Flat-Top Chain Conveyor Selection Guidelines

When a conveyor must travel around a comer, side-flexing flat-top chain offers some advantages. The cost of added motors, sprockets, and transfer plates or turntables may be avoided, and product tipping, jamming, and slipping at the transfers is eliminated. 

This chapter covers only simple horizontal flat-top conveyors that move product from one point to another. If any part of the conveyor is inclined, or if it has transfers, contact an ACA flat-top chain manufacturer for help. 

The flat-top chain conveyor must be wide enough to handle the widest object carried on it. Also, if speed is limited by other factors, two or more flat-top chains may have to be used in parallel to produce the needed ouQ)ut. This will increase conveyor width. There also must be enough clearance height to permit the carried material to pass, as well as enough clearance height in the return mn 

Conveyor length is limited by the frictional drag from the weight of the chain and product and the rated working load of the chain. As the conveyor gets longer, the drag increases and there is less available capacity to carry the product. 

Shaft center distance is often the same as the conveyor length, but sometimes it is longer. The shaft center distance may be made longer to accommodate additional loading and unloading equipment at the ends of the conveyor. Flat-top chain conveyors generally should not be more than 100 ft long. 

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