Design, Fabrication and Testing of Linear Motion Bucket Wheel Reclaimer – A Prototype

Abstract

Reclaiming of coal, iron ore and grain are necessary/essential in industries like power plants and mining. Manual handling or usage of dozers for reclaiming operation requires lot of time, man power, and money and also involves risks of accidents. In earlier days both the manual and dozer operations were suitable for reclaiming of above materials due to lesser quantities and cheaper man power availability in the market. Earlier days the bucket wheel reclaimer on cantilever beam and requires huge counter weight mandating heavy structure that leads to high power consumption for the movement of equipment. Due to heavy weight and high power motors, the initial investment on the machine is also high. And it has a long cantilever and counter weight at the height of almost 100 to 150 feet” that reduces the stability of equipment. Chances of bucket wheel hitting to other machines or working areas is also possible due to long beam due to the negligence of operator. In linear type, it requires less counter weight and less power consumption. This paper involves function design, motor power calculation, load balancing, fabrication and testing of proto type linear motion bucket reclaiming machine with 4 major movements namely long travel, bucket wheel rotation, lowering and conveying.