The Conveyor Equipment Manufacturer’s Association (CEMA), with the help of Martin Engineering, issued a new standard for ranking conveyor belt cleaners called CEMA 576. Included in the 7th edition of CEMA’s book, Belt Conveyors for Bulk Materials, the standard provides performance-based guidelines for specifying belt cleaners by determining the level of difficulty in a given application.
“For end users, the standard is an objective means of determining a cleaner’s suitability for the plant’s material and operating conditions, allowing them to specify a cleaner most likely to meet their needs,” says Martin Engineering Product Engineer Daniel Marshall. “It also provides a means to check a sales rep’s recommendations against the application requirements, allowing users to compare ‘apples and apples’ in terms of duty rating, performance and pricing.”
In order to develop its ratings, the standard uses belt features and materials characteristics using CEMA Standard 550 to assign values for the material categories. The factors determined include conveyor speed, belt width, splices, material abrasiveness and moisture content. Each factor is scored individually and then totaled for its class rating assignment. The final score is then divided into five class levels, which help users select appropriate cleaners.
