Understanding Spiral Conveyors 2023


Written by Mehak Gupta
2 mins, 44 secs Read
Published On October 11, 2022

If you’re new to spiral conveyors or would like to narrow the viable options for vertical conveyor solutions quickly, this guide will help you understand Spiral Conveyors, their features and benefits, and how they SpiralConveyor work.

About Spiral Conveyors

Spirals conveyors include a continuous process such as proofing, cooling, or freezing. In its simplest form, a Low Tension spiral consists of an upright motor-driven drum or cage, and a side flex conveyor belt is wrapped around them. The conveyor belt moves either up or down in a spiral path and is supported by continuous belt support rails fixed to the other frame of the conveyor in a helical way. 

Spiral-wheel

Factors Need to Consider While Using Spiral Conveyors

When conveyor lines need to change elevations, spiral conveyors address many common factors and challenges when moving products from one level to another. Some of them are:

  • The slope can’t be too steep, or a longer conveyor length will be required.
  • You must consider the type of product you are conveying.
  • Taking the long stretch of a gradually sloped conveyor will help you.

Features & Benefits

  • Easy to install
  • By conveying the product vertically, you can maximize the floor space. 
  • effective and more efficient than elevators
  • allows you to customize the spirals to fit many applications

Standard Spiral Conveyor Sizes 

Special sizes can be manufactured to suit your applications. Standard Spiral Conveyors sizes are:


Belt WidthEffective Belt WidthInside Belt RadiusOutside Frame Diameter
254 mm234 mm381 mm  1270 mm
305 mm285 mm458 mm1526 mm
406 mm  386 mm609 mm2030 mm
508 mm488 mm762 mm2540 mm
610 mm590 mm915 mm3050 mm
660 mm640 mm990 mm3300 mm
762 mm742 mm1143 mm3810 mm
813 mm793 mm1220 mm4066 mm
1016 mm996 mm1524 mm5080 mm

Pros of Spiral Conveyors 

Some attractive set of benefits a business can get while using Spiral Conveyors: 

Superior Product Handling

The all-plastic contact surface ensures an excellent product release of unpacked food products such as poultry, meat, and fish. In addition, the open spiral design allows for an extensive open area.

Optimise floor capacity

The Spiral conveyor systems have a compact and space-saving floor design. They optimize your floor capacity with their small footprint and a curve radius of 1.5 x belt width. The tight spiral conveyor fits into almost any plant design.

Long tracks and fewer transfers

Using bearings in the chain ensures a low friction coefficient and helps the spiral managed by just one motor for up to 50 meters of belt length. In addition, long spiral conveyor tracks mean fewer transfers and economical conveyance.

Easy Access for Maintenance

The open design of the spiral conveyor system offers clear access for maintenance and wash-down and helps to reduce maintenance costs and better belt sanitation.

Cons of Spiral Conveyors

Some of the drawbacks of using Spiral Conveyors are:

  • Provides limited conveying distance (30m per screw)
  • Can degrade the particle and poor conveying of high friction 
  • Metal-on-metal contact can cause contamination 

Spiral Conveyor— How does it work?

Spiral conveyors are also known as vibratory bowl feeders, pot feeders, or vibratory bowl feeders. You can trace these names back to the specific design of the spiral conveyor and its mode of operation: The sorting top of a spiral conveyor is like a pot, a tightly connected cylindrical spiral known as Helix. Concerning the helical conveyor track or the spiral conveyor bowl, it also makes a distinction between cylindrical shape, step shape, and conical shape.

The mode of operation is relatively simple: The conveyor tracks the bowl feeder’s vibration by an electromagnetic oscillating drive. With this vibration, you can move the object in the desired direction and initiate a throwing motion called  Micro- throwing. You can also install the sorting element known as baffles manually. However, depending on the design of the spiral conveyor, it is possible to make modifications that allow the baffles to change the transport items.

Changing the conveying speed by changing the vibration strength or vibration frequency is possible. Furthermore, various additional elements can be connected, such as temperature regulation. Apart from spiral coolers, there are also heating spiral conveyors, which ensure that the temperature of the items rises regularly.




Author: Mehak Gupta
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