Vibratory conveyor / Oscillating Conveyor

A vibratory conveyor essentially consists of an open or closed trough or pipe, generally horizontal but not always so, and which is elastically supported on a base structure or suspended from an overhead structure by springs. The trough or pipe is caused to oscillate at high frequency and small amplitude by an appropriate drive mechanism. Vibratory conveyors are commonly employed in industry to carry a wide variety of particulate and granular types of bulk materials. The fundamental action of the vibrating troughs on the bulk material loaded on it is to throw the particles upward in the forward direction so that the material performs series of short hopping movement and propagates at a certain speed.

Oscillating conveyors are utilized to convey sand or other granular particles at a desired rate. The conveyor is generally placed under a vibrating shakeout or a grid to eliminate direct handling of hot sand by the belt conveyor. In the process of reciprocation, the oscillating conveyor cools the hot sand to some extent which increases the life of the return sand conveyor belt.

An important characteristic of vibratory conveyor is the ease with which the flow rate of the conveyed material can be controlled by adjusting the amplitude and or frequency of the vibration. This particular aspects of such conveyor has led to the wide spread application of vibrating trough as feeders employed to supply material in controlled amount to various machines. When the trough is replaced by a screen, the vibratory conveyor may serve as vibrating screen, which has wide application in various industries. A distinction must be made between feeders and conveyors. A feeder is used as a discharge device under a storage hopper or bin and is subjected to varying head loads. A conveyor requires regulated feed rate and must not operate under varying head load conditions.

Construction details of Oscillating Conveyor:

Oscillating Conveyor System

Selection of vibratory conveyor:

The oscillating motion of the trough is achieved via specially designed inclined arms and an eccentric shaft driven by a motor through V-belts. The eccentric shaft is mounted on anti friction bearings and has V-pulleys at both ends with weights on them to counteract the unbalancing force. The rotation of the eccentric shaft provides a forward and backward motion to a connecting arm attached to the trough through a rubberized pin. The trough motion is predominantly horizontal with some vertical component, which causes it to oscillate with a pattern conductive to conveying material. A retaining spring assembly at the back of the trough absorbs shock load. All components including drive motor are mounted on a rigidly constructed base frame.

Advantages:

· Hot and abrasive materials can be handled

· Cooling, drying and de-watering operation can be done during transport

· Scalping, screening or picking can be done

· Units can be covered and made dust tight

· Simple construction and low head room

· Can be made leak proof

Disadvantages:

· Relatively short length of conveying ( about 50m Maximum)

· Limited capacity, about 350 tons per hour for length of conveying of 30 m.

· Some degradation of material takes place.

Applications:

Vibratory conveyors find wide spread application in the transportation of dusty, hot, toxic, and chemically aggressive bulk material through a closed trough or pipe in chemical, metallurgical, mining industries and manufacturing of building materials.

Vibratory conveyors are also employed for transportation of steel chips in machine shop, hot knocked out sand, wastes and small castings in foundry shop. Vibratory feeders are also in use for delivery of small machine parts like screws, rivets etc.

Sticky materials like wet clay or sand are unsuitable for vibratory conveyors. In handling finely pulverized materials, like cement etc., the performance of such conveyors are reported to be poor.

Vibratory conveyors are hardly employed for handling common bulk loads, such as sand, gravel, coal etc as the same can be done more efficiency by belt conveyors.