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

Master thesis (2024)

Authors

K.S. de Vos Mechanical Engineering

Contributors

W. van den Bos Transport Engineering and Logistics - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (mentor)
J. Jovanova Transport Engineering and Logistics - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (graduation committee member)
G. Volmer (graduation committee member)
P. de Klerk (graduation committee member)
Faculty
Mechanical Engineering
FMECA Maintenance Conveyor belt Condition monitoring Maintenance Strategies Dry bulk terminals
More Info
expand_more

Published Date

20-06-2024

Language

English

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Faculty

Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

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.