Metallurgical industry has the outstanding characteristics of long production process and large raw material capacity. According to statistics, it is generally about consumption of various raw materials and auxiliary material 4-6t for the production of 1 t steel products. At present, the transportation equipment used in the production process of metallurgical industry mainly includes in-plant train, in-plant car, belt transportation, pipeline transportation and roller transportation, among which the belt conveyor is the most widely used transportation mode. Compared with other transportation equipment,corrugated sidewall belt conveyor not only has the advantages of long distance, large capacity and continuous transmission, but also with the features of reliable operation, simple maintenance, easy to realize automation and centralized control, especially for the metallurgical process flow, belt conveyor has become the key equipment with highly efficient production, mechanical and electrical integration of technology and equipment. Most belt conveyors used in metallurgical industry are horizontal belt conveyors, and the conveying Angle is generally not more than 18°. Since the limitation of climbing angle of the horizontal belt conveyor, leads to the transportation distance is increased, resulting in area, investment and operation cost increase when there is a relatively big increase height of vertical demand,therefore, horizontal conveying equipment cannot satisfy the business enterprise in the near future and long term material handling general layout and design requirements. The corrugated sidewall belt conveyor is widely used in metallurgical industry due to its small occupation area, flexible arrangement and low capital construction cost. The corrugated sidewall belt conveyor is mainly composed of the sidewall conveyor belt, driven device, transmission drum, bend drum, pinch roller, the roller, the tail drum, the vibration pat device, tensioning device, various frame, electrical and safety protection devices, etc., which can realize the continuous transportation of bulk materials. Sidewall conveyor belt is formed by adding sidewall to both sides of base conveyor belt, which is not only a traction part but also a component of carrying material.Base belt is equivalent to ordinary conveyor belt, but has greater lateral stiffness than ordinary conveyor belt. The two sides are wavy,when the conveyor belt bypasses the roller or convex & concave arcs section, the upper side of the sidewall can be extended or compressed freely. Diaphragm can be arranged in the middle of the belt body between the two sidewall according to the need, so as to realize the vertical transportation of materials.The structural form and function of the other parts of sidewall belt conveyor are no different from that of the traditional belt conveyor except the conveyor belt.Because the sidewall belt conveyor can realized vertical convey material in 90°, when reach the same conveying height, the length of the whole machine is greatly shortened. Compared with the ordinary belt conveyor, it can greatly reduce the number of idlers, the length of conveyor belt and the weight of materials, and the length of corridor arranged randomly is also correspondingly reduced, which reduces the equipment investment and project cost, and reduces the floor area.
The above characteristics of the large angle sidewall belt conveyor meet the requirements of large handling capacity and continuous transportation in the metallurgical industry, so it has been widely used in the metallurgical industry. At present, the sidewall belt conveyor has been widely applied in foreign metallurgical enterprises, and has achieved good results. However, domestic metallurgical enterprises only adopt the corrugated sidewall belt conveyor to transportation material in non-critical systems and rarely used in critical systems. The main reason is that the technical development of the sidewall belt conveyor in China is relatively late, and there are still some problems such as the short service life of the corrugated sidewall conveyor belt compared with the ordinary conveyor belt, the difficulty to clean the inside of the hopper, return and spillage materials seriously, need to maintenance frequently,etc.
In the future development of vertical belt conveyor manufacturer, they should pay attention to the development of advanced technology, obtain the manufacturing process of vertical belt conveyor with independent intellectual property rights, break the monopoly of foreign countries on advanced vertical belt conveyor and reduce the cost of equipment manufacturing. In the improvement process of vertical conveying equipment, attention should be paid to simplify the structure of conveying equipment, reduce the failure rate of equipment operation, and increase the working time of equipment in good condition.