Conveyors
are an obvious choice for moving cars inside automated parking systems for many
reasons. The long history of conveyors and the extensive experience in many
applications demonstrate why conveyors are the perfect complement to automated
parking systems.
Conveyor History
Around
1800 AD, the first conveyors were made from leather, canvas or rubber and used
to transport grain short distances. Modest developments in conveyors continued
through the 1800s, but industrialization accelerated technological advances starting
in the early 1900s. Steel conveyor belts were introduced in 1901 and conveyor
belts developed for coal mining in 1905 revolutionized the mining industry. The
first patent for roller conveyors was issued in 1908 and Henry Ford introduced
conveyor belts into his Highland Park, Michigan factory in 1913.
The
world's longest conveyor belt system (98 km/61 miles with multiple belts) was
built across the Sahara Desert in the mid-1970s. The system, visible from
space, continues in service after nearly 40 years moving up to 2,000 tons per
hour of phosphate. The world's longest conveyor belt (31 km/19 miles) was put
in service in 2015 moving up to 2,400 tons per hour of coal in South Africa.
There
are many types of conveyor systems, however, belt-type conveyor systems are very
widely used in industrial applications, including material handling, automated storage
and retrieval, sorting, distribution and packaging.
Advantages of Conveyor Belt
Systems (CBS)
The
advantages of roller conveyor belt systems for automated parking applications come
from their simplicity, efficiency, durability and reliability.
It's
hard to beat the simplicity of a
roller conveyor belt system. The roller (a wheel and axle) is one of the five
basic machines (lever, wheel/axle, pulley, ramp/wedge and screw). Rollers make it
easy to move even heavy weights such as cars by greatly reducing friction.
Roller
CBS also offer are efficiency of motion and energy efficiency. CBS have only two
motions: the rollers and belt move in one direction or the opposite direction…that's
it. There are no wasted motions such as deadheading, raising, lowering,
extending, retracting, swinging, folding, etc. Similarly, energy efficiency
comes in two forms: using less energy because of the greatly reduced friction
(minimal force needed movement objects) and not requiring energy to lift the entire
weight of the car off the ground.
Reliability and availability/uptime
are the preconditions for the economical applications in many industries. The
most popular solution for moving materials and objects from one point to
another is the conveyor…and quite frequently the belt and roller conveyor. The
reliability and availability of these systems generally results from the basic
nature and low stress of individual components: low friction bearings, multiple
rollers sharing weight, optimized roller spacing, etc.
Operating
in hostile environments transporting tons and tons of dirty, abrasive materials
such as coal, ore and gravel for decades over long distances is ample evidence
of the conveyor belt systems' durability.
In comparison, the use of conveyor belts to move cars in automated parking
applications is far easier.
More Advantages
Beyond
the simplicity, efficiency, durability and reliability, conveyor belt systems
offer other advantages.
Without
wasted motions and movement, CBS tend to be much faster than other types of
transport technologies used in automated parking systems. They also tend to
utilize common "off-the-shelf" components, which leads to increased
reliability, durability and parts availability as well as lower costs and
inventory.
To
be fair, conveyor belt systems are not nearly as interesting to watch as
robotic and other transport systems that move like an elaborate mechanical
ballet. The CBS just keeps doing the job dependably, very fast, year-after-year
and decade-after-decade.
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