Measurement 154 (2020) 107458

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Measurement
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Sustainable belt conveyor operation by active speed control

Daijie He a, Xiangwei Liu b,⇑, Bin Zhong c
a
Section of Transport Engineering and Logistics, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 2, 2628 CD Delft, the Netherlands
b
REPA Conveyor Equipment B.V., Geesterweg 4A, 1911NB Uitgeest, the Netherlands
c
College of Equipment Support and Management, Engineering University of PAP, Wujing Road 1, 710086 Xi’an, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Belt conveyor systems play an important role in dry bulk material handling. Speed control is a promising
Received 6 December 2018 solution to improve energy efficiency of belt conveyors. Active speed control algorithm was proposed for
Received in revised form 24 December 2019 application on individual belt conveyor. This work investigates its application on a multi-belt conveyor
Accepted 27 December 2019
system. The Delft Systems Approach is used to model both operation and control systems. The dynamic
Available online 3 January 2020
behaviour of conveyor belts during transient state is taken into consideration. A Simulation study of a
dual-belt conveyor system is carried out to verify the proposed active speed control algorithm.
Keywords:
Simulation results show that during eight hours’ operation, active speed control can achieve hourly aver-
Belt conveyor
Sustainable operation
age energy saving of 16.21% compared with constant speed operation scenario. The simulation study ver-
Active speed control ifies that active speed control on belt conveyor systems leads to more sustainable operation.
Conveyor dynamics Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Speed control is a solution for energy saving of belt conveyors.

Belt conveyor systems are used to transport bulk materials in
wide applications. According to Clenet [1], worldwide there are
more than 2.5 million of belt conveyor systems in operation. Belt
conveyors consume a large amount of energy. Hiltermann [2]
showed that belt conveyors are responsible for 50% to 70% of total
electricity consumption in a typical dry bulk terminal.
Belt conveyors are generally designed to meet peak material
flow. In reality, however, belt conveyors often run below design
capacity [3]. In this case energy can be wasted. An accurate energy
model is a key to energy saving [4]. International standards such as
DIN 22101 [5] and ISO 5048 [6] provide energy estimation meth-
ods. However, energy estimation based on these standards can
be quite different from measurements on site [7]. Therefore, theo-
retical models for energy estimation of belt conveyors are devel-
oped. Zhang and Xia proposed an analytical energy estimation
model with four coefficients originated from ISO 5048 [7]. Both
off-line and on-line parameter estimation methods were explored.
However, their model does not take disturbances from feeding rate
into account. Hiltermann et al. [8] proposed a DIN 22101-based
energy calculation method. Shen and Xia presented an analytical
energy model for belt conveyors with DC motor [9]. The estimation
of parameters in the derived model can be achieved by using an
adaptive observer.
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: D.He@tudelft.nl (D. He), rz_lxw@163.com (X. Liu), zhongbin-
china@163.com (B. Zhong).
Successful applications of speed control on energy saving of belt
conveyors have been reported [7]. There are two ways of speed
control [2]: passive control and active control. In passive speed
control, belt speed is changed but fixed in a certain period of time.
Fuzzy Logic Control is a common controller for passive speed con-
trol [10]. Reznik Leonid [11] described the details of Fuzzy Logic
Control. Field data of energy consumption collected over eight
months affirmed that Fuzzy Logic Control enabled energy saving
of belt conveyors [3]. However, passive speed control still does
not utilize conveyor belts’ full filling capacity. Consequently,
energy saving by passive speed control is still limited.
Meanwhile, active speed control refers to a method in which
belt velocity is frequently adjusted to match a varying loading rate.
Lodewijks et al. [12] investigated active speed control on energy
efficiency of belt conveyors. However, belt conveyor dynamics
was not considered in the research. Luo et al. gave out a closed-
loop model predictive control approach to achieve energy saving
[4]. Nevertheless, their approach does not consider belt conveyor
dynamics either. The overlook of belt dynamic behaviour may lead
to problems like belt slipping or material spillage. Belt dynamics in
transient operation was analysed in Ref. [13]. A finite element
model of belt conveyor was built to analyse the dynamics. An
Estimation-Calculation-Optimization (ECO) method was proposed
for active speed control of individual belt conveyor [14]. The
results of simulation study showed that the ECO method is able
to achieve optimal acceleration/deceleration time. Furthermore,
an active speed controller was developed to improve energy
efficiency of individual belt conveyor [14].

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2019.107458
0263-2241/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 D. He et al. / Measurement 154 (2020) 107458

Nomenclature

Parameter Definition, Unit x_ vector of nodal speed, m/s

aac;max maximum acceleration, m=s2 €
x vector of nodal acceleration, m=s2
ade;max maximum deceleration, m=s2 B belt width, m
bi fuzzy inputs,i ¼ 0; 1; 2; . . . ; n, – C matrix of damping factors, –
g gravity acceleration, m=s2 F vector of forces, N
hrel maximum permitted belt sag ratio, – Fd driving force, N
irf gearbox reduction ratio, – F d;max maximum driving force in transient operations, N
isf service factor of a motor, – F d;max;heat maximum driving force taking into account the risk of
kN belt tension rating, N/mm motor over-heating, N
lc idler spacing of the carrying side, m F d;max;slip maximum driving force taking into account the risk of
m total lump mass of belt, rollers and bulk material, kg belt slippage around the drive pulley, N
m0belt belt mass per unit length, kg/m F d;max;tension maximum driving force taking into account the risk
m0bulk bulk material mass per unit length, kg/m of belt over-tensioning, N
mT mass of the gravity take-up device, kg Ff total motional resistance of a belt conveyor system, N
ri fuzzy boundaries,i ¼ 0; 1; 2; . . . ; n, – K matrix of spring factor, –
t time, s M matrix of mass, kg
t ac speed adjustment in an acceleration operation, s Rd radium of the drive pulley, m
t ac;min minimum speed adjustment in an acceleration opera- SA;min minimum permitted safety factor, –
tion, s T min minimum required belt tension to avoid an excessive
t de speed adjustment time in a deceleration operation, s belt sag, N
t de;min minimum speed adjustment time in a deceleration X tt0o ts predicted material feeding rate from time t 0  t s to t 0 ,
operation, s kg=s
ti time, i ¼ 0; 1; 2; . . . ; n, s a wrapping angle of the belt around the drive pulley, –
v belt speed, m/s l coefficient of friction between the belt and drive pulley,
v nom nominal speed, m/s –
v ref reference speed, m/s smotor;max maximum allowable torque of a motor, Nm
x travelling distance of an element, m Dv speed adjustment range, m=s
x vector of nodal displacement, m

The objective of this paper is to develop an active speed control kN B 1

F d;max;tension ¼  mT g ð1Þ
algorithm for multi-belt conveyor systems with consideration of SA;min 2
transferring issues and conveyor dynamics. The speed adjustment
time is determined by the ECO method. The active speed control 1
algorithm also considers time-overlapping conflicts of neighbour- F d;max;slip ¼ mT g ðela  1Þ ð2Þ
2
ing speed adjustments. Operation and control systems simulation
model of belt conveyors are developed by using the Delft Systems
irf isf smotor;max
Approach. F d;max;heat ¼ ð3Þ
Rd
The layout of this paper is as follows. Section 2 introduces the
ECO method. The modelling of belt conveyor speed control system in which F d;max;tension is the maximum driving force taking into
is described in Section 3. An optimized active speed control algo- account the risk of belt over-tensioning, F d;max;slip is the maximum
rithm is given. Simulation of a dual-belt conveyor system is studied driving force taking into account the risk of belt slippage around
in Section 4. The improvement of belt utilization and the amount of drive pulley, F d;max;heat is the maximum driving force taking into
electricity saving by applying active speed control are investigated. account motor over-heating, kN is the belt tension rating, B is the
Conclusions are given in the last section. belt width, SA;min is the minimum permitted safety factor, mT is
the mass of gravity take-up, g is gravity acceleration, l is the coef-
2. The ECO method ficient of friction between a belt and a drive pulley, a is the wrap-
ping angle of a belt around a drive pulley, irf is the gearbox
For active speed control of belt conveyors, it is important to reduction ratio, isf is the service factor of a motor, smotor;max is the
select a suitable belt speed profile. Selecting too long adjustment maximum allowable torque of a motor, Rd is the radium of drive
time will limit the effect of active speed control [15]. On the other pulley. Therefore the permitted maximum driving force F d;max in
hand, too short adjustment time may lead to belt slipping or belt transient operation should be the minimum of the three forces,
breakage. To determine an appropriate speed adjustment time, which is
the ECO method can be applied. The ECO method is an approach

which at first guesses a value for a parameter, then calculates the F d;max ¼ min F d;max;tension ; F d;max;slip ; F d;max;heat ð4Þ
value based on some known theory, and finally tries to find the
Therefore in acceleration operation the maximum acceleration
optimal value for the parameter. The ECO method is inspired by
aac;max of a conveyor belt is:
the research in Ref. [16]. The ECO method consists of three steps:
Estimation, Calculation and Optimization. F d;max  F f
In the Estimation step, an estimator is built to compute the per- aac;max ¼ ð5Þ
m
mitted maximum acceleration and to provide an initial accelera-
tion time. The Estimator considers a belt as a rigid element, and where F f is the total motional resistance, and m is the total lump
computes the permitted driving force in transient operations by mass of the belt, rollers and bulk material on a belt.
 D. He et al. / Measurement 154 (2020) 107458 3

In order to overcome problems with sudden change of belt Newton–Raphson method and secant method can be used. More
speed, Harrison [17] recommended a sinusoidal acceleration pro- details of the ECO method can be found in Ref. [14,20].
file. By applying Harrison’s sinusoidal acceleration profile, the
required minimum speed adjustment time can be estimated as: 3. Modeling of an actively speed-controlled belt conveyor
system
p Dv
t ac;min ¼ ð6Þ
2 aac;max The Delft Systems Approach is a method which can be used to
p Dv analyse industrial systems in both qualitative and quantitative
t de;min ¼ ð7Þ
2 ade;max manners [21]. With the Delft Systems Approach, it closes the gap
of understanding of industrial systems between theory and prac-
where the subscripts t ac;min and t de;min represent permitted minimum tice. It can be used to make a logical systematic combination of
adjustment time of acceleration and deceleration respectively. modelling from different disciplines. By applying the Delft Systems
In the Calculation step, dynamic analysis of conveyor belts is Approach, belt conveyor speed control can be illustrated as a block
carried out. The finite element approach in Ref. [18] is applied box. The block box can be further identified into two layers: an
for dynamic analysis of belt conveyors (Fig. 1a). Due to a belt’s vis- operational system layer and a control system layer.
coelasticity, adjacent nodes can be considered as spring-damping Fig. 2 illustrates a dual-belt conveyor system, in which an
connectors. upstream belt conveyor is running at a constant speed and real-
Lodewijks [19] also considered a belt as being laid in a horizon- time measurement of material flow is carried out. Meanwhile,
tal direction and moves towards one direction. Fig. 1b illustrates the speed of a downstream conveyor is adjusted to match the
the one dimensional model of a single drive belt conveyor system. actual upcoming material flow from the upstream conveyor.
According to Newton’s Second Law, the motion of a belt conveyor For the determination of conveyor speed, the input of a fuzzy
can be described as controller can be fuzzified value of material feeding rate at time
ts . The fuzzification can be achieved by:
€ þ Cx_ þ Kx ¼ F
Mx ð8Þ 8  
>
> b0 ; max X tt00 ts ¼ r0 ¼ 0
€ is a vector of nodal acceleration, C is >
>
where M is a matrix of mass, x >
>  
>
>
a matrix of damping factor, x_ is a vector of nodal speed, K is a matrix > b1 ;
> 0 < max X tt00 ts 6 r 1
>
>
of spring factor, x is a vector of nodal displacement, F is a vector of <
...; ...
force. f ð xÞ ¼   ð9Þ
>
> bi ; r i1 < max X tt00 ts 6 r i
The third step Optimization, is carried out to find the minimum >
>
>
>
allowable speed adjustment time. The optimization is realized by >...;
> ...
>
>  
>
>
using finite element model-based simulations. The optimization : bn ; r n1 < max X tt00 ts 6 r n
procedure can be considered as a process of root finding.
Approaches including the bisection method, false position method,

Fig. 1. Finite-element-modelling of a belt conveyor system.: (a) Lump-mass spring-dampened finite element method; (b) One dimensional model of belt conveyor system.

Fig. 2. Belt conveyor system with two conveyors.

4 D. He et al. / Measurement 154 (2020) 107458

Fig. 3. Active speed control strategy: (a) Algorithm flowchart; (b) Material flow and corresponding reference speed under the active speed control strategy.

where X tt00 ts represents a series of material feeding rates from t 0  t s
to t 0 ; r i (i = 0,1,2,. . .,n) are fuzzy boundaries and bi (i ¼ 0; 1; 2; . . . ; n)
are fuzzy inputs. In the defuzzication process, according to the
linear relationship between belt speed and conveyor capacity, the
reference speed v ref can defuzzified as:
v ref ¼ bi v nom ð10Þ
in which v nom is the nominal belt speed.
Fig. 3a presents an active speed control algorithm. A decision
making process for belt speed change is the core of control algo-
rithm. If material loading rate is within a specified boundary
ðr i1 ; ri , the speed of conveyor remains constant. If the loading rate
becomes bigger (for instance ðr i ; riþ1 ), a new reference speed is
generated and an acceleration/deceleration event is triggered. Belt
conveyor systems in practice do not permit sudden speed change.
Therefore, the coloured dotted line in Fig. 3b illustrates an
improved belt speed curve profile.
In case material feeding rate changes frequently, The active
speed control algorithm in Fig. 3a can lead to conflicts between
neighbouring transient operations. Taking the situation in Fig. 4
as an example. According to the active speed control algorithm
in Fig. 3a, In Fig. 4a the deceleration operation will be followed
immediately by an acceleration operation. Here, tde is the required
time of deceleration operation, and tac is the required time of

Fig. 4. Conflicts in a discrete active speed control: (a) Overlap between neighbouring deceleration and acceleration operations; (b) Overlap between neighboring acceleration
operations; (c) Overlap between neighboring deceleration operations.
 D. He et al. / Measurement 154 (2020) 107458
Fig. 5. Improved algorithm flowchart of active speed control.
acceleration operation. If t de plus tac is larger than the time interval
ðt2  t1 Þ, then a conflict occurs. In such case, the speed curve
between t 1 and t2 should be improved as the coloured dotted line
shows in Fig. 4a. Fig. 4b shows where a first acceleration operation
is overlapped by a second acceleration operation and Fig. 4c illus-
trates an overlap of neighbouring deceleration operations. To solve
such conflicts, optimized speed curves are given by coloured dot-
ted lines of Fig. 4b and c. Fig. 5 illustrates an improved algorithm
flowchart of discrete active speed control. It can be seen that the
improved algorithm takes potential conflicts between neighbour-
ing transient operations into account. The improved active speed
control algorithm is applied in this research.
4. Simulation study
4.1. Simulation setup
To verify the proposed active speed control algorithm in Fig. 5, a
belt conveyor system consisting of two belt conveyors in a series as
shown in Fig. 2 is studied in a simulation. It is assumed that the
belt speed of upstream conveyor is constant, and the length of
upstream conveyor can be neglected. It is also assumed that the
frictional resistance of downstream conveyor remains constant
during speed change. In the simulation, the minimum belt speed
is assumed to be 2 m/s. It is further assumed that adjacent speed
difference is 0.5 m/s. The system operates 200 days per year,
16 h per day. The capacity is 2000 ton per hour with a nominal belt
speed of 4 m/s. The upstream conveyor is 320 m centre to centre in
Table 1
Parameters of the studied belt conveyor system.
Parameters
Nominal conveying capacity (MTPH)
Nominal speed (m/s)
Conveyor length (m) Upstream
Downstream
Conveyor height (m)
Troughing angle (°)
Density of bulk material (Coal) (kg=m3 )
5
length while the downstream is 1000 m long. Some system param-
eters are listed in Table 1.
A simulated operation in 8 h is studied. The material loading
rate onto the upstream conveyor is illustrated in Fig. 6. On average,
the loading rate is around 870 t/h. Two simulations are carried out
to study the conveyor performance under different control scenar-
ios. In simulation 1, the downstream conveyor runs at a normal
speed of 4 m/s. While in simulation 2, the speed of downstream
conveyor is under active speed control to match the actual material
flow level.
Based on the data in Table 1 and Eqs. (1)–(4), the permitted
maximum driving force is calculated as:


F d;max ¼ min F d;max;tension ; F d;max;slip ; F d;max;heat ¼ 50:96 kN ð11Þ
and Eq. (5) generates the maximum acceleration as:
aac;max ¼ 0:076 m=s2 ð12Þ
Accordingly, it requires at least
p Dv
tac;min ¼ ¼ 41 s ð13Þ
2 aac;max
to complete an acceleration operation from 2 m/s to 4 m/s with a
sinusoidal acceleration profile.
Fig. 7 illustrates the dynamic behaviour of the studied belt con-
veyor during acceleration. As Fig. 7a shows, the driving force
exerted by the drive pulley increases gradually at the beginning
of acceleration. Meanwhile, the belt tension and speed at each
nodal point also have a smooth increase, see Fig. 7b and 7d respec-
tively. However, the belt slippage occurs whenever the driving
force attempts to exceed the maximum available friction resis-
tance between the drive pulley and belt. In this case the belt is slip-
ping around the drive pulley between 16s and 33s, during which
time the drive force remains 50.96 kN (Fig. 7a). Meanwhile, a belt
tension wave travels from the head pulley to tail pulley as shown
in Fig. 7b. Additionally, the belt speed at the drive pulley observes
sudden change at 16 s, and the dynamic speed is lower than the
reference speed until belt slippage disappears.
It can been seen from the simulation when an acceleration time
of 41 s is applied to the conveyor, belt slippage occurs. Therefore, it
is necessary to find the permitted minimum acceleration time. The
searching process is defined as finding the root of function f ðtÞ,
which is
f ðtÞ ¼ F d;max ðtÞ  50:95 ¼ 0 ð14Þ
In this simulation, the secant method is applied to find the root with
the two initial time t 0 ¼ 41 s and t1 ¼ 71 s. The stopping criteria of
searching process is that the function value f ðtÞ is less than 0 while
larger than 0.1. The calculation results are shown in Table 2,
which shows that the minimum permitted acceleration time is
52s. Fig. 8 illustrates the corresponding dynamic performance of
the downstream belt conveyor.
By applying the ECO method, more searches are carried out to
find the minimum speed adjustment time for different transient
Value Parameters Value
2,000 Belt type EP800/4
4 Idler station spacing (m) (top) 1.2
300 (bottom) 3
1000 Linear idlers weight (kg/m) 22.59
0 Linear belt weight (kg/m) 14.28
30 Belt width (m) 1.2
850 Special resistances (N) 0
6 D. He et al. / Measurement 154 (2020) 107458

Fig. 6. Material loading rate onto the upstream conveyor.

Fig. 7. Belt conveyor dynamic performance in the acceleration operation with Dv ¼ 2 m=s and t ac ¼ 41 s: (a) Driving forces exerted on the drive pulley; (b) Belt tension at
each nodal point; (c) Belt speed at the drive pulley; (d) Belt speed at each nodal point along the conveying route.

Table 2
Root finding function of f ðtÞ ¼ F d;max ðtÞ  50:95 ¼ 0 with the secant method. The stop criteria is 0:1 <  < 0.

t1 t2 t3 f ðt 1 Þ f ðt 2 Þ f ðt 3 Þ
1 41 71 55.4 5.408 5.833 1.647
2 71 55.4 49.3 5.833 1.647 0.821
3 55.4 49.3 51.3 1.647 0.821 0.0577

operations in the simulation. The results of optimal adjustment
time are shown in Table 3.
4.2. Simulation results
Fig. 9a presents the filling ratio of downstream conveyor in 8 h.
Comparing the two curves in Fig. 9, it can be seen that due to active
speed control the conveyor’s average filling ratio is improved from
43.35% to 63.29%. This means the utilization of downstream belt
conveyor is largely improved by apply active speed control.
Fig. 9b illustrates the required mechanical power on the drive
pulley. The figure shows that with constant speed control, the
average required mechanical power is about 85 kW with a maxi-
mum value of 146 kW. However, with active speed control, the
average required mechanical power is considerably reduced to
around 71 kW, even though the maximum needed power is
 D. He et al. / Measurement 154 (2020) 107458 7

Fig. 8. Belt conveyor dynamics in the acceleration operation from 2 m/s to 4 m/s within 51 s: (a) Driving forces exerted on the drive pulley; (b) Belt tension at each nodal
point; (c) Belt speed at the drive pulley; (d) Belt speed at each nodal point along the conveying route.

Table 3
Required minimum adjustment time (s) over different speed variation ranges.

vd
v0 2 m/s 2.5 m/s 3 m/s 3.5 m/s 4 m/s
2 m/s - 11 31 42 52
2.5 m/s 22 – 11 31 42
3 m/s 31 17 – 11 31
3.5 m/s 34 28 11 – 11
4 m/s 36 32 26 5 –

181 kW. Fig. 9c illustrates the instantaneous energy consumption.
The average electricity consumption is about 95 kW in case where
the downstream conveyor runs at nominal speed. When the con-
veyor is changed to active speed control, the average power con-
sumption can be reduced to 79.62 kW. This means by applying
active speed control it can result in energy saving of 16.21% in
average.
Fig. 9d shows the accumulative energy consumption of the con-
veyor in two simulations for eight hours. The figure shows that
during the constant speed simulation, the total energy consump-
tion is 766.16 kWh for 8 h’ operation, compared to 636.96 kWh
energy consumption under active speed control. The comparison
verifies energy saving of 123.20 kWh in 8 h’ operation with fre-
quent varying material loading rate.
Table 4 lists the simulation results. From Table 4, it can be seen
that active speed control can result in around 50MWh yearly elec-
tricity saving and around 26 tons of CO2 reduction. With electricity
price of €0.082 per kWh, this implies that active speed control can
reduce yearly electricity cost of €4,000. Furthermore, if the social
cost of CO2 emission is taken into account, more than €4500 can
be saved annually. Therefore, the simulation study verifies that
active speed control on belt conveyor systems can lead to more
sustainable operation.
5. Conclusions
In this study, an active speed control algorithm was given out
for multi-belt conveyor systems. The Delft Systems Approach
was applied to model both operation and control systems. In addi-
tion, optimum speed adjustment time was achieved by applying
the ECO method as part of the active speed control algorithm. Sim-
ulation study on a dual-belt conveyor system was carried out.
Based on the simulation results, following conclusions can be
drawn:
 The ECO method is a powerful method to determine optimum
belt speed adjustment time because it takes belt conveyor
dynamics into account.
 Active speed control can improve belt conveyor utility by
improving belt filling ratio.
 Active speed control can achieve energy saving for multi-belt
conveyor systems.
8 D. He et al. / Measurement 154 (2020) 107458
Fig. 9. Experimental results of the downstream conveyor: (a) Conveyor belt filling ratio; (b) Instantaneous electric power consumption; (c) Accumulating power consumption
in 24 h.
Table 4
Economic analysis of speed control of 020 belt conveyor.
Parameters Constant
speed
Average material feeding rate [MTPH] 865.55
Average belt filling ratio [%] 43.35
Average mechanical power consumption [kW] 85.65
Average electrical power consumption [kW] 95.02
Total electrical power consumption in 8 h [kWh] 760.16
Predicted annual electrical consumption [MWh/yr] 304.06
Predicted annual electrical cost [€/yr] 24933.25
Predicted annual electrical cost savings [€/yr]
Predicted annual CO2 emission [Tons/yr]a 160.24
Predicted annual CO2 emission reduction [Tons/yr]
Predicted annual reduction of the social cost of CO2
[€/yr]b
Total annual savings [€/yr]
a International Organization for Standardization, Switzerland, 1989..
The CO2 emission factor used is 0.527 kg/kWh [22].
b
The global damages from CO2 emission is around €18 per metric ton [23].
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Daijie He: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding
agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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