SPLICED CONNECTION FOR A BELT, BELT, AS WELL AS METHOD FOR MANUFACTURING A SPLICED CONNECTION

Abstract: Welded connection for a belt having chain wires. The welded connection comprises wire members (8) from aramide material extending longitudinally of said belt and being spaced in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the belt from the chain wires.

Description: The present invention relates to a welded connection for a belt ha­ ving chain wires, said welded connection comprisingat least wire members from aramide material, extending in applied condition longitudinally of said belt. Such a welded connection is known from US-A-4564542. Therein mate­ rial is removed at the belt extremities from between the chain wires. So opposedly arranged continuous grooves are provided, in which strips of connection material are introduced. This connecting material comprises longitudinal extending aramide members. By this a so called finger con­ nection is obtained. This connection is realised in this way because ac­ cording to the prior art one aims to arrange the aramide wires, reali­ zing the connection, in the neutral line of the belt. This means one aims to arrange these wires substantially in the same plane as the chain wires of the belt. It is clear that this welded connection suffers from the draw back making it complicated to realise. A further possibility could be removing of a (part) of the chain wires but because of the material being often used for this purpose (steel) difficulties are encountered being not solvable on manufacturing-techni­ cal level. Furthermore, the strength is affected by this. The present invention aims to provide a welded connection of the kind indicated above, which can be simpler realized, more particular wherein it is no longer necessary to produce grooves between the chain wires. According to the invention this is realized with a welded connec­ tion as described above by having the wire members considerably twisted and being spaced in the direction perpendicular on the belt plane from the chain wires. Surprisingly it was found that because of this consi­ derably twisting of the aramide wire members, these are able to take up tensile, up setting and bending loads outside of the neutral line with­ out the related adverse consequences present with the known materials being applied in the ways known up till now. According to a preferred embodiment of the invention the wire mem­ bers comprise tex 330 × 3/3 cord having a yarn twist of 130 t.p.m. and folding twist of 125 t.p.m. (turns per meter). It became clear that this material does not show tensile or compression fatigue during dynamic loadings, such that it is particularly suited to be arranged according to subject invention outside of the plane of the chain wires. According to a further preferred embodiment groups of wire members are arranged in strips. By using strips it is simple to build a weld and easy adapting to different belt widths can be provided. However, it is emphasized that it is not aimed to realize with these strips a finger connection as according to the prior art. According to a further preferred embodiment, if the belt comprises transverse wires, these wires are preferably removed at the ends, to provide room for the welded connection according to the invention. The invention also relates to a belt provided with the welded con­ nection as described above. The welded connection as described above can be realized by expo­ sing of the chain wires at the extremities of the belt to be welded, ar­ ranging of a sheet of rubber material at both sides, followed by provi­ ding at least one side with wire members, followed by arranging of a co­ ver layer at both sides. Exposing of the chain wires does not comprise preparing of grooves between the chain wires. The invention will now be described with reference to an embodi­ ment being only an example and shown in the drawing, in which: Fig. 1 is a cross section through a conveyor belt at a weld and Fig. 2 is a partially exploded plan view of this welded connection. The conveyor belt 1 shown in Fig. 1 and 2 has ends 2,3 to be welded together. In the conveyor belt longitudinal wires 4 as well as transverse wires 5 are provided. The welded connection comprises from the lower part of Fig. 1 to its upper part, a lower cover layer 6, rub­ bered supporting fabric and skim 10, comprising a non vulcanized rubber sheet as rubber adhering layer. The strength of the welding connection is realized by the rubbered aramide cords 8 being subsequently arranged. After arranging of these layers or strips a further layer of rubber 9 is provided. By using of the inert aramide cord, being possibly treated to pre­ processing as described below, it can be prevented that attacking occurs during ingressing of substances being agressive for steel and such, by which the mechanical properties of the welded connection deteriorate. To be able to use the belt with pressure loading, occuring mostly when the belt is guided around a relatively small drum during light loading of the belt, the aramide material is used in a special way. It has been found that a 3 × 3/330 tex cord having a yarn twist of 130 t.p.m. and a folding twist of 125 t.p.m., i.e. a cord screw angle of 26,5°, func­ tions very well. Such a considerable twist can be arranged with aramide cord, however, not with steel wire, such that a belt is obtained being also advantageously usable in non corrosive surroundings. For adhering of the aramide material to the rubber a usual method can be applied. This method can for instance comprise immersing of the aramide cord as preprocessing in an epoxy precoat, followed by immersing in a standard resorcinol-formaldehyde dip (RFL). Decreasing of the ten­ sion of the surrounding rubber, if the longitudinal wire material has a high modulus (such as steel) can be realized by increasing of the modu­ lus of the cord. To obtain this the aramide cord was dried after immer­ sing in epoxy precoat during 1,5 minutes under a tension of 30 kgs at 245°C. By this the preference orientation of the aramide cord, which can be lost at such high temperatures, is maintained. After this the RFL dip being applied was dried under the force of 10 kg at 180°C during 1,5 mi­ nutes. If rubber is subsequently applied, it is able to adhere very well by the applied dip. To illustrate the improved compress fatigue obtained by use of the aramide material, tests have been executed using as welding material both aramide material and steel cord. Therefrom it became clear that the most considerable compression by a welded connection will occur at a belt having a low strength, for instant conveyor belt ST 500, surroun­ ding at a relatively light loading a relatively small pulley with a dia­ meter of for instance 250, wherein the direction of bending is opposite to that at both end drums of the conveyor belt device. For simulating such a device, an arrangement is used as known from NL-A-8502654. Using such an arrangement these conditions were approached by bending of the split connection, comprising 30 cords at 30 kg around a 280 mm drum. The length of the weld in this arrangement was such that all of the divided length was moved through the bending area, whereby two bends resulteded in one cycle of the arrangement. This test was also effected at a welded connection according to the prior art provided with steel strips in a conveyor belt. Because with this last embodiment already after 1,8 × 10⁶ bends fracture of the rubber occured, the testing of both samples was ended after that number of loadings. The welded connection were carefully examined. The results of the compression fatigue tests are in­ dicated below in table A. From this table it is clear that a welded connection having the aramide cord according to the invention shows considerably improved pro­ perties with regard to a connection wherein steel material as usual (Fig. 2) is used. Examination of the fracture face of the steel cords showed that fracture occured at the points where change of tension was at its maximum. After this the fatigue strength was examined during tensile loa­ ding. The most severe bending loading at tensile is experienced when a heavy belt, for instance an ST 1600 conveyor belt, runs at considerable loading (10% of the fracture loading, i.e. 40 kg/cord) around a very large drive drum such as 800 mm. From a practical point of view in this test a ST 1200 belt was used bending around a 600 mm drum at a tension of 30 kg/cord. During testing of the welded connection with aramide after 2,0×10⁶ cycles results were obtained as described in table B below. From above tests it is obvious that the compression test of the welded connection is not decreasing whilst the tensile strength only 5% decreases after above fatigueing. To adhere several layers to eacht other, for strenghtening the weld, usual adhering means or vulcanisation can be applied.

Claims: 1. Welded connection for a belt having chain wires, said welded connection comprising at least wire members from aramide material, extending in applied condition longitudinally of said belt, characterized in that, said wire members are considerably twisted and are spaced in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the belt from the chain wires. 2. Welded connection according to claim 1, characterized in that, the wire members comprise tex 330 × 3/3 cord having a yarn twist of 130 t.p.m. and folding twist of 125 t.p.m. (turns per meter). 3. Welded connection according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that, groups of wire members are arranged in strips. 4. Welded connection according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the belt comprises transverse wires, characterized in that, the tranverse wires are removed at the place of the wire members. 5. Belt provided with a welded connection according to one of the preceding claims. 6. Method for manufacturing of a welded connection according to one of the claims 1-4, comprising exposing of the chain wires at the extremities of the belt to be welded, arranging of a sheet of rubber material at both sides of the chain wires, followed by providing at least one side with wire members, followed by arranging of a cover laying at both sides.

Inventors: DE VRIES HANS, WOKKE EDUARD ANDRIES
Applicants: DUNLOP-ENERKA B.V.
Application year: 1987
Main classification: F16G3
IPC codes: F16G3