Project description
Rollers with built-in sensors to prevent industrial conveyor failure
Conveyors are used to move materials in sectors such as mining and steel. The most critical parts of conveyors are their rollers, which often collapse or become corroded or abraded. This causes the conveyor belt to deteriorate and the entire conveyor to stop, leading to substantial economic losses. Current roller failure prediction methods are inaccurate and ineffective. The EU-funded GAZIMO project is developing rollers with built-in sensors, a communication module, and autonomous energy generation. The new rollers will provide real-time data on their technical parameters, general status and exact position on the conveyor belt, making it possible to replace a problematic roller before it causes conveyor failure. This design has the potential to save millions of euros for many industries.
Objective
Conveyors are the most common system to move materials in different sectors like: mining, steel, chemical, thermal, etc...
Fuel prices and difficult access places make conveyors the best option not only in terms of speed or convenience but mainly
due to economical reasons.
However, conveyors suffer from a pandemic disease: their rollers. Every conveyor is mainly composed of three kind of
components: rollers, belt and drums. The rollers are the main critical part, suffering from corrosion, abrasion and the contact
of the materials which are being transported make the rollers collapse. Their lifespan is very dependent on the environment
and the materials carried, but the results are always fatal: belt deterioration and sudden stop of the whole conveyor. Taking
into account that the average conveyor length is more than 10Kms (reaching in some cases 100Kms) and that many
conveyors operate 24x7, the economic losses of an unexpected stop can reach to millions of Euros.
Nowadays, in order to diagnose a possible roller failure and detect it as soon as possible there are several methods, among
them the most widespread is a visual test. These tests involve several inaccuracies as the measures are done by ear which
is open to human errors, lack of precision and obviously lack of objectivity between different cases.
ULMA Conveyor Components is an SME devoted to the design, manufacturing and commercialization of conveyor
components, in the year 2012 the R&D department started a new project to offer their customers the best in class rollers to
avoid unexpected stops. The developed rollers (GaZiMo), with the first prototype recently implemented and tested,
incorporates sensors, a communication module, an autonomous energy generation and a new design in order to obtain in
real time the technical parameters, the general status, and their exact position in the conveyor in order to detect and replace
a failed roller before it collapses and provokes a complete stop of the system.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
48210 OTXANDIO BIZKAIA
Spain
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.