FIGURE 6 Positive discharge bucket conveyor cutaway and cross section. (Courtesy American Chain Association, Washington, DC.)

To ensure clearance, let the drum diameter be 32 in., and design for a wrap angle, α, of 300°. From the sprocket pitch diameter and the bucket weights, find

as the maximum expected value of the torque. Here W denotes the expected maximum weight of material in a bucket and N denotes the number of buckets one each side. Chain and empty bucket weights were ignored because the chain and empty bucket assembly is in equilibrium due to the symmetry of the conveyor system about its vertical axis.