Design of a Power Saving Industrial Conveyor System

• Published in: Lecture notes in engineering and computer science Vol. 2; pp. 942 - 947
• Main Authors: Mushiri, Tawanda, Mbohwa, Charles
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 21.10.2016
• Subjects: Control systems; Cost benefit analysis; Cost engineering; Design analysis; Design engineering; Energy conservation; Systems analysis; Variable speed drives
• ISBN: 9881404827; 9789881404824
• ISSN: 2078-0958; 2078-0966

This paper looked at the design of a power saving conveyor system which involves sizing, selection and cost benefit analysis of its installation. This paper focuses on factors that cause high belt power consumption and costs which are high starting torque and more operating hours hence there is design of drive control system consisting of soft starters and variable speed drives to reduce starting torque and load detecting switching system to reduce number of operating hours. The average power savings considering all the factors of reducing the system operating hours to the average of 12 hours a day and drive control system that reduces the starting power were calculated to be 47%. The annual costs of power consumption were reduced from $86212 to $40520 resulting in the payback period after investing to be 8 months. After doing cost benefit analysis it was ascertained that installation, operation and maintenance costs of the designed system are less than that occur on the initial system hence the design is worthy to install since it results in cost savings and increase in system life. The are some recommendations for the designed system which are clean ventilated environment to promote adequate cooling, belt protection against overload to avoid stops and also soft starters , variable speed drives and sensors protection against overvoltage and overcurrent so that the drive control system will not fail.