Elevator Buckets

Designers of elevator buckets face a unique set of challenges that stem from the need to balance efficiency, durability, and safety in a compact, constantly moving environment. Issues such as wear and tear on equipment, mechanical failure and blockages must all be considered while also maximising the capacity of the system. Simulation is proven to assist in all of these areas, helping designers to create more robust and reliable materials handling systems faster and more cost effectively.

Maximising Capacity

The size and shape of the elevator bucket directly impacts performance. Poor bucket optimisation can lead to not collecting or conveying properly, improper or uneven fill, material wastage, inefficient material transfer and material blockages.

Parametric bucket design enables the explororation of many configurations, optimising for collection and discharge before any prototypes are made, reducing time to design, reducing cost and optimising material. throughput

Operational Velocity and Spacing

Incorrect operational velocity and spacing of elevator buckets can lead to spillage, bad outlet flow, downlegging and sticky material.

Simulation can account for many variables up front, combining bucket design with speed settings to reduce material spillage, improve outlet flow and ensure material is suitably distributed to reduce stickiness and binding.

Designing the Feed Conveyor

Another key contributor to issues such as blockages and sticky material is the material feed rate. This is heavily impacted by the feed conveyor which can be optimised to reduce or even eliminate these problems downstream.

Simulation enables the rapid exploration of multiple designs of the feed conveyor and inlet hopper, which when optimised, allows for smooth operation of the bucket elevator. Such optimisation reduces blockages, provides good material distribution for pickup and ensures optimal material throughput for the system.

Predicting Wear Rates

Uneven loading of material can cause increased wear on elevator buckets. Additionally, blockages can create high stress locations and reduce the efficiency of the elevator.

Simulation helps designers to better understand the causes of wear and to identify potential problem areas within the system. This understanding enables design for extended machine life, reducing wear rates on belts, chutes and buckets which in turn enables accurate maintenance scheduling, reducing up front and overall cost.

Power Consumption vs Performance

If buckets are too large the power draw will be excessive, but too small and the material transfer rate won’t meet requirements.

Optimisation of the bucket design, pickup and speeds will reduce spillage for given material transfer rate target and accurate, even loading will maintain smooth power draw.

Operational Loads

Better understanding of the operational loads of a system informs design decisions that help combat bucket fatigue and cracking. By redesigning bucket geometry and selecting the optimal material, bucket life can be extended. Similar optimisation can be applied to combat belt wear – by determining the ideal belt and drive sizing, designers can increase the lifespan of the system.

DEM to FEA coupling allows accurate loads to be determined, providing accurate stress analysis early in the design process. This helps to prevent fatigue, reducing system downtime and maintenance frequency. It can also help system operators to better predict maintenance requirements ahead of time, facilitating preemptive maintenance before failure occurs.

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