Sureflex belting on trial at Torr Works

LAST year an agreement was made between Aggregate Industries and Ace Conveyor Equipment to trial a new grade of conveyor belt –– Sureflex ARX, an 8mm thick abrasion and cut-resistant rubber cover on an EP800/4 carcass with a 3mm back cover –– in a demanding application at Torr Works in Somerset.

A total of 205m of 1,600mm wide Sureflex ARX was installed on a mobile conveyor on the quarry floor. The belt, which runs at 3m/s and involves a vertical feed fall height of 2m, carries 2,000 tonnes of limestone every hour. Fitted in May 2006, the belt was required to carry 5 million tonnes of limestone to meet the desired operating life. By June 2007, however, the belt had conveyed 5.5 million tonnes with no apparent wearing of the 8mm cover, other than a normal amount of surface cracking.

Ace Conveyor’s chief executive, Rob Drohan, said: ‘We are delighted with the results we have achieved at Torr. By working with the client to assess their requirements, we have engineered a solution that increases product life and improves efficiency for our customer. This is the latest initiative in our efforts to assist our customers in determining the lowest cost of reliable operation for their conveyor plant and equipment.’