Test procedure development in order to optimize calculation of the power demand for Bucket-Wheel Drives

The topic of the project work is titled “test procedure development in order to optimize calculation of the power demand for bucket-wheel drives” which contains on the one hand the theoretical topic of calculating and dimensioning the bucket-wheel and it’s drive and on the other hand the investigation of field tests in order to evaluate relationships between on-site and material parameters and calculation terms. Today within SANDVIK the dimensioning of the bucket-wheel drives is based on calculations with the usage of known material parameters and assumed factors from years of experience. This aspect is not entirely satisfactory because of a wide range of uncertainties and inaccuracies of the predictions; because of this in some cases the designated installed power must be chosen very conservatively. High safety reserve on the installed power of the bucket-wheel drives will guarantee on the one hand reliable operation but on the other hand to unnecessary high investment costs. Especially in new applications machine manufacturers will enter a field of unknown requirements and conditions, therefore it is mandatory to correctly evaluate the correlation between material properties and the power demand of bucket-wheel drives. A simplified test procedure, if this could be found, could have the potential of being a strong and powerful tool in engineering when offering these types of machines.