Belt Drives case study

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Belt Drives case study

introduction

A belt drive is a method of transferring rotary motion between two parallel shafts. A belt drive includes one pulley on each shaft and one or more continuous belts over the two parallel pulleys. The motion of the driving pulley is transferred to the driven pulley via the friction between the belt and the pulley.

Belt Drive advantages
- Easy, flexible equipment design, as tolerances are not important.
- Isolation from shock and vibration between driver and driven system.
- Driven shaft speed conveniently changed by changing pulley sizes.
- Belt drives require no lubrication.
- Maintenance is relatively convenient
- Very quiet compared to chain drives, and direct spur gear drives

For belt drives, other than synchronous drives, the belts will slip in a high overload event providing a certain measure of safety.

The belts transferring torque by surface friction need to be in tension. This results in the need for adjustable shaft centres or using tensioning pulleys 

Types of Belt Drives

Flat Belt  transfers torque by friction of the belt over a pulley. Needs tensioner. Traction related to angle of contact of belt on pulley. Is susceptible to slip. Belt made from leather, woven cotton, rubber, balata.

Vee Belt Better torque transfer possible compared to flat belt. Generally arranged with a number of matched vee belts to transmit power. Smooth and reliable. Made from hi-text woven textiles, polyurethane, etc.

Poly-Vee Belt is flat on outside and Vee Grooved along the inside. Combines advantages of high traction of the Vee belt and the use of only one belt.

Timing/ Synchronous Belt toothed on the inside driving via grooved pulleys. This enables positive drive. Limited power capacity compared to chain and Vee belt derivatives. Does not require lubrication. Extensively used in low power applications

Vee Link Belts Linked belts that can be used in place of vee belts. Advantage that the length can be adjusted and the belt can be easily installed with removing pulleys. Expensive and limited load capacity.

Flexible Machine Elements

Belt drives are called flexible machine elements. Flexible machine elements are used for a large number of industrial applications, some of them are as follows.

1. Used in conveying systems Transportation of coal, mineral ores etc. over a long distance

2. Used for transmission of power.Mainly used for running of various industrial appliances using prime movers like electric motors, I.C. Engine etc.

3. Replacement of rigid type power transmission system.A gear drive may be replaced by a belt transmission system 

good amount of shock and vibration. It can take care of some degree of misalignment between the driven and the driver machines and long distance power transmission, in comparison to other transmission systems, is possible. For all the above reasons flexible machine elements are widely used in industrial application.

Although we have some other flexible drives like rope drive, roller chain drives etc. we will only discuss about belt drives

Typical belt drives

Two types of belt drives, an open belt drive, (Fig. 1) and a crossed belt drive (Fig. 2) are shown. In both the drives, a belt is wrapped around the pulleys. Let us consider the smaller pulley to be the driving pulley. This pulley will transmit motion to the belt and the motion of the belt in turn will give a rotation to the larger driven pulley. In open belt drive system the rotation of both the pulleys is in the same direction, whereas, for crossed belt drive system, opposite direction of rotation is observed.

fig 1 

Nomenclature of Open Belt Drive

dL- Diameter of the larger pulley

dS – Diameter of the smaller pulley

αL- Angle of wrap of the larger pulley

αS – Angle of wrap of the smaller pulley L

C- Center distance between the two pulleys

Nomenclature of Cross Belt Drive

dL- Diameter of the larger pulley

dS – Diameter of the smaller pulley

αL- Angle of wrap of the larger pulley

αS – Angle of wrap of the smaller pulley L

C- Center distance between the two pulleys

Belt tensions

The belt drives primarily operate on the friction principle. i.e. the friction between the belt and the pulley is responsible for transmitting power from one pulley to the other. In other words the driving pulley will give a motion to the belt and the motion of the belt will be transmitted to the driven pulley. Due to the presence of friction between the pulley and the belt surfaces, tensions on both the sides of the belt are not equal. So it is important that one has to identify the higher tension side and the lower tension side, which is shown in Fig. 3.

fig 3

When the driving pulley rotates (in this case, anti-clock wise), from the fundamental concept of friction, we know that the belt will oppose the motion of the pulley. Thereby, the friction, f on the belt will be opposite to the motion of the pulley. Friction in the belt acts in the direction, as shown in Fig. 3, and will impart a motion on the belt in the same direction. The friction f acts in the same

direction asT₂. Equilibrium of the belt segment suggests that T₁ is higher than T₂. Here, we will refer T₁ as the tight side and T₂ as the slack side, ie, T₁ is higher tension side and T₂ is lower tension side.

Continuing the discussion on belt tension, the figures though they are continuous, are represented as two figures for the purpose of explanation. The driven pulley in the initial stages is not rotating. The basic nature of friction again suggests that the driven pulley opposes the motion of the belt. The directions of friction on the belt and the driven pulley are shown the figure. The frictional force on the driven pulley will create a motion in the direction shown in the figure. Equilibrium of the belt segment for driven pulley again suggests that T₁ is higher than T₂.

It is observed that the slack side of the belt is in the upper side and the tight side of the belt is in the lower side. The slack side of the belt, due to self weight, will not be in a straight line but will sag and the angle of contact will increase. However, the tight side will not sag to that extent. Hence, the net effect will be an increase of the angle of contact or angle of wrap. It will be shown later that due to the increase in angle of contact, the power transmission capacity of the drive system will increase. On the other hand, if it is other way round, that is, if the slack side is on the lower side and the tight side is on the upper side, for the same reason as above, the angle of wrap will decrease and the power transmission capacity will also decrease. Hence, in case of horizontal drive system the tight side is on the lower side and the slack side is always on the upper side.

relationship between belt tensions

fig4 

The centrifugal force due to the motion of the belt acting on the belt segment is denoted as CF and its magnitude is

CF = [m(rdφ)v²]/r = mv²dφ

Where, 

v    is the peripheral velocity of the pulley

 m   is the mass of the belt of unit length,

m = btρ

where,

 b is the width, 

 t is the thickness 

 ρ is the density of the belt material

The final equation for determination of relationship between belt tensions is,

(T₁-mv²)/(T₂-mv²)=e^𝜇𝛼

where
μ is the coefficient of friction between the belt and the pulley.
α should be expressed in radians

Elastic Creep and Initial Tension

Presence of friction between pulley and belt causes differential tension in the belt. This differential tension causes the belt to elongate or contract and create a relative motion between the belt and the pulley surface. This relative motion between the belt and the pulley surface is created due to the phenomena known as elastic creep.

The belt always has an initial tension when installed over the pulleys. This initial tension is same throughout the belt length when there is no motion. During rotation of the drive, tight side tension is higher than the initial tension and slack

side tension is lower than the initial tension. When the belt enters the driving pulley it is elongated and while it leaves the pulley it contracts. Hence, the driving pulley receives a larger length of belt than it delivers. The average belt velocity on the driving pulley is slightly lower than the speed of the pulley surface. On the other hand, driven pulley receives a shorter belt length than it delivers. The average belt velocity on the driven pulley is slightly higher than the speed of the pulley surface.

Let us determine the magnitude of the initial tension in the belt.

Tight side elongation ∝ (T₁ – Ti )

Slack side contraction ∝ (Ti – T₂ )

Where, 

Ti is the initial belt tension .

Since, belt length remains the same, ie, the elongation is same as the contraction,

Ti=(T₁+T₂ ) /2

It is to be noted that with the increase in initial tension power transmission can be increased. If initial tension is gradually increased then T₁ will also increase and at the same time T₂ will decrease. Thus, if it happens that T₂ is equal to zero, then T₁ = 2Ti and one can achieve maximum power transmission.

Velocity ratio of belt drive

Velocity ratio of belt drive is defined as,

(N𝑙 /N𝗌) =[(d𝗌+t)/(d𝑙 +t)]×(1-𝑠)

where,

N𝑙 and N𝗌 are the rotational speeds of the large and the small pulley respectively, 

 s is the belt slip 

 t is the belt thickness

Power transmission of belt drive

Power transmission of a belt drive is expressed as,

P = ( T₁ – T₂ )v

where,

P is the power transmission in Watt

 v is the belt velocity in m/s.