Belt Drive Inspection and Replacement

We sometimes get questions about how often belt drives should be inspected or replaced. This does not have a simple answer because belt wear and life depends on a variety of factors. Belt life depends on the original drive design, the actual loads experienced vs. the design loads, the pulley alignment, the installation tension and maintenance, and environmental conditions such as heat and chemical exposure. As you can see, many of these factors are out of our control, so therefore it is nearly impossible for any manufacturer to give an accurate estimate of the belt life without testing the actual drive. There are also many things to consider when deciding how often to inspect the drive including: Critical nature of the equipment Drive operating cycle Accessibility of equipment Drive operating speed Environmental factors Temperature extremes in the environment Probably the most important factor is the critical nature of the equipment. A belt powering an integral process to a manufacturing line should be inspected much more frequently than a small, seldom used HVAC unit should be. If the belt were to fail and shut down the assembly line, it could cost the operator a lot of money in downtime. Our general recommendations are to do a quick visual and noise inspection every one to two weeks for critical drives and once a month for normal drives. A complete shutdown inspection should be completed every three to six months. These can be adjusted depending on the factors above. For more information about drive inspection, see our Belt Drive Preventive Maintenance Manual available here: www.Gates.com/Catalogs

Selecting the Right Synchronous Replacement Belt

When replacing a synchronous belt on an existing drive, it is important to select a belt that is compatible with the sprockets. Selecting the right belt will optimize the performance and longevity of the drive.

However, the variety of styles available from numerous manufactures increases the difficulty of identifying a replacement belt. To help users select the proper replacement belt, Gates has created the Gates Belt/Sprocket Interchange (http://www.gates.com/index.cfm?location_id=3881). At this site, users can select their sprocket type and determine the best Gates replacement belt.

Rim Speeds and Maximum Diameters

Occasionally I have people asking me what the speed rating in on a specific belt. Here at Gates, we don’t give our belts a maximum speed rating like some of our competitors do. How fast is too fast then? It depends on the metal that you want or need to run. All of our sprockets and sheaves are statically balanced. We rate them to be able to run comfortably up to 6500 feet per minute (feet per minute is based on rpm AND diameter). If you plan to run them faster, you will need to have them dynamically balanced for the maximum speed you are going to reach. So what does this mean for a maximum belt speed? There are unfortunately a lot of things to consider if you’re going to be running at high speeds. If you are looking to run past 6500 ft/min, we recommend that you contact Product Applications so that we can discuss what you might expect when trying to design for high speeds.