Dynamics characteristics analysis on shaft sprocket assembly of rake conveyor

Abstract

Every year, the Ngadirejo sugar factory encounters the same issue: The sprocket shaft of the eastern C2 rake conveyor at the boiler station fails. This conveyor is used to transfer bagasse from the mill to the kettle. As a result, when one of these components fails, the manufacturing process will be delayed. Static analysis was performed on a failing shaft in prior research, but the life cycle of the shaft was still relatively long. In this research, by employing HQ705 shaft materials, the modal and random vibration on the sprocket shaft was analyzed to determine the cause of this failure further. The analysis was carried out by using Ansys to implement the finite element method. This model used 8523 nodes and 4118 elements in the mesh. For modal analysis, as the number of orders increased, so did the frequency. The fourth and fifth-order vibrations included torsional vibration, with the most complex form, among others, with frequencies of 3061.6 and 3283.1 Hz. Maximum equivalent stress and maximum shear stress occurred at the exact location for static and random vibration analysis. The analysis is relevant to the actual failure that happened in reality.