INVESTIGATION OF THE ROLLING INDENTATION RESISTANCE OF CONVEYOR BELTSWITH THE FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD

The rolling indentation resistance of large conveyor belts is due to t he deformation of the visco-elastic material in contact with the idler -rolls, The minimization of the rolling resistance requires the optimi zation of the compounds and the construction, which depend on each oth er. Because of its complexity its not possible to solve the problem an alytically, With the finite element method a tool is now available to make investigations numerically. In this paper, a special algorithm fo r calculating the rolling resistance of tires is adapted to conveyor b elts, It consists in a weakly coupled mechanical and thermal calculati on combined with a semistatic view on the moving belt, The damping pro perties of the different elastomers are included as a function of temp erature, frequency and strain amplitude.