Inefficient Conveyors - Reducing the Drag

Is your conveyor system dragging down profits? 

Nothing is more disruptive to production than a conveyor system constantly needing maintenance. Chain guides, drive sprockets and wear strips can create unwanted friction leading to excessive drag.

Excessive drag requires increased power to keep things moving. Swapping out worn components can be difficult, expensive, and especially untimely. Let’s look at a few performance benefits plastics provide for conveyor systems.

• PLASTICS REDUCE WEAR– Selecting the optimal material inevitably improves the life of wear components. Moving parts or segments eventually require replacing. Plastics outperform metals by as much as 20x; less wear means a longer life span.
• PLASTICS REDUCE FRICTION– The more friction a conveyor has to overcome, the less efficient that conveyor will be. In other words, higher levels of drag in your conveyor result in increased electricity required to power it. With the costs of energy skyrocketing, this becomes increasingly critical to solving.
• PLASTICS ARE CORROSION-RESISTANT– Plastics do not break down, they do not rust, and they do not decay. On the other hand, metals can become rusted or pitted from chemicals found in grease and cleaning solvents, leading to numerous issues.
• PLASTICS ARE LIGHTWEIGHT– Plastics are typically lighter than metal. Lowering component weight helps to decrease the overall conveyor drag force. It also means you can increase the number of wear strips while maintaining the same weight!
• PLASTICS ARE NATURALLY LUBRICATED– Many plastics used to produce wear components have self-lubricating qualities and thus do not require the same level of maintenance. Plastics are ideal for complex conveyors or closed-looped systems. Simply put, they will not require the same level of lubrication.

Port plastics is the one source to bring together the wide range of critical physical properties needed enabling engineers to make optimal material choices and design decisions for their applications.

Contact your nearest port plastics sales office for all food processing or conveyance related plastics!