Motives of Automotive Belts in Industrial Uses

An aptly designed belt transmission system caters high efficiency, reduces noise, needs no lubrication, and presents low maintenance requirements. However, certain types of belts offer potential energy cost savings. Pulleys of different diameters permit the speed of the driven machinery to be increased or decreased.

Most of the belt drives use V-belts. V-belts use a trapezoidal cross section to generate a wedging action on the pulleys to escalate friction and improve the belt’s power transfer capability. Joined or multiple belts are specified for hefty loads. V-belt drives have a peak efficiency of 95 percent to 98 percent at the time of installation. Efficiency is also based on pulley size, driven torque, under or over-belting, and V-belt design and construction. Efficiency slumps by as much as 5 percent over time if slippage occurs because the belt is not regularly retensioned. 

Cogged belts

These have slots that run perpendicular to the belt’s length. The slots curtail the bending resistance of the belt. Cogged belts can be used with the same pulleys as equivalently rated V-belts. They run cooler, last longer, and have an efficiency that is about 2 percent higher than that of standard V-belts. 

Synchronous belts 

These are also called timing, positive-drive, or high-torque drive belts. It is toothed and entails the installation of mating toothed-drive sprockets. Synchronous renders an efficiency of about 98 percent and maintains that efficiency over a wide load range. Contrastingly, V-belts have an acute reduction in efficiency at high torque due to surging slippage. Synchronous belts require minimum maintenance and retensioning, operate in wet and oily environments, and run slip-free. However, it is noisy, inappropriate for shock weights and transfer vibrations.