Intelligent Belt Conveyor Monitoring and Control

Abstract

Belt conveyors have been used worldwide in continuous material transport for about 250 years. Traditional inspection and monitoring of large-scale belt conveyors focus on individual critical components and response to catastrophic system failures. To prevent operational problems caused by the lack of experience of maintenance personnel, the monitoring and operational control of belt conveyors can be automated. This research presents the possibilities to improve belt conveyor performance by means of integrating the information derived from traditional individual monitoring systems to automate and optimize the process of maintenance and operational control decision-making, based on the overall status of belt conveyors. This research concerns the areas of belt conveyor monitoring and artificial intelligence. Besides an embedded conductive detection system that has been developed as a novel belt conveyor monitoring technology, the outputs of this research project demonstrate the effectiveness of an intelligent monitoring and control system. The developed intelligent system is able to automatically acquire data from belt conveyor components, identify system abnormalities and discover potential causes, assess system health condition and operational status, store and retrieve experience and knowledge to optimize maintenance and operational control strategies.Marine & Transport TechnologyMechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineerin