescimento da empresa. Para facilitar esse trabalho, o mercado tem desenvolvido e aperfeiçoado programas que possibilitam esse controle de forma mais simples e funcional. Nessa perspectiva, esse trabalho tem como objetivo utilizar fundamentos de sistemas de controle para ajustar a velocidade desejada de uma esteira transportadora industrial. Para isso, também foram inseridos controladores com ações independentes no sistema: do tipo proporcional (P), proporcional-integral (PI), proporcional-derivativo (PD) e proporcional-integral-derivativo (PID), apresentando os resultados obtidos a partir do desempenho do sistema para cada um dos casos, com suas respectivas discussões e conclusões.

The paper presents the measured values of tensile forces acting on transmission idlers in the upper and lower run of a conveyor belt placed on a laboratory machine designed at the Department of Machine and Industrial Design, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava). The tensile forces detected by two strain gauge load cells and recorded using DEWESoft software were used to calculate the friction coefficient which acts on the surface of the driving drum casing and the conveyor belt. The friction coefficient at the slip point, or during the slippage of the conveyor belt on the rubber or steel casing of the driving drum was determined for two states of the surfaces which are in contact. Experimental measurements on a laboratory machine determined four values of friction coefficients, for two types of drum surfaces and for two states of contact surfaces, which were compared with the recommended standard values. The measured values reached higher values in comparison with the values given by the CSN standards. The highest deviation of 273.3% is achieved using a steel wet surface, and the lowest deviation of 106.3% is achieved when using a rubber dry lining for the driving drum casing. On the presented laboratory machine, it is possible to measure tensile forces for different speeds of movement, different belt angles on the driving drum, various types of belt surfaces, different types of drum casing linings and different sizes of tension forces for the endless loop of the conveyor belt. For these characteristics of the conveyor belt, the magnitude of the friction coefficient, acting between the belt and the drum surfaces, can be determined.

In this work, the combination of the 0–1 test for chaos and approximate entropy is applied to a newly established mechanical model instead of the Lyapunov exponent exploration on huge simulations reached on the supercomputer Salomon (Czech Republic). This procedure is applied to the mechanical systems modeled by a system of non-autonomous ordinary differential equations that detects the type of trajectories generated when the system parameters are changed. This new mechanical system is formed by an impact element hanging on a flexible rope, and a moving belt, etc. This contact system with impacts and dry friction is based on numerous industrial applications such as stones falling on a moving conveyor belt. The mathematical model’s systems of equations have three degrees of freedom: two of them correspond to the position of the impact body center of gravity and the third one to the angular rotation. As the main aim, it is shown that the investigated systems exhibit a full range of trajectory types, meaning it can act in both a regular and irregular way. These results are supported by bifurcation diagrams and phase portraits for a suitable choice of drive parameters: the excitation frequency and amplitude.

Predictability of consistent granular flow is critical in many industries. This exploration of behavior in a conveyor apparatus aims to fill a gap in knowledge of achieving a uniform mass flow rate by correlating local velocity profile data with summative mass measurements in both experiments and simulations. Differences between the two types of flow measurements indicate unwanted energy dissipation. In experiments, image data was collected for uniformly-sized particles in the bottom-driven flow conveyor belt system for which edge velocity profiles could be produced to measure local shear rates and estimate mass flow. These velocity relationships under different speeds of the belt and varied outlet sizes are compared to shear rates from gravity driven flow. Similarity in the linear profile transitioning to an exponential decay are observed but at shear rates substantially lower than dilated, free-surface flows. Simulations were conducted using LIGGGHTS discrete element model framework using the same dimensions for the conveyor system and particle sizes. Results show unique three-dimensional velocity profiles can produce similar mass flow rate behavior. The work continues to demonstrate computational models of granular flows with experimental validations can be used to evaluate customized designs in industrial applications, such as feeding unsteady biomass conversion reactors. Future work can be developed to evaluate granular materials that have random distribution of sizes, aspect ratios, and orientation.

This study focuses on the question of how humans can be inherently integrated into cyber-physical systems (CPS) to reinforce their involvement in the increasingly automated industrial processes. After a use-case oriented review of the related research literature, a human-integration framework and associated data models are presented as part of a multi-agent IoT middleware called CHARIOT. The framework enables human actors to be semantically represented and registered, together with other IoT entities, in a common service directory, thereby facilitating their inclusion in complex service chains. To validate and evaluate the proposed framework, a user study is conducted on a setup where a human and a robot arm collaborate on a “pick-assemble-place” job on a conveyor belt. Based on the human skill set parameters obtained from the user study, online and offline variants of task assignment on the conveyor belt setup are implemented and analyzed over the presented framework. The results illustrate possible efficiency gains through the consolidated online monitoring and control of all cyber-physical system entities, including human actors.

In a world where the population is inevitably increasing, waste produced is progressively increasing as well. In this project, an autonomous waste sorting machine was made which could detect multiple classes of waste materials, and then separate them accordingly. The waste products were taken as input in a funnel-shaped structure and dropped one by one to a conveyor belt where they would be detected by machine learning technique using Faster-RCNN, and then a servo motor would separate them according to the detection result. In rare cases, there are some misdetections of the waste materials, but the reliability of the detection was very high. Our project can facilitate human efforts to separate waste products and can make the waste sorting system completely automatic.

This paper presents the design and implementation of a small-scale hardware-in-the-loop test environment for lateral vehicle dynamics controllers. The test rig consists of a conveyor belt and a 1:10 scale model vehicle. The vehicle is anchored to the frame of the conveyor belt using a special fixture, which constrains only the longitudinal displacement of the car. Therefore, the longitudinal velocity of the vehicle is provided by the conveyor belt, while the steering is generated by the computational unit, where various control methods can be implemented. The test rig is equipped with sensors that provide accurate measurements of the position and orientation of the car, which can be used as feedback in the control algorithms. The paper includes a case study, where the analytical stability analysis of a lane-keeping controller is verified with experiments on the test rig. The proposed test environment provides a compact, cost effective and versatile framework for the testing of various steering control methods in a running vehicle, while maintaining the benefits of a controlled laboratory environment. The experimental setup can also be used for educational and demonstrational purposes.

We study an actual problem of cleaning of conveyor belts from adhered finely divided materials in the process of operation of belt conveyors. The material remaining on the belts causes numerous problems for the conveyor transport. In the course of time, adhered particles fall into the subconveyor space, thus violating the normal operation of the conveyor. This also leads to rapid failures of the roller supports, excessive abrasion of the working surface of the belt, and hence, to a more rapid wear of the conveyor belt. The procedure of cleaning of the belts enables one to remove the indicated problems. At present, there are various types of available cleaning units. Each of these units has its own advantages and disadvantages. In most cases, this complicates the choice of the required unit. We estimate the efficiency of application of a discrete double-row scraper cleaner of the conveyor belt. Its application increases the degree of cleaning without damaging the surface of the belt due to the presence of a counterbalance clamping attachment.

Pipe conveyors, also referred to as tube conveyors, conveyor belts which are loaded with a material to be conveyed and after being loaded are closed into the conformation of tube by overlapping the belt edges. Belts may twist because of uneven loading, uneven guidance through curves, or otherwise poorly aligned systems.Undesired rotation of the pipe conveyor belt should be avoided and the problem should be corrected as soon as possible to limit, prevent or minimize damage to the system and loss of material. Keeping in mind the same, we present the development and characterization of an Industrial Pipe Conveyor Belt Orientation Monitoring System. The proposed system is composed of a microcontroller interfaced with Li-Dar sensors and a Wi-Fi module. The design of the monitoring system is such that it can monitor the orientation of the pipe belt from a considerable distance with ease.

PT. X is a services and manufacturing company. PT. Y is one of some of industrial companies use the services of PT. X, is one of the biggest chemical fertilizer producer in Southeast Asia. PT Y uses 66 belt-conveyors for distributing the material. In order to arrange maintenance schedule, used preventive maintenance calculations using Failure Mode Effect and Critically Analysis method (FMECA). Preventive maintenance is used to schedule the maintenance of the conveyor belt’s components (belt and primary cleaner). Data analysis obtained a critical belt values are 2.521𝑥10−3 and 1.863𝑥10−3, respectively, on the primary cleaner component. Furthermore, effective maintenance and evaluation time intervals which obtained for belt components is indicating operation time with 92% reliability level or about 215 hours.

A conveyor belt system essentially consists of an endless belt of elastic material connected between two flat pulleys and driven by the rotation of one of the pulleys by a direct current motor. Usually, the material is fed to the belt near the other end of the pulley. The moving belt that carries the material to the drive pulley tends to sag between the two end pulleys due to its own weight. Rubber conveyor belts are commonly used to transport items with uneven bottom surfaces, small items that fall between rolls, or product bags that sag between rolls.

The steel cord conveyor belt surface is prone to damage in mining. The worn belt surface has acceleration characteristics, so timely and rapid repair is very necessary. To quickly and automatically repair the worn belt surface is a core design objective of the gluing robot (GR). Based on this objective, a new variant Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) is put forward: after the worn segments are divided according to the worn information and GR’s workspace, path optimization of the gluing robot (POGR) problem is presented at a certain worn segment; then the POGR is simplified into a “double vertices” TSP problem by Hamilton graph, and the mathematical model is built. An improved genetic algorithm (IGA) is proposed to handle the POGR problem, which is called IGA-POGR. The main benefit of the proposed IGA-POGR is the ability to solve POGR of different scales in different ways. The performance of the IGA-POGR is illustrated on four well-known TSP problems. Numerical results show that IGA-POGR does not give any deviation (0%) from the optimal solution. Compared with discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO), IGA-POGR has better performance in terms of the solving quality and time consumption when solving four idealized POGR problems.

For modern manufacturing firms, automation has already become a norm but constantly needs to be improved as firms still face strong demand to increase their productivity. This can be achieved by reducing dependability on manpower, reaching lean and even unmanned production and this is where some of the standards of Industry 4.0 come in useful, not to mention: Machine Vision, Image Recognition or Machine Learning. In our paper, we present SODA – our approach to build a flexible ML and AI enabled framework for object detection, analysis, and simulation. The framework is designed to support a development process of solutions requiring real-time analysis of images of different types of moving objects on a conveyor belt. In our work we discuss architectural challenges of the developed framework as well as the basic components of the system. We do also provide information on how to use the framework and present a sample implementation of an actual system employing some of the machine learning methods.

The sowing qualities of seeds – such as germination, germination energy, weight of 1000 seeds, etc., are the factors ensuring high yields of agricultural crops. Technological methods of seed and grain treatment with the UHF MEMF (microwave electromagnetic fi eld of ultrahigh frequency) energy involve the use of various types of microwave devices, diff ering both in operating principle and in design. In fact, the process of microwave treatment of seeds is similar to the process of heat treatment of dielectric materials. Therefore, depending on the goal of treatment, microwave devices should provide some kind of selectivity of microwave heating, a high conversion factor of microwave energy into thermal energy, uniformity of microwave treatment of the bulk of material, protection of the microwave generator and electromagnetic safety. During the microwave treatment of seeds, it is important to ensure uniform treatment of the bulk of seeds and automatically maintain optimal treatment modes (microwave heating modes). An installation design is proposed for microwave treatment of seeds. A specifi c feature of the proposed design is that seeds are processed on a moving belt under an emitter with the process control and regulation according to the speed and fi nal heating temperature. Moreover, the microwave source intensity depends on the load (a layer of seeds on the conveyor belt). The authors also propose an algorithm for the microprocessor control of the device. Thus, the proposed design of the installation for treating seeds in a layer under the emitter on a moving conveyor belt, as well as the technological algorithm for matching the microwave source with the load ensure the compliance with the processing modes in strictly specifi ed ranges of the fi nal temperature and microwave heating rate of the material, as well as protect the microwave source from refl ected electromagnetic waves.

In general, crack monitoring of coal mining conveyor belt is carried out by simple visual inspections that are found to be inefficient due to being quite labor-intensive and for providing inaccurate health conditions of the conveyor belt. In this article, we propose a robust and low-cost passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF)-based radio frequency identification (RFID) crack sensing system, which allows the processing and detection of the presence of crack from the sensors’ data in real time. A graphical user interface (GUI) is developed and integrated into a UHF RFID commercial reader to collect and process the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) from the sensors. A theoretical model of RSSI in the presence of a crack in the conveyor belt is introduced here. The investigation on RSSI measurement has been carried out for both scenarios when the belt is static and in motion. The moving belt RSSI measurement depicts two different cases. The first case involves the interrogation of embedded sensors by using a single reader antenna, whereas multiple antennas are used for the second case. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed monitoring system can offer highly accurate early detection of a crack having a width of as little as 0.5 mm. Moreover, the proposed GUI can enhance the system performance in processing the sensors’ data using multiple reader antennas when the belt is in high motion. The experimental results have revealed promising opportunities to adapt the proposed system in a realistic scenario for monitoring the health of soft rock conveyor belts.

longitudinal dynamic stresses and investigate the peculiarities of the propagation of dynamic stresses along the route of material transportation. Methodology. To calculate the value of static and dynamic stresses arising in the conveyor belt, the apparatus of mathematical physics was used. Findings. A wave equation is written that determines the propagation of longitudinal vibrations in a conveyor belt, the material of which corresponds to the Maxwell-element model. An expression is obtained for calculating the speed of propagation of elastic vibrations along the conveyor belt, the frequency of vibrations and their wavelength. The characteristic relaxation time of disturbances is determined. The method of successive approximation was used to solve the wave equation. The estimation of the characteristic time of acceleration of the conveyor belt, at which there is no destruction of the material of the conveyor belt, is given. Originality. PDE-models of conveyor-type transport systems are improved, which are used to design belt speed control systems under restrictions on speed control modes. It is shown that under the modes of acceleration or deceleration of the conveyor belt, the effects associated with the occurrence and propagation of dynamic stresses along the conveyor belt, due to the characteristics of the material corresponding to the Maxwell-element model, are insignificant. Practical value. The results obtained make it possible to determine the limitations on the modes of acceleration or deceleration of the conveyor belt, preventing its damage and increased wear. This opens up prospects for designing effective control systems for the parameters of a conveyor belt, unevenly loaded with material along the transport route.

Frequently, companies with conveyor belts face problems to keep them working as expected. Currently, there are many automatic conveyor failure diagnostic techniques but most of them require complex instrumentation schemes or algorithms. This paper presents a fault diagnostic scheme for conveyor belts actuated by an induction motor. The system retrieves information from a current sensor and a voltage sensor located in the input line of the motor to detect irregular behaviors with an algorithm based on statistic indices. The main features of the solution are: non-invasive for a pre-existing conveyor, embedded implementation, simple and effective algorithm, and low cost instrumentation. This proposal is the starting point for a more complex solution that detects irregularities more accurately using more variables of the system in future work.

The conveyor belt-type checkweighers are increasingly employed for dynamic weighing in the mass production line, such as agricultural products, chemical, pharmaceutical, and other manufacturing industries. However, this dynamic weighing system is easily influenced by the environmental and mechanical vibrations, which can disrupt the weighing results accuracy and the weighing throughput rate. Besides, the checkweigher systems are complex and time-varying. Therefore, an adaptive filter called self-adaptive noise cancellation (SANC) is presented in this article to eliminate the impaction of these vibrations, and a novel variable step-size least mean-squares (NVS-LMS) algorithm is proposed. Finally, a checkweigher system, with 24-bit ADC and a processor of STM32F405, to evaluate the performance of the approach in-field was constructed. The results show that the mean errors and the standard deviations of the error about the tests can meet the requirements of category XIII (0.1) in OIML R 51, and the system can operate in the speed up to 1.75 m/s.

Water resources are an integral part of human life and it’s essential for the survival of life on this planet. However, in recent years the plastic and waste pollution in water bodies is increasing at an alarming rate due to which the aquatic ecosystem is disturbed, the quality of water is affected and the sunlight is blocked. Moreover, in the coronavirus pandemic usage of disposable masks, gloves, and other biomedical waste has added to the already existing pollution of the water bodies. Ineffective management of biomedical waste leads to public health risks and poses an even greater risk to the environment. Waste management is the most emerging challenge faced by mankind that can even threaten our very existence to the root. In this paper, we have proposed a design a product that can efficiently cope up with the present problem of improper waste disposal. The autonomous water cleaning robot collects waste and other floating garbage on the water body. The design implements a robust mechanical frame with sensor fusion and computer vision to achieve autonomous cleaning. The robot is provided with two energy sources, one battery and the other is solar power, a conveyor belt mechanism is further used to clean the water body. Providing a cost-effective solution, reducing man power and minimizing the time required for cleaning of the water bodies are the main objectives of this project.

Conveyor belt is a dedicated machine which is used in transporting the goods in assembly line area. This machine is driven by using a single mechanism for an operation. Here the focus is on the Geneva wheel which is used for this respective operation. Geneva Wheel mechanism here rotates and the index the roller in the conveyor belt one by one step. As we know there is the major drawback of a Geneva mechanism that jerk a lot while the operation is in process due to which it loses its acceleration. Here a symmetrical coupler curve of 4 bar mechanism which run on a Dwell curve is added to avoid the jerk as low as it can. The forces are analysed on the simulated mechanism with meshing method and the result to be presented in a graphical order, which represent the Von Mises stress and displacement.

This paper describes the design of a robot platform that can collect and disposing waste in passenger trains. It covers an analysis of the key design considerations for success in operating in a train environment, as well as considerations in manipulating waste in an often-confined space. The design constraints are analyzed for their importance in the successful development of a train cleaning robot. The analysis informs the development of three robot designs. These designs are assessed in their appropriateness for development against a baseline design that uses readily available parts. Among the three designs developed, one uses a vacuum powered arm similar to the type utilized in manufacturing plants, one is based on the dustpan and brush used in domestic cleaning, and one is based on a conveyor belt. These designs are assigned a percentage suitability for implementation in the automated train carriage cleaning system. Using the key values and the requirements the design should fulfil, a systematic investigation is undertaken. This investigation finds the conveyor belt design most appropriate for application due to the sustainable design and effective cleaning that can be undertaken without additional tools.

The object of research is the process of heat treatment of iron ore pellets. To study it, a technological zone of pre-heating of a conveyor-type roasting machine was used. Technological process control is performed on the basis of fuzzy and incomplete information about the state of this zone. One of the main requirements regarding the functioning of the technological preheating zone is to ensure the regulatory values of the thermal and gas modes when changing the speed of movement of the conveyor belt carts. Efficiency improvement of control of these modes is provided thanks to the automatic control system, implemented on the basis of fuzzy and incomplete information on the state of the technological parameters of the zone. In the course of the study, the analysis of scientific and technical information was carried out and the analytical method determined the importance of improving the process of controlling the thermal process of processing iron ore pellets in the technological preheating zone. On the basis of experimental studies, the features of the technological process have been taken into account, it requires the improvement of the process of controlling the operation of the technological preheating zone. The mathematical model uses the temperature of the coolant of the gas-air flow, the flow rate of natural gas and air, the temperature of the pellet bed and their mass on the carriages of the conveyor belt of the machine. At the same time, the output technological parameters of the drying zone and the input parameters of the firing zone are taken into account. On the basis of solving systems of fuzzy functions and the principles of parametric identification, a mathematical model is proposed that approximates the dynamics of the thermal process of processing iron ore pellets in the technological preheating zone. The characteristics of transient processes of heat treatment of pellets obtained on mathematical models are analyzed taking into account the variable parameters of the adjacent technological zones of the machine, the consumption of natural gas and air. On the basis of mathematical modeling, studies have been carried out to determine the optimal distribution of the coolants of the gas-air flow over the technological preheating zone. The hardware and software for the automatic control system for the heat treatment of pellets taking into account the variable parameters of the coolants of the gas-air flows in the technological preheating zone has been implemented.

This paper presents a machine vision system (MVS) for visual quality inspection of beans which is composed by a set of software and hardware. The software was built from proposed approaches for segmentation, classification, and defect detection, and the hardware consists of equipment developed with low-cost electromechanical materials. Experiments were conducted in two modes: offline and online. For offline experiments, aimed at evaluating the proposed approaches, we composed a database containing 270 images of samples of beans with different mixtures of skin colors and defects. In the online mode, the beans contained in a batch, for example, a bag of 1 kg, are spilled continuously on the conveyor belt for the MVS to perform the inspection, similar to what occurs in an automated industrial visual inspection process. In the offline experiments, our approaches for segmentation, classification, and defect detection achieved, respectively, the average success rates of 99.6%, 99.6%, and 90.0%. In addition, the results obtained in the online mode demonstrated the robustness and viability of the proposed MVS, since it is capable to analyze an image of 1280 × 720 pixels, spending only 1.5 s, with average successes rates of 98.5%, 97.8%, and 85.0%, respectively, to segment, classify, and detect defects in the grains contained in each analyzed image.

Optical tweezers based on metallic plasmonic structures can achieve stable trapping of objects with deep subwavelength dimensions. However, due to the lack of real-time tunability of metallic plasm...

Results of modernisation of an on-line X-ray fluorescent analyzer are presented, and its new capabilities are considered when investigating the composition of materials on the conveyor. The metrological characteristics of the analyzer are improved owing to the use of modern electronic components in the instrument part and new analytical software.

A new configuration of triboelectrostatic separator equipped with an insulating belt conveyor electrode is described and analyzed in this article. The insulating belt is continuously charged by the corona discharge produced by a fine-wire electrode, placed at a distance of 5 mm above it. The charge accumulated on the belt leads to the enhancement of the electric field in the active zone of the electrostatic separator. Two types of materials, namely polyvinyl chloride and polyester (PET), were used for the conveyor belt and their performances in terms of electrostatic separation efficiency were compared. Corona charging the belts improved both the recovery rate and the purity of the separated products. Better performances were obtained when using the PET belt conveyor electrode, where more than 95% of the polypropylene particles and 87% of the polystyrene particles were recovered as 97% and 92% pure products, respectively.

The objectives of this study were: a) to evaluate E. coli O157:H7 survival on green mature tomatoes and squares of common food processing materials – stainless steel, plastic (HDPE), and vinyl conveyor belt (PVC) – post-drying, stored at 25 ºC in the humidified environment for four days; b) to determine pathogen transfer rates (wet, 90 minutes, or 24-hours drying post-inoculation), from inoculated tomato surfaces to uninoculated steel, plastic, and vinyl conveyor belt squares and conversely. It was shown that E. coli O157:H7 did not survive well on the surface of tomatoes, resulting in a decline from 5.3 log10 CFU.mL-1 90 minutes post-drying to 1.4 log10 CFU.mL-1 on day 4. Similarly, the pathogen did not survive well on the surface of food processing squares, with numbers declining over 4 days from 4.04, 4.44, and 4.19 CFU.mL-1 of rinsate 90 minutes squares post-drying to 0.72, 0.50, 0.83 log10 CFU.mL-1, which is close to the detection limit, for the steel, vinyl belt, and plastic, respectively. Successful cross-contamination between tomatoes and food processing surfaces was achieved during wet transfer; while transfer after 90 minutes inoculum post-drying and 24 hours were less successful. This can be explained by both lack of liquid media with suspended bacteria for transfer and fast pathogen die-off after desiccation. Dry transfers, as shown by the percentage of “positive” for pathogen presence tomatoes and squares, as well as bacterial counts, were more successful from tomatoes to squares, but not conversely. Special concern raised vinyl conveyor belt, where the surface picked up the most pathogen cells from the surface of tomatoes, resulting in 100% positive during 90 minute-dry transfers, followed by plastic (66.7% positive) and steel (55.6% positive). To summarize, we presented data on the possibility of cross-contamination between mature green tomatoes and common food processing surfaces, which may be interesting for the processors for risk evaluation.

Hollow-core photonic crystal fibers (HCPCFs), a form of optical conveyer belts, have been used to guide particles for many years. However, only the translational motions of a guided particle can be manipulated. In contrast to traditional types, we demonstrate a new form of optical conveyor belts based on a polarization-maintaining hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (PMHCPCF). Because of the constant polarization state in the PMHCPCF, both the translational and rotational motions of a guided particle can be manipulated simultaneously. For the convenience of theoretical simulations and the effortless control of the polarization state in the PMHCPCF, an x-axis linearly polarized beam and an elliptically polarized beam are coupled into the PMHCPCF to form an incoherent dual-beam trap. For a specific guided particle, the orientation of the particle can be manipulated by the polarization state of the x-axis linearly polarized beam and its rotation rate can be manipulated by the polarization state of the elliptically polarized beam. Moreover, we can obtain any orientation and rotation rate at each trapping position by changing the polarization direction and polarization state. This results in a variety of application prospects in the study of chiral molecules, especially in the fields of biology, medicine, chemistry, and polymers.