Fatigue damage evaluation of a link for slat chain conveyor.

This paper deals with a slat chain conveyor for the transport of rock materials in very severe abrasive conditions. An actual case from practice is discussed and analysed. To clarify the fatigue damage of the chain link material, the finite element method (FEM) is applied. For the experimentally recorded cycle of chain loading, numerical analysis has been performed and data for the damage of the link material are presented. Fatigue analysis is performed by ANSYS nCode DesignLife under different loading cases. FEM results show, that the fatigue crack of the link starts from region with high values of the stresses, established by experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]