A maintenance strategy for conveyor belt systems in a dry bulk terminal

2024-06-20

At a dry bulk terminal, coal and iron ore are transported in the open air by conveyor belts and handled by large (mainly automated) equipment. The dry bulk material is rough and the equipment is installed in the harsh environment of the harbour. With vessels continuously being unloaded by quay cranes and outgoing vessels and trains being loaded, the conveyor belts make lots of operational hours. With more than 27 kilometers of conveyor belts running at 4.5 m/s it is important these systems are maintained well. To reduce downtime and maintenance cost, a new maintenance strategy will be created. Therefore, different maintenance strategies and methodologies will be explained and the current situation will be investigated. A new maintenance strategy will be created by using the FMECA method (Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis), where malfunctions of the conveyor belt systems will be prioritized according to their criticality. Malfunctions happening during the period of this thesis will be investigated and used as an example to proof the new maintenance strategy works. This strategy is applicable to other equipment and other terminals as well. In the end some future remarks will be discussed to further improve the new maintenance strategy.
Mechanical Engineering

Conveyor belt; FMECA; Maintenance; Condition monitoring; Maintenance Strategies; Dry bulk terminals; master thesis

Open access content. Open access content
© 2024 Kelly de Vos

51.94228615630073, 4.036535263621999
English

NLTUD oai:tudelft.nl:uuid:302ffd62-cd0b-4f04-8188-976f3a3cfda9
1440493152

DELFT UNIV OF TECHNOL
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