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Mechanism of Hydro-Viscous Soft Start of Belt Conveyor: MENG Qing-Rui, HOU You-Fu
Mechanism of Hydro-Viscous Soft Start of Belt Conveyor: MENG Qing-Rui, HOU You-Fu
MINING &
TECHNOLOGY
J China Univ Mining & Technol 18 (2008) 0459–0465
www.elsevier.com/locate/jcumt
Abstract: The mechanism of a hydro-viscous soft start is of great importance in the design of a hydro-viscous clutch and its control
system. To explain the mechanism of a hydro-viscous soft start, the startup process of a belt conveyor was numerically analyzed
with the modified Reynolds equation, an energy equation and a temperature-viscosity equation. The effect of temperature and
grooves of the friction disk surface on torque transfer and load capacity of the oil film have also been analyzed. The results show
that 1) the grooves are the basis of forming dynamic pressure but they may reduce the capacity of torque transfer to a certain extent,
2) during the startup process, temperature has little effect on torque transfer and load capacity and the variation in load capacity of
the oil film is very small, indicating that it is preferable to use the flow rate as a control object than the pressure of the feed cylinder.
The results have been verified by an experiment.
Key words: hydro-viscous clutch; soft start; belt conveyor; torque transfer; load capacity
two key parameters affecting the characteristics of a hydro-viscous soft start by using a Cartesian coordi-
hydro-viscous soft start. nate system, since the friction discs have different
Considering the surface roughness of the friction surface grooves. The friction disc used by us has ra-
disc, we have investigated numerically and analyti- dial surface grooves. For convenience, only a part of
cally the load capacity and torque transfer character- the friction disc, including three grooves, is analyzed
istics of the oil film during the startup process by us- (see Fig. 2), where AD is the inlet and BC is outlet of
ing a Reynolds equation, an energy equation and a the flow domain.
temperature-viscosity equation in order to reveal the
mechanism of the hydro-viscous soft start of the belt
conveyor and to facilitate the conceptual design of the
hydro-viscous soft starter and the control system.
2 Soft start
∂T c j = xi − xm , cm = x j − xi .
=0 on AB and CD (7) The interpolation function is as follows:
∂n 1
3.3 Temperature-viscosity equation
Ni = ( ai + bi x + ci y ) ( i = i, j , m ) (14)
2A
Without a universal temperature-viscosity equation, where A is the area of the triangular element.
we have used an ASTM line graph. The equation is as The form of the function used in solving the modi-
follows: fied Reynolds equation is as follows[13]:
JG
log log (η + 0.6 ) = A − B log T (8) ⎡⎛ h 3 hU ⎞
I ( p ) = ∫ ⎢⎜⎜ ∇p − ⎟ ∇p
where η is kinematic viscosity (mm /s), A and B are
2 Ω
⎢⎣⎝ 24 µ 2 ⎠⎟
two constants which can be calculated from the vis- ∂h ⎤
+ p dΩ + ∫ qpds (15)
∂t ⎥⎦
cosity at two different temperatures. Γ2
3.4 Torque transfer and load capacity where Γ 2 represent AB and CD as shown in Fig. 2.
Shear stress along the x and y directions can be The functional of modified Reynolds equation can be
calculated by the following equations: derived from Eq.(15). If the jm edge of the triangular
element lies on Γ 2 , p can be calculated by the
462 Journal of China University of Mining & Technology Vol.18 No.3
⎧µ
= ∫ N i ⎨ ⎡⎢(U1x − U 2 x ) + (U1 y − U 2 y ) ⎤⎥
2 2 Depth of groove Wt (mm) 0.2
Ω
⎩ hT ⎣ ⎦ Rated speed v (m/s) 2
Friction disc surface roughness σ1 (µm) 4
h T ⎡⎛ ∂p ⎞ ⎛ ∂p ⎞ ⎤ ⎫⎪
3 2 2
Separator surface roughness σ2 (µm) 1
+ ⎢ ⎜ ⎟ + ⎜ ⎟ ⎥ ⎬ dΩ (17)
12 µ ⎢⎣⎝ ∂x ⎠ ⎝ ∂y ⎠ ⎥⎦ ⎪ Fluid kinematic viscosity η (mm2/s) 32
⎭ Fluid density ρ (kg/m3) 865
Fluid specific heat capacity Cv (J/(g·ć)) 1.88
5 Calculation steps
γ is a surface texture parameter. We have set
1) Generating the finite element mesh. Finite ele-
ment mesh should be generated on grooves and γ = 1 and the values of φx , φ y and φs are as fol-
non-groove regions respectively. lows: φx ˙0.8323, φ y ˙0.8323, φs ˙0.322.
2) At discrete intervals, repeat the startup process
according to rated load and speed, the corresponding Variations of oil film thickness during the startup
speed, acceleration and oil film thickness at each time process, according to theoretical calculations, are
can be calculated by Eq.(1) and Fig. 1a. shown in Fig. 3.
3) Calculation of corresponding torque each time
by modified Reynolds equation. Modify the oil film
Oil film thickness (mm)
(a) Variation of torque transfer of oil film during startup process (b) Variation of load capacity of oil film during startup process
Fig. 5 Torque transfer and load capacity of oil film during startup process
464 Journal of China University of Mining & Technology Vol.18 No.3
the effect of temperature can be neglected in design- are two sets of electro-hydraulic proportional control
ing a hydro-viscous clutch which can be compensated systems, one uses a proportional pressure valve type
by feedback in the control system. Fig. 5b shows the DBETE-5X/5G24 of Rexroth. The other is a propor-
load capacity of the oil film. It can be seen the load tional flow valve type 2FRE6A-2X/2 of Rexroth. A
capacity varies slightly during the startup process. microcontroller, Atmega16, was used in the electric
This agrees with the preceding theoretical analysis. control system and the control strategy was fuzzy
Since the pressure of the feed cylinder should vary PID.
with the load capacity of the oil film, it is obviously Output speed curves are shown in Fig. 6b. It can be
not the best choice to take pressure as a control object seen that the speed curve using flow rate as control
in the design of a control system. According to the object is close to that using pressure as the control
theory of fluid power transmission and control tech- object in the first 20 seconds. But the former flow
nology, it is better to take flow rate as the control ob- rate is better in the last 20 seconds. During the entire
ject. startup process, the speed curve using flow rate as the
control object can approach the theoretical curve
7 Experimental verification more accurately. But there are deflections to varying
degrees between the experimental and theoretical
A belt conveyor is usually considered to be a con- curves and improvement of the control system is de-
stant torque device during the startup process. In this sired to reduce these deflections.
experiment a disc brake was adopted to simulate a Fig. 6c shows variation in the pressure of the feed
belt conveyor. Torque generated by the disc brake cylinder during the startup process when flow rate
works as a load, it is acquired by a torque sensor and taken as the control object. It can be seen that it is
pressure of the feed cylinder is acquired by the pres- coincident with calculation results shown in Fig. 5b.
sure sensor installed in the electro-hydraulic propor- It proves the validity of our theoretical analysis and
tional control system. calculations.
Fig. 6a shows our experimental equipment. There