Designing a Pallet Chain Conveyor: Calculations and Approaches

[FEAnalyst]

TL;DR

How to perform design calculations for pallet chain conveyor?

Hi,

I'm not sure how to approach the design calculations for chain conveyor. It's rather easy to find formulas for belt conveyor but it's not the same. I also thought about the use of procedure applicable to chain drive but in case of conveyor load is placed directly on the chain (or a pair of chains, actually).
How would you approach such design calculations ?

 

[jrmichler]

Exactly what calculations are you trying to do? I kinda sort of get the idea that you want to find the drive torque to pull a loaded chain over a slider bed, but I'm not sure from your description.

Hint: A sketch is worth a thousand words...

 

[FEAnalyst]

Actually, all necessary calculations. I would like to follow the whole design procedure. I guess that some parts will be similar to approaches used for other conveyors (especially belt conveyor). But mainly I’m interested in evaluation of required torque (to select motor) and some strength calculations.

So far I’m just doing research in this topic. I don’t have even initial design yet.