Improvement And Simulation Analysis Of Air Cushion Structure Of Air Cushion Belt Conveyor

The biggest feature of the air-cushion belt conveyor is that the supporting roller of the general belt conveyor is replaced by an air chamber.When the air source supplies air to the air chamber,an air film will be formed between the pan and the conveyor belt and support the conveyor belt.And the above material,the air film is commonly known as air cushion.Compared with general-purpose belt conveyors,air-cushion belt conveyors have certain advantages in some specific transportation occasions due to the advantages of good sealing,green environmental protection,stable operation,and energy saving.Among them,the stability and bearing capacity of the air cushion are inseparable from the design of the air chamber structure.Although the traditional box-type air chamber is widely used in the industry,its structural rigidity is poor,and it is prone to deformation,since the airflow is intercepted by the wall of the air chamber,the direction and flow rate of the fluid are forced to change rapidly,and a vortex will be formed at the entrance of the air chamber,resulting in a loss of flow and a low bearing capacity of the air cushion.It can be seen that the research on the structure of the air chamber is particularly important,so this paper studies the air cushion belt conveyor from three aspects: the cross-sectional shape of the air chamber,the setting of the auxiliary element guide vane and its shape,and the shape of the air hole:(1)In view of the problems of poor rigidity of the box-type air chamber and large flow loss,the traditional box-type structure is improved to a double-arc trapezoid structure;(2)In order to improve the situation that a large number of vortices are generated after the airflow enters the air chamber,the auxiliary element guide fins are introduced,and two different structures of guide fins are proposed,named,the pointed guide fins with a triangular top and a round top.Arc-shaped round head deflector;(3)In order to improve the bearing capacity of the air cushion,this subject proposes a trumpet-shaped air hole instead of the cylindrical air hole.In this paper,Solidworks is used to model the box-shaped air chamber and the double arc trapezoidal air chamber,and the model is imported into the software Fluent to simulate the flow field and air cushion flow field in the air chamber.According to the Reynolds number theory,the flow state in the air chamber is judged and the local resistance coefficient in the air chamber is deduced by the formula.After simulation analysis,the pressure cloud diagrams in the box-shaped air chamber and the double arc trapezoidal air chamber are obtained respectively.Through comparative analysis,the double arc can be obtained.The conclusion that the flow loss in the trapezoidal air chamber is small,the output pressure is high,and the air cushion bearing capacity is improved,provides a reference for the design of the air cushion belt conveyor.