Constant Volume Conveyor Control

Application

Conveyors are usually run at fixed speed while the load on them varies with everything upstream — feeder behaviour, ore condition, surge and starve cycles. The consequences land at the transfer chutes: a surge travelling along the belt arrives at the chute all at once, driving spillage, blockages, dust events and accelerated chute wear. And because every conveyor must be sized to survive its worst surge, the whole system runs with a conservative capacity margin that steady loading would not need.

Minealytics Constant Volume Conveyor Control closes the loop on volumetric flow itself. Using the live volume and mass tracking from ore profile scanning — and belt weighers where fitted — the controller dynamically adjusts feeder and conveyor speeds to hold a constant volumetric flow on each belt.

Solution

The controller is position-aware: it tracks material volume and mass along the belt, so it knows not just how much is on the belt but where it is and when it will arrive at each transfer point. That awareness enables control that fixed-speed operation cannot provide:

• Surge mitigation at chutes: when a surge is detected travelling along the belt, the controller adjusts speeds ahead of the transfer point so the chute is not overwhelmed — reducing spillage, blockages, dust events and chute wear.
• Steady, predictable feed at every transfer point, so downstream equipment sees a consistent load rather than waves.
• Higher usable capacity: with volumetric loading held steady, conveyors can run closer to their true capacity instead of a conservative margin sized for surges.
• Lower energy and belt wear: running speed is minimised for the current load, rather than held at a fixed speed sized for the peak.

Integration

Constant Volume Conveyor Control integrates with existing conveyor drives and the plant PLC, issuing speed targets through the established control system and respecting all interlocks. It builds directly on the ore profile and belt edge detection layer for its live volume measurement, and provides the steady, measured flows that higher-level applications — such as yard and bin inventory optimisation — plan around.