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Belt conveyor capacity & power
Enter the belt, the speed and what it is carrying. The calculator returns the capacity in tonnes an hour, the load the idlers see, and the drive power needed for the length and the lift.
Your figures
Standard widths: 500, 650, 800, 1000, 1200, 1400.
1.0–2.0 for grain and meal, up to 3.5 for ore. Fast belts spill and wear.
Wheat 780, paddy 580, meal 600, cement 1400, coal 850.
Vertical rise from loading point to discharge. Zero for a horizontal run.
Result
Capacity
- Capacity
- 2,099.5 tonnes/hour
- Per 8-hour shift
- 16,796 tonnes
- Load cross-section
- 5,184 cm²
- Load per metre
- 388.8 kg/m
2,799.4 m³/h at 750 kg/m³
20° on 800 mm belt
What the idlers carry
Power
- Drive power
- 32.27 kW
- Motor frame
- 37 kW
- Horizontal component
- 4.02 kW
- Lift component
- 22.88 kW
Friction and lift, with 20% for drive losses and starting
Next IEC size
Over 30 m
4 m rise
Belt tension, idler spacing and takeup are a separate calculation — this sizes the drive, not the belt.
Questions
How is capacity worked out?
From the cross-section of material the belt can carry and how fast it moves. Usable width is about ninety percent of the belt, leaving an edge allowance, and the troughing angle decides how much section that width holds. Capacity is that area times speed times bulk density.
What belt speed is sensible?
One to two metres a second for grain, meal and similar free-flowing materials. Faster belts carry more but spill at transfer points, wear the skirting, and degrade fragile products. Up to three and a half is normal for ore and aggregates, which do not care.
Does this size the belt itself?
No. It sizes the drive. Belt tension, ply rating, idler spacing, takeup travel and pulley diameters are a separate calculation that depends on the tensions around the whole circuit, and they are what decide the belt specification.
Why add twenty percent to the power?
Drive train losses, plus the margin needed to start a loaded belt from rest, which takes considerably more than running it. A drive sized exactly on running power will not restart after a power cut with material still on the belt.