Conveyor Skirting – An Important Maintenance Issue

NEIL KINDER, Managing Director of Kinder & Co, reports on the issue of conveyor maintenance and how Kinder & Co can help you reduce maintenance and downtime.

CONVEYOR maintenance is one of the biggest headaches facing any company in the bulk materials handling industry today.

And with the skill shortages in today’s booming resource market, the importance of reduced maintenance from any conveyor system is only emphasised.

With over 20 years experience supplying world class products to the Australian bulk materials handling industries, Kinder & Counder stand the industry’s maintenance issues and the inherent problems associated with a lack of maintenance (see accompanying photograph) and off er a range of products aimed at reducing conveyor maintenance and downtime.

One such product is K-Superskirt, a long-life conveyor skirting product which is designed to seal conveyor transfer points in environments from wet clay to iron ore. With 60% less coefficient of friction than rubber, K-Superskirt has been field tested to give 8 to 10 times the life of standard 60 duro skirting.

In addition to significantly increasing skirting life, the reduced friction also reduces drag, reducing motor energy requirements and improving drive life, offering further maintenance benefits.

Obviously, belt damage is also a major maintenance concern with any conveyor system. K-Superskirt is completely non-porous, so will not collect fines or other materials than can lead to belt damage.

Normal skirt rubber requires constant adjustment as it wears out. The increased skirting life off ered by K-Superskirt means fewer adjustments, which results in more available maintenance hours to carry out important preventative maintenance tasks and tackle the bigger maintenance issues.

CMPA MEMBER TESTIMONIAL

After using typical black skirting rubber for many years, we decided to trial Kinder K-Superskirt in three high wear transfer points on our crushing plant. We wanted to see if the extra cost could be justified.

We found that in places where we were changing skirts once a month, the Kinder polyurethane skirting was still sealing well aft er six months. We now get twelve months out of most of the applications. Not only do we save on labour costs and plant downtime, but we have also virtually eliminated any belt tearing due to rocks getting stuck between skirts and the moving conveyor belt. It used to take two men one Saturday every month to remove guards, change skirts and replace guards. This has all but been eliminated to twice a year.

My conclusion, the extra initial cost is far outweighed by the long term savings in labour and plant downtime due to skirt failure.

Paul Williamson, Manager, SBI Cranbourne Quarries.

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