IQS Newsroom Articles on Spiral Conveyors
Spiral Conveyors
Two different types of material handling equipment are referred to as “spiral
conveyors.” One is a type of conveyor which
uses belts or slats
to vertically move packages, boxes, food products and other individual items
or parcels. The other type of spiral conveyor is the bulk material handling screw
conveyor,
an enclosed screw which transports loose bulk particles vertically. These two
types of conveyors fall under separate categories of material handling, and
they cater to different industrial markets.
Spiral conveyors for the packaged material handling industry are designed to
maintain proper product orientation. The helical design allows products to
be transported up or down and require only a fraction of the floor space needed
by conventional conveyors to accomplish similar elevation differentials. Almost
any package you can convey on a belt or roller conveyor can be lifted or brought
down on a spiral conveyor. Items of various sizes can be continuously
conveyed without need of loading trays, operator supervision, special product
orientation or pre-lift staging. The spiral feeds directly from any standard
conveyor, eliminating the need for costly intermediate or synchronized handling
systems above and below with their associated complicated controls. Parcel
handling spiral conveyors are designed to transport items for airports, shipping
warehouses, food and beverage manufacturers, part assembly warehouses and other
industrial processes which require vertical transportation of large or delicate
parcels.
Spiral conveyor systems for parcel handling:
Bulk material handling spiral conveyors, properly known as "screw
conveyors,” serve a very different market. Agricultural, pharmaceutical,
chemical, wood fiber, food and consumer products manufacturers handling large
quantities of loose materials use spiral screw conveyors to transport loose
bulk material vertically as a part of the manufacturing process. Spiral screw
conveyors may be flexible or rigid, conveying materials through a motorized
screw which turns inside of an enclosed tube. Materials such as grain, powdered
chemicals, pills, plastic pellets, sugar, tea, semi-liquids and even liquids
are transported vertically through spiral screw conveyors, allowing manufacturers
to mix and transport materials easily and precisely.
Spiral screw conveyors for loose bulk handling:
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