A flood prevention project in Machida, Tokyo, is using pouch conveyor belts to transport bulk materials safely and cleanly with low noise and emissions.
As part of Tokyo’s development, a number of rivers have been built over or regulated to create space to live, leading to a higher risk of floods.
To mitigate this risk, the city is building an underground catch basin that can hold up to 150,000 cubic meters of water.
Without this, the water could flood residential areas, shut down public life and poses a danger to people.
Conveyor manufacturer Continental supplied a special conveyor belt to transport the material from the excavation of the collecting basin in the middle of a residential area.
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Thousands of tonnes of earth and bulk material must be excavated and transported out of a 20 metres pit to build the basin.
The conveyor, which is more than 750-metres-long, will start operation in a few weeks. It will transport 280 tonnes of material every hour at a speed of 1.4 seconds per metre across the residential area to a nearby main street, where it is discharged onto trucks.
“The Sicon conveyor belt is a closed system from the feeding point to the discharging point,” Continental Sales for Conveying Solutions in the Asia-Pacific region, Gabriele Hennig-Juman, said.
“It can negotiate curves of up to 180 degrees, making it extremely flexible when routing the line and adaptable to any environment.
Corners and edges can therefore be bypassed without additional transfer points – curve radii of less than one meter can be achieved.”
The belt conveyor can overcome large differences in height in a very tight space by using a snaking route.
The belt is manufactured in Northeim (Germany) and shipped from there to Japan. Contractors on site are the local Japanese-German joint venture of Continental Bando-Scholtz and Furukawa Industrial Machinery Systems, a specialist in Japan in steel construction and industrial equipment.
Bando-Scholtz CEO Masaaki Ogino said the pouch conveyor belt meets particularly demanding requirements in terms of cost-effectiveness and environmental compatibility.
“This reliable and clean transport solution takes into account both ecological aspects and preservation of the quality of life for local people,” Ogino said.