Modular Conveyor Belt Link Interlocking Mechanism
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conveyor belts made from modular links face challenges in maintaining hygiene due to difficult cleaning and providing an uneven surface, leading to potential contamination and damage from lodged objects, especially in the food industry.
Innovation Solution
A conveyor belt design with no intermeshing parts or pins, featuring a flush top surface and ribs for stability, along with flexible connections that allow for easy cleaning and prevent object lodgment, and a push-based propulsion system that ensures a continuous, even surface.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If modular belt links use eye parts with apertures and connecting pins for linking adjacent links, then the conveyor belt provides a modular and flexible structure, but the apertures and pins create positions that are very difficult to clean thoroughly
Solution Approach 1:
The invention removes the eye parts with apertures and connecting pins from the belt link design. Instead, it uses protrusions that extend laterally from the edges and keyhole recesses that accommodate these protrusions, eliminating the difficult-to-clean aperture-pin-aperture structure while maintaining the modular linking capability.
Solution Approach 2:
Rather than having apertures with pins passing through them (traditional design), the invention inverts the approach by having protrusions extending from the edges that fit into keyhole recesses. This inversion eliminates the central aperture that traps debris and makes cleaning impossible.
2Reliability
If eye parts are used to connect adjacent belt links, then the conveyor belt achieves reliable connection between links, but the working surface becomes uneven which affects cutting action reliability
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the eye parts from the design, removing the source of surface unevenness. The connecting structure is redesigned with protrusions and keyhole recesses that maintain connection reliability while allowing the upper surface to remain substantially continuous and flat.
3Manufacturing precision
If cover plates are provided over eye parts to create a continuous upper surface, then the working surface becomes substantially continuous, but narrow slits are created between adjacent modular belt links where knives or thin objects may become lodged
Solution Approach 1:
The invention removes the eye parts that necessitate cover plates, thereby eliminating the narrow slits between adjacent links. The protrusion-keyhole recess connection system allows for a continuous upper surface without creating trapped spaces where objects could become lodged.
4Reliability
If regular cleaning intervals with dismantling or in-situ soaking are used, then hygiene standards are maintained, but production stops and profitability decreases
Solution Approach 1:
By removing the eye parts with apertures and pins, the invention creates a smooth, continuous surface that can be cleaned thoroughly and quickly without dismantling. The simplified structure allows for rapid cleaning cycles that maintain hygiene standards while minimizing production interruptions.
Data Source
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AI summary
Conveyor belt, of the type used in endless conveyors, where said conveyor belt is made from a plurality of belt links, where each belt link (1) is substantially identical, where each belt link (1) is defined by a front edge (2), a rear edge (3), two side edges (4), and an upper surface (5) and an under surface (8) between said edges (4), where front and rear relate to the direction of travel in use characterised in that the front edge (2) of each belt link (1) is provided with an indentation and the rear edge (3) is provided with a mirror image of said indentation, such that the front edge (2) of one belt link may snugly fit in the rear edge (3) of an adjacent belt link (1).