Determining Stress Cycles for Belt Conveyor Speed
Control in Transient Operations
Yusong Pang, Gabriel Lodewijks
Section of Transport Engineering and Logistics
Delft University of Technology
Delft, the Netherlands
y.pang@tudelft.nl
AbstractBelt conveyors are important equipment for large-
scale bulk material transport and logistic distribution in very
wide industry fields. In line with the variance of material loading
degree, belt conveyor speed control has been proved as an
effective way to reduce power consumption and to improve the
service of the equipment with respect to system lifetime and
maintenance. Since discrete control is preferred to regulate the
speed of conveyor, control methods based on fuzzy logic can be
applied. However, speed control is not always applicable for all
conveyor operation scenarios. The stress cycles generated during
fuzzy speed control in transient operations may lead to extra
degradation of the equipment and should be limited. This paper
presents the determination of the stress cycles during the fuzzy
control for belt conveyor transient operations. After categorizing
the loading scenarios that can be normally found in different
application fields, the outputs of modeling and simulating a fuzzy
speed control system display the effect of stress cycles on belt
conveyor operations. The determination of minimum stress cycles
along with maximum energy savings can be used to improve the
algorithm and settings of belt conveyor speed control systems.
Keywordsbelt conveyor; speed control; operation scenarios;
energy savings; transient operation
I. INTRODUCTION
Belt conveyors are the most widely used equipment in the
continuous transport and logistic distribution of large quantity
dry bulk materials. Applications can be found in mining
industry, power plants, chemical production, bulk terminals,
etc. Over the last decades the development of design
technologies has enabled the realization of longer, faster and
more efficient belt conveyors with higher capacity and less
environmental impact [1]. Typically, a large-scale conventional
troughed belt conveyor is driven by drives in the range of 500
kW to 6 mW. Transport distances may cover a range from
100s m till 30 km. Conveying capacity can be from hundreds
up to 10,000 tons per hour. Due to the extensive application of
belt conveyors, energy consumption forms a large part in the
total material handling operational costs, e.g. over 40% [2].
Meanwhile, the carbon dioxide (CO2) emission caused by the
generation of required energy during conveyor operation is
considerable. For instance, belt conveyors may cost 70% of the
total electricity demanded in a dry bulk terminal [3]. This
opens the possibility of improving belt conveyor operations by
means of energy saving solutions.
978-1-5090-2927-3/16/$31.00 2016 IEEE
In practice a belt conveyor continuously runs at a constant
nominal speed during steady operation. The average utilization
of the belt is less than the designed when the loaded material
flow on the belt is smaller than the nominal conveying
capacity. DIN 22101 [4] indicates that reducing the conveyor
speed and thereby maximizing belt loads always lead to a
certain reduction of the required electrical driving power. It
indicates the possibility to save energy by regulating the belt
speed based on the variance of material loading degree, which
is known as the speed control of belt conveyors. Besides the
potential of energy savings towards sustainable production,
speed control lowers the constant nominal speed of the system
to match the variable material loading situation. It also
provides the opportunities to improve the service of belt
conveyors, including reducing maintenance costs and
increasing the service lifetime of the equipment.
Traditional speed control of belt conveyors aims to achieve
continuous and soft startup profile of the system. Compared to
the control of belt conveyor startup procedures, for practical
reasons during transient operations, discrete speed adjustment
is preferred above continuous speed control [5]. The transient
operation of a belt conveyor is the operation regulating belt
speed to match the variable material loading degree, which
includes accelerating and decelerating of the system. One of
the practical reasons is that the belt speed should not be
continuously and frequently adjusted to avoid the stressful
continuous accelerations and decelerations of belt conveyors,
namely the stress cycles, when the material flow fluctuates
considerably. When short-term excessive loading happens, the
number of stress cycles need to be limited during speed control
to prevent unnecessary and sometime harmful acceleration and
deceleration of belt conveyor systems.
Due to the requirement of discontinuously controlling the
belt conveyor speed in transient operations, fuzzy control, as a
control philosophy applying fuzzy logic to provide discrete
control strategies, has been introduced to combine fuzzy
control algorithms with discretized belt speed and material
flow fluctuation [5][6]. However, current development of fuzzy
speed control aims to adjust the belt speed responding to the
variance of material loading degree, by means of the settings of
fuzzy ranges and fuzzy boundaries which are derived from
fuzzy membership functions. With respect to the variances of
the patterns and the magnitudes of material loading, the effects
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of stress cycles were not yet taken into account during speed term changes of loading degree are caused by the control of the
control, especially in transient operations. silo discharge device.
Due to the fact that stress cycles always result in wear and
degradation of conveyor components, it is important to balance
the number of stress cycles during operations with the energy
saving effectiveness of speed control. To determine the
acceptable stress cycles for the control in transient operations,
it firstly relies on identifying material loading scenarios with
respect to the applicability of speed control. Currently,
literatures contain the lack of categorizing the diversity of
material loading scenarios. Further, based on previously
proposed fuzzy speed control applications, the minimum stress
cycles along with maximizing the potential energy savings
need to be determined. In this paper, the material loading
situations in different conveyor application sites are analyzed
and the categorization of four loading scenarios is given in
Section II. After introducing the basic principle of a fuzzy
speed control system and the simulation model in Section III,
Fig. 1. Material loading on belt conveyor in dry bulk terminal
Section IV presents the simulation results of the control system
for determining the optimal stress cycles. Finally, conclusions
of the research is given in Section V.

II. OPERATION SENARIOS OF BELT CONVEYORS

When a belt accelerates from one non-zero speed to another
in transient operations, it causes high stress on the equipment.
The stress change in one cycle of speed regulation is named as
a stress cycle. Stress cycles can lead to wear and degradation of
conveyor components. The number of stress cycles indicates
the frequency of speed regulation during speed control. In
order to avoid the harm to the conveyor system and to prevent
the potential damage of system components, too frequent
system acceleration and deceleration should be avoid. When
the speed of conveyor is controlled based on the different
loading situations, the energy saving effectiveness needs to be
balanced with limited stress cycles. To improve the speed
control for effective energy savings, different material loading
scenarios in transient operations need to be identified so that
the effects of stress cycles along with the energy saving
effectiveness can be analyzed.
Fig. 2. Material loading on conveyor belt to stockpile
Fig. 3 is the data of material loading collected from
underground long wall mining process. The material loaded on
a belt varies along with the changes of the quality of the coal
and the operation of the shearer in short-term (e.g. in minutes).
As shown in this figure, five major changes of the material
loading degree can be distinguished within half an hour.
Fig. 4 is of a conveyor drive control application in a surface
mine [8]. It can be seen that the fluctuation of material loading
contains short-time frequency (e.g. in minutes) and high
magnitude from 20% to 95%.

A. Typical Transient Operation Scenarios

The effectiveness of applying speed control to reduce the
consumption of electrical power varies along different loading
situations. There are all sorts of loading scenarios for belt
conveyors, which speed control is not always applicable for the
purpose of energy savings, for instance the material flowing
rate always keeps on constant during all operations. Taking the
look to belt conveyor practice in different material conveying
applications, the loading scenarios can be further categorized. Fig. 3. Material loading on conveyor belt in underground mine
Fig. 1 shows the material loaded to a single conveyor in the
bulk terminal of EMO Rotterdam the Netherlands, where the
conveyor is loaded by multiple grab quay cranes through
hoppers. Due to the change of the number of the cranes in
relative long-term operating (e.g. in hours), the material
loading degree changes.
Fig. 2 presents the material loaded on a inclined conveyor
in between a silo and open stockpiles [7]. The relative long- Fig. 4. Material loading on conveyor belt in surface mine

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 The changes of material loading situation in various
application sites imply the different applicability and
effectiveness of speed control. When fuzzy speed control is
applied, besides the stress cycles generated by the settings of
the fuzzification algorithm, the stress cycles during speed
control rely on the fluctuations of the material loading, where
the loading scenarios need to be categorized.
B. Loading Scenarios and Control Requirements
Based on the frequency and the magnitude of material
loading fluctuations in different belt conveyor practices, the
material loaded to conveyors during transient operations can be
categorized to four scenarios.
Scenario CLLO: Constant Loading degree in Long-term
Operations. This scenario has a roughly constant flow of the
material to be fed to the same belt conveyor during the same
long-term operation. There is mainly one type of operation to
feed the belt conveyor without significant variation. The
material loading degree only changes when one operation is
finished or restarted (e.g. Fig. 1).
A. Principle of Fuzzy Control
The regulation of the belt speed depends on the material
flow fluctuations at extreme values, for instance at the peak
loading degrees. Based on different loading scenarios a fuzzy
control algorithm can be applied to adjust the belt speed at
certain occasions when the disturbances of material loading
occur. Further, the regulation of the conveyor speed is in
accordance to the variance of actual material loading rate. The
loading rate is obtained by dividing the actual material degree
by the nominal capacity of the belt conveyor. Due to the linear
relationship, the changes of the loading rate follow the variance
of actual material flow. Then the belt speed can be adjusted
based on the discretization of the loading rate to avoid the
influence of short-term extreme loading scenarios during speed
control so that frequent stress cycles can be avoid.
In a fuzzy control system [5], given a value of material
loading x [bi , bi 1 ) within a range in between the fuzzy
boundaries of bi and bi+1, a fuzzy membership function
 1 bi 1   
Scenario MLLO: Moderately varying Loading degree in f bi ( x) x
between Long-term Operations. This is the scenario can be bi  bi 1 bi  bi 1
found at controlled material feeding devices, where the
material loading degree to the same conveyor varies in between
two long-term feeder control scenarios and relies on the degree 1 bi 
of the open outlet of the feeder or discharger (e.g. Fig. 2).  f bi 1 ( x) x  
bi  bi 1 bi  bi 1
Scenario MLSO: Moderately varying Loading degree in
between Short-term Operations. Compared to scenario 2, some can be constructed to fuzzify the actual belt speed under
loading scenario contains roughly constant material flow in multiple fuzzy ranges in between the boundaries of fbi(x) and
between operations but the operations varies relatively in short- fbi+1(x). Then at time i the regulation of the speed of the belt
term (e.g. Fig. 3). conveyor vi_act can be determined as
Scenario ELAO: Excessively varying Loading degree in
All Operations This scenario can be considered to be the  vi _ act bi 1vnom   
completely random loading scenario where the feed onto a belt
conveyor is completely unpredictable and non-controlled. In
this scenario the feeding rate may change excessively both in where vnom is the nominal speed of the system.
one operation and in all operations (e.g. Fig. 4). As shown in Fig. 5, when an actual loading rate falls into
Considering the applicability and effect of speed control, two boundaries (the left figure), the regulation of belt speed can
scenarios CLLO and MLLO may provide good effectiveness of be determined to be within its relative fuzzy range (the right
energy savings with less stress cycles due to less material figure) but lower than the higher boundary so that the
fluctuations. Although scenarios MLSO and ELAO potentially maximum belt load can be achieved with avoiding the risk of
have the opportunities of energy savings, due to the fact that belt overload.
the material loading degree significantly varies either in short-
vi 1
term or in excessively random patterns, speed control may f bi1 ( x) ! f bi ( x)
cause considerable stress cycles which may be harmful to the bi 1 vi
Loading rate (%)

conveyor system and its components, which show less

applicability of speed control. Therefore, when fuzzy speed f bi1 ( x) f bi ( x) f bi1 ( x) f bi ( x)

control is applied, it is important to determine the acceptable

number of stress cycles during transient operations taking the
different material loading scenarios into account.
III. FUZZY SPEED CONTTROL IN TRANSIENT OPERATIONS
In the past few years, fuzzy logic has been introduced into
belt conveyor speed control and has been proved as an
effective approach for energy savings [5][6]. The determination
of stress cycles presented in this paper is based on a previously
developed fuzzy control method [5].
bi vi 1
f bi1 ( x)  f bi ( x)
Fig. 5. Speed adjustment principle for fuzzy control
In principle, more fuzzy boundaries in the control system
are set, higher potential energy savings can be expected but
more stress cycles the system can encounter. Therefore, speed
control needs to consider the balance between the energy
saving effectiveness and the stress cycle risks in different

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loading scenarios. To achieve the balance in speed control, the
total amount of acceleration and deceleration needs to be
controlled in an optimal way by means of setting the fuzzy
boundaries and adjusting the fuzzy ranges.
B. Fuzzy Control System
A simulation model of the fuzzy speed control system has been
built to analyse the energy saving effectiveness by changing
both the material loading scenarios and the fuzzy boundaries
(Fig. 6). In this control system, four material loading scenarios
can be set and switched in between to simulate the practical
transient operations. To lower the amount of stress cycles, the
speed is only regulated when significant difference between the
current speed and the desired speed occurs, which reflects the
variance of material loading degree in different material
loading scenarios. The fuzzification of the regulated speed
prevents the conveyor belt from continuous acceleration and
deceleration during speed control and results in less number of
stress cycles.
Fig. 6. Simulation model of conveyor speed control system
IV. IMPLEMENTATION
To demonstrate the behavior of the fuzzy speed control
system and the effect of stress cycles, a long horizontal belt
conveyor system is adopted for a case study to show the
simulation during transient operations. TABLE I gives the
main configuration of the conveyor system. The results of
simulation can be used to predict the energy savings under
different material loading scenarios. Further, by adjusting the
fuzzy boundary settings of the control system, the acceptable
stress cycles can be determined along with the effectiveness of
energy savings.
TABLE I. MAIN PARAMETERS OF THE CONVEYOR FOR CASE STUDY
Parameter Value
Material (-) Coal
3
Density of material (kg/m ) 850
Length of conveyor (m) 1000
Nominal belt speed (m/s) 5.2
Belt width (m) 1.2
Nominal capacity (t/h) 2500
Cross section area of belt (m2) 0.0124
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The implementation of the control system can be illustrated
by some example outputs of the case study [9]. For predicting
the energy savings, Fig. 7. shows the outputs of simulated
speed regulation for material loading scenario of MLLO, the
scenario of moderately varying loading degree in between
long-term operations, based on 5 fuzzy ranges and 6 fuzzy
boundaries. Further, simulation results can indicate the
prediction of the energy savings based on different fuzzy
settings. For instance, Fig. 8. shows the implementation of the
control system with 10 fuzzy ranges. In the upper figure of Fig.
8, the speed regulation (the blue line) shows that the speed
control is sufficient to prevent the risk of material overload.
The middle figure shows that the material loading situation of
the controlled belt conveyor is up to 87% of the nominal belt
capacity (the blue line). The power consumed by the speed
controlled conveyor can be seen in the bottom figure which
incurs total energy savings of 14% after 50 simulation runs (the
blue line).
Fig. 7. Speed regulation of fuzzy speed control
Fig. 8. Speed regulation of fuzzy speed control
In the simulations of the four categorized material loading
scenarios, different fuzzy ranges were set from 2 to 10.
Combining the effectiveness of energy savings and the number
of stress cycles during the speed control, the analysis of the
simulation results is given in Fig. 9, which can be used to
determine the most suitable fuzzy boundaries to be set in the
fuzzy control system to achieve maximum energy savings with
the least stress cycles. In the case of the speed controlled
conveyor, it can be seen that with increasing the number of
fuzzy ranges, the number of stress cycles increases due to more
frequent speed regulations on the modalities of accelerations
and decelerations. Big differences of the relationships between
energy savings and stress cycles can be found in Fig. 9.

Fig. 9. Energy saving effectiveness v.s. number of stress cycles
Scenario CLLO has an almost constant amount of stress
cycles. The speed only needs adjustment to a new constant
speed. The chance of the constant speed to be in the range of
the maximal speed gets smaller when the number of boundaries
increases. Therefore the number of stress cycles keep within
the ranges from 1 to 2 during the speed control.
Scenario MLLO has an increase of stress cycles. This is
due to the fact that with bigger ranges (less fuzzy boundaries),
the chance that the periodical change in input falls into the
same range becomes bigger. This results in less stress cycles in
between 30 and 40 for a maximum energy saving percentage.
Scenario MLSO shows a linear significant increase in stress
cycles. The acceleration and deceleration is performed in steps
to anticipate short-term material loading input. The more fuzzy
boundaries set in the control system, the more steps
(responding to stress cycles) are necessary. The number of
stress cycles highly depends on the amplitude and frequency of
the short-term material input.
Scenario ELAO shows an increase but greatly varying
amount of stress cycles. In the control of this scenario, the
determination of controlled speed relies on the peak loading
degrees, which fall into unpredictable random patterns. The
high frequency and magnitude of material inputs result in many
stress cycles.
From the simulation results, it can be seen that the energy
saving percentage does not increase significantly even the
highest number of fuzzy ranges are set, although the
effectiveness of energy savings increases along with increasing
fuzzy boundaries. Therefore, the simulation results provide the
indications to improve the fuzzy control settings in order to
avoid too frequent acceleration operations during speed
regulation by determining the minimum stress cycle numbers
when higher energy savings. Based on this case study, an
optimal number of fuzzy ranges can be applied to the fuzzy
control algorithm, to gain the highest energy savings at the
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lowest number of stress cycles. The optimal fuzzy boundary
setting can be determined for every individual material loading
scenarios, as the thick black vertical lines given in Fig. 9. After
this line, the energy savings increase minimally while stress
cycles increase with more fuzzy boundaries. To maintain the
minimum number of stress cycles while achieving effective
energy savings, in this case study, the number of fuzzy ranges
of the control system can be optimized to 4 to 5. Such
determination of stress cycles can be used to optimize the
algorithm and the settings of fuzzy speed control systems for
belt conveyor transient operations.
V. CONCLUSIONS
Belt conveyor speed control is an effective approach to
reduce the energy consumption in large-scale dry bulk material
transport and logistics. Fuzzy control methodologies have been
developed to achieve discrete speed control to match the
requirements of belt conveyor operations. The categorization of
material loading scenarios presented in this paper provides the
essential views regarding the applicability and effectiveness of
speed control, especially in belt conveyor transient operations.
In order to limit the stress cycles generated during the fuzzy
control process along with the maximum energy savings, the
algorithms and setting of the fuzzy speed control systems need
to be optimized. Taking different belt conveyor operation
scenarios into account, modeling and simulation of a control
system demonstrate and optimize the effects of the stress cycles
that is able to be balanced with the effectiveness of energy
savings. Current research provides the qualitative views of the
effect of stress cycles. Further research expects an approach to
quantify the balance between stress cycles and effective energy
savings.
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