Dynamics Characteristics Analysis on Shaft Sprocket Assembly of Rake Conveyor

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.HIGHLIGHTSOne of the common problem in the sugar company rake conveyor is failure in the sprocket shaft of the eastern C2 rake conveyor at the boiler stationModal and vibration analysis conducted in order to find the dynamic behaviour of the sprocket shaft rake conveyorMaximum equivalent stress and maximum shear stress occur on the same location for static, modal and random vibration analysis. Those analysis is relevant with the real failure that has been occur in the realityGRAPHICAL ABSTRACT