CONVEYORS

Transfer chute design: a logical approach

As conveyor systems become bigger and faster and the material being conveyed becomes more diverse and
complex it has been necessary to develop much better transfer chutes. The design process most probably started,
or at least gained momentum, with the development in the late 1980s of what is generally termed the hood and
spoon chute for the coal industry.
By Colin Benjamin, Gulf Conveyor Systems
At many sites transfers represent the major problems from
creating high maintenance burdens through to unreliable production due to unscheduled downtime and the need for larger
maintenance windows. Typical transfer related problems are:
Dust.
Spillage around the transfer.
Poor belt tracking.
Belt wear along the skirt lines.
Ripped belt through material jammed in chute.
Blockage.
Holes in chute.
Rapid liner wear.

Hood and spoon chute.

hese transfers remain very popular today in the coal industry

where there is free flowing material and abrasion is not a
serious issue. This design concept was based on fluid flow and as
such relied on the predictability of how ores would flow in order
to create a design that performed.
The need for predictability in this type of transfer encouraged designers and researchers to review and look at more accurate methods of calculating the various flow parameters required
to do such designs starting with the ore flow trajectory off the
head pulley. It is also in this area that design and flow dynamic
development started to diverge with, on one hand experienced
designers working through the practical, and researchers and
others developing more theoretical approaches.
The experienced transfer chute designers were working on
incremental developments and refinements, new ideas such as
the WEBA chute and through reverse engineering and scale modelling better design tools.
Researchers and others focussed more on developing software models that could be used to evaluate designs before they
were built so that a form of reverse engineering could be done on
a computer screen in order to develop a viable design. This software has been termed discrete element method (DEM) which,
through papers and various forums, has been heavily promoted
to the new transfer chute designer as the way of the future.
Despite this work both by experienced designers and researchers, transfer chute design has not been adequate in many
areas, particularly when we are handling:
Run of mine material where the ore sizes can range from
250mm or more down to micro fine material (less than 200
micron).
Highly abrasive materials.
Cohesive or adhesive ores particularly ores whose characteristics vary significantly with water content.
Micro fine material that will easily dust such as alumina.
Clays of any type.

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Australian Bulk Handling Review: September/October 2011

Given these issues, it is the divergence from what is a practical

approach to design towards the more theoretical that forms
the basis of what we want to highlight in this paper. The answer is not one or the other but a convergence of both to ensure we design better transfers.
In order for this to be done the first thing we need to recognise is that determining the flow characteristics of ores and
in particular complex ores is a completely unproven science.
What this means is that many of the DEM programs available may approximate the flow of free flowing material such
as coal but have virtually no accuracy or relevance when it
comes to more complex materials.
Newer DEM programs are getting better but as they get
better the complexity of the calibration and evaluation process creates further issues in terms of the skills and computing
power required to do such work. It is for this reason we wrote
the book The Transfer Chute Design Manual (www.conveyorsystemstechnology.com), in which we set out to guide the
average engineer through a design process for transfer chutes.
The essence of this process is as follows:
Initial due diligence.
Calculating the trajectory.
Managing the flow.
Controlling the speed.
Presentation of the material.
Checking the design.

Initial due diligence

1. Material characteristics
The first thing many designers do is contract to have some
form of material evaluation done. In many cases this starts
with a shear cell test (usually based on Jenike and Johanssons
work). In welldesigned transfers this is not relevant data (it is
for hoppers and silos) so it should only be used as a guide and
then only if you have data from a wide range of previous such
evaluations that can help you categorise the ore. The best approach is to do your own evaluation. Simple avalanching tests
to ascertain at what angle the ore can be piled up without it
flowing, looking at the effects moisture has on the flow properties, looking at the size range etc. A table follows that can
act as a guide. Note well there are a large number of different
transfer types and part of the designers task is selecting the
right type for the application.

CONVEYORS

Material
characteristic

Design
considerations

Transfer chute
options

Fine, dry material likely

to cause dust.

Such material will

easily aerate so it will
add bulk through
the transfer if this is
not considered in the
design.

Hood and spoon and

spiral chutes work
well. See the section
on dust transfers. With
other types of chutes
aeration can be a
factor.

Fine material that can

absorb water.

This material will

usually stick and build
up when wet. To
avoid this make sure
the material velocity
through the transfer is
maintained.

Flow control is the

key. Hood and spoon
chutes work well as
can simple deflectors.
Cascade chutes may
require additional
height and reliance on
some lump material to
keep such fines from
building up. Chutes
that do not control
the flow should not be
used.

Clay material, highly

cohesive.

Very difficult to
manage. Must keep
material speed high.
Could consider
maintaining a wetted
surface on the key
transfer elements.

The best starting point

is a hood and spoon
chute.

Highly abrasive
material.

Chute maintenance
is the key as site will
modify any design that
does not manage this
issue.

The key is designing a

chute that promotes
ore on ore flow.
Cascade chute and
rock boxes incorporate
that in their design
concept so they are the
starting points.

Combination highly
abrasive and wet fines.

Not only chute

maintenance is a factor
but chute blocking due
to build up.

The starting point is

a cascade chute. You
need height. Could be
a combination chute.

Very large lumps.

Energy absorption is
the key. Hopefully the
belt speed is low. If
not there is a serious
management problem.

Best solution at
low speeds is the
autogenous rock box.
At very low belt to
belt heights a bash
plate could be looked
at. If the belt speed is
greater than 2.5m/s
then first look at
modifying the rock box
so that it can handle
the material volume
otherwise some form
of cascade chute with
much larger ledges
should be looked at.

2. Belt speeds
In combination with the above we need to consider the material
volumes we need to handle and weigh this up against the capital cost. In the past if we were handling large abrasive materials
we made sure that the conveyor speeds were very slow. This is
not happening today, in most cases the choice is being made independent of the material characteristics. The consequence is
that wear and impact damage become very significant operating
factors that maintenance must manage. Tests on some iron ores
have shown that wear on a substrate (liner material) can be accelerated by a factor of four by doubling the material speed through
the transfer.

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CONVEYORS

3. Differential stopping times between belts

If you have an inclined belt immediately after a flat belt then in an
emergency stop situation the inclined belt will stop a lot quicker
than the flat belt. This has to be managed. It may be possible to
solve the problem through incorporating some sort of delay in the
PLC logic, it may for safety reasons require brakes. What cannot be
ignored is that if the issue is not addressed at the design stage we
have the capacity to bury a belt at the transfer point.

then the trajectory will be lower), belt angles of inclination

(inclusive of the transition angle), if there are ore variations
(e.g. wetter ores) then the trajectory will vary.

4. Drop heights between belts

If you are handling large material sizes or highly abrasive material
the starting point is minimising the drop height. If the transfer angle
is oblique there are minimum height differentials needed to create
the change of angles and this varies with the type of transfer selected. If you are handling cohesive materials you may need more
height so that the material is kept moving through the transfer.

5. Samplers, trippers, bifurcated chutes

Generally all these situations demand more height between
the belts.

Calculating the trajectory

The key to modern transfer chute design is calculating the trajectory of the ore flow off the head pulley of the delivery belt. The
researchers in this area have published many papers. The topic is
also too complex and detailed to go through in the time we have
therefore we will summarise a few points.
If you can access conveyors carrying similar material at similar speeds you can get a pretty good idea of the trajectory by
observation. Just remember if you use this approach you must
make allowance for the flow rate (if the belt is only 50% full

Observing trajectory.

It is better to overestimate the top flow trajectory by a small

amount than underestimate it at all. Be conservative as this wont
affect your transfer design, the converse can lead to disasters.
It is better to overestimate the bottom end trajectory than to under estimate it otherwise you will not be handling the wet and
more cohesive particles in a manner that avoids build up.
Remember that as the ore flows along a conveyor belt the fines
and water laden material separate for the larger lumps such that
the top flow of a trajectory will be the larger, abrasive material,
the bottom flow the wetter, more cohesive material. This separation occurs with all sizes of materials where there is differential
size so the effect can be seen with minus 6mm ores just as easily
with minus 300mm material. Failure to recognise this and allow
for it can result in a very poor transfer outcome. See above.

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CONVEYORS

Failure to allow for separation of

materials with differential size can result
in very poor transfer outcomes.

A typical case where presentation was ignored.

Managing the flow

The next key step is to manage the material flow through the
chute. Simply, if you do not control the flow, your design outcome is questionable. The key to flow control is intercepting
the material trajectory at shallow angles. This angle varies with
transfer types but a good rule of thumb is 20 degrees or less.
The second important aspect is to make sure you intercept all
of the flow, not just part of it. This is where the bottom half of
your trajectory calculation comes in.

Controlling the material speed

High material speed means higher wear; with iron ore, for instance, the wear rate factor is four times the speed increase. If
the material speed is too low, cohesive materials may build up
and block the transfer.
The key therefore is understanding the materials you are
dealing with, knowing the more cohesive fines will be at the
bottom of the trajectory and creating a design that is best fit for
the issues you are facing.

Presentation of the material onto

the receiving belt
If you do not present the ore to the receiving belt centrally and
correctly you can end up with:
Severe spillage This can be extremely serious in the case of
reverse loading, i.e. where the receiving belt is inclined and
the transfer drops the ore vertically down.
Excessive belt wear This occurs if the belt has to reaccelerate the ore flow.
Belt tracking issues This occurs if the ore presents off centre or with some lateral flow.
Increased power consumption all the above translates to
wasted energy, i.e. excess power consumption that in extreme
cases can see belts bog out for no easily apparent reason.
Belt damage you do not load correctly then there is a real
risk of damaging the belt catastrophically.

Skirt maintenance issues poor presentations leads to high

skirt maintenance and spillage that no amount of skirt design will address.
Photo above shows a typical case where presentation was ignored.

Checking the design

There are two generally accepted methods: using a computer
based method (DEM) and the far less popular dynamic scale
modelling. Without going into detail we:
Rarely do any evaluation when we are designing transfer for
free flowing materials as the science is pretty sound and the
experience levels high as far as what creates a successful
transfer.
If we are looking at a difficult transfer design, or one where
we are handling difficult material, we will always use dynamic scale modelling as we believe it is more accurate and
the science far better developed at this stage when compared to DEM.
We always go back to look at the results of any transfer we
work on as this is the best way to grow our knowledge and
refine our techniques. As we have been doing this for a very
long time, we believe we are able to achieve pretty good and
very predictable outcomes even in the most challenging of
situations.
We remain very interested in DEM both for the ongoing research that occasionally creates additional insight and because eventually it will catch up. We do however caution any
engineer about using some of the commercial programmes
that are freely available.
Concluding, there is a way forward for us to design far better
transfers. It is not about complicating life but following basic
steps, being aware of what is best practice, picking the right
transfer for the challenge and not looking for miracles.

Contact: Colin Benjamin, email cbe10699@bigpond.net.au

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