Many applications require a product to be conveyed without degradation or damage. The product that is degraded or damaged during conveying results in a quality and yield loss and can have serious implications for customer satisfaction as well as health and safety. In applications that require the use of a bucket elevator and where the preservation of the product is paramount, it is essential to use a gentle handling bucket elevator. In this blog, we look at the design features of TipTrak™ continuous bucket elevators which enable the product to be handled gently without damage or degradation.

Not all continuous bucket elevators are created equal. TipTrak™ elevators are designed with gentle handling in mind. These conveyors allow the product to travel gently and smoothly through the conveyor, with no particle attrition or breakage.

Tiptrak Gentle Handling Bucket Elevator: Design Features

Consider these TipTrak™ design features which allow product to be conveyed vertically and horizontally with no degradation or damage:

No transfer points. These design features deliver important advantages. By running horizontally and vertically without transfer points, your product can move from one process to another without spillage, degradation, dusting, or segregation of blended products.

Fully interlocking buckets. The interlocking buckets ensure that there is no spillage at the infeed and because the buckets never separate, even on a vertical lift, the only place your product leaves the buckets is at the discharge. Even here the TipTrak™ design allows for a gentle cascading of product, further reducing degradation.

Rubber belt chain. The heart of the TipTrak™ design is the patented TipTrak™ rubber belt chain. This consists of elastomer molded around and bonded to a core of multiple strands of stainless-steel aircraft cable. Similar to a timing belt in design, it has a positive drive. With the stainless steel cable core (which is pre-stressed at the time of molding to eliminate elongation), the TipTrak™ belt chain combines all the advantages of a chain, strength and positive drive, with the benefits of a belt: no moving parts, corrosion resistance, and long life. This unique design eliminates the need for sprockets except at the drive end. At all other points, the chain runs in a flanged pulley much like a V-belt in a sheave.

The TipTrak™ gentle handling bucket elevator is available in three construction styles: Open Tubular construction; PEC (fully enclosed); and Monocoque (fully gasketed to control dust). TipTrak™ units are engineered to each application, and a range of options are available, including Clean-In-Place (CIP) systems, flow aids, discharge assists, and more.