How to Safely and Properly Maintain a Conveyor Chain

By: Scott Bahr

Conveyor chains have been a staple in ore handling and underground mining for a century. These chains provide a robust and reliable means of conveying ore from the mining face. They operate in incredibly challenging environments of high loads, hot and dusty conditions, and unforgiving handling. Even with their inherent reliability, there is still required maintenance that needs to be performed on the chain due to the challenges they face each day.

For years, this was a challenge due to the cramped conditions of underground mining and required a combination of hammers, acetylene torches, and elbow grease. Now, as technology has developed, and maintenance playing a larger role in safety concerns, there are a variety of things that must be considered when maintaining conveyor chains.

Acetylene torches and swinging hammers

When it comes to maintaining conveyor chains, there have been two main ways to separate and replace chain links while working in the cramped underground mining spaces typical of conveyor chains. The first is to use an acetylene torch, which utilizes heat to separate the chains by cutting through their connectors. Often, it’s important to get a hot work permit to properly understand how to use this tool in cramped spaces around people and other equipment. The torch needs to be quite small, and the person performing the work needs to be extremely cautious of their surroundings, almost more than they usually are in a workshop environment because of the spatial limitations.

The other tool typically used in conveyor chain maintenance is a hammer to separate the chain’s links. Using force, much like using heat, in a constricted underground mining space, can be quite dangerous to the people and equipment around the user. While it is one way to break the chain apart, it’s not the safest or most effective way.

Operator safety

Another major concern when performing maintenance on a conveyor chain in an underground mining space is the safety of the operator. The person who is performing the maintenance is at a higher risk than doing the same task out of the mining space. Because the conveyor chain is usually 60 to 70 feet long and very heavy, it doesn’t make logical sense to take the chain off-site for maintenance, or even to a closer on-site shop. With this in mind, the user of the maintenance tools must be well aware of the risks that can come to themselves, to those around them, and the other equipment while performing these tasks. Through awareness of the risks and proper planning, the dangers can be minimized and a safe plan can be made. 

A safety solution

Bit Service has been working in the underground mining field for many decades, and our staff is quite familiar with increasing the safety of conveyor chain maintenance. We work closely with manufacturers that have safer solutions to maintenance than heat or brute force. The introduction of the Cincinnati Mine Machinery C-14731 Chain Press greatly increases the safety and efficiency of the conveyor chain maintenance process. Replacing connecting link assemblies is a matter of hydraulically pressing the link apart for removal, and together for assembly, which eliminates the need for the swinging hammer or the torch for this process.  The compact nature of the press allows for its use in the conveyor deck of the machine, and the design allows for safe and controlled maintenance of the chain.