Abstract
Increasing demand for longer conveyors and conveyors more heavily loaded per foot of length has brought about the necessity of using multiple drives on a single strand of conveyor chain in order to keep the weight and cost of chain and carrier units down to a reasonable point. To meet this requirement there has been developed a floating type of driving mechanism so arranged that two or more drives located at considerable distances from each other will automatically synchronize as to speed so as to maintain proper driving action at each drive point. The paper describes in detail the development of this design and its application to various types of conveyors, pointing out the advantages obtained through its use not only as a synchronizing means, but also in properly distributing the total load, in effecting smoother operation, in replacement of the standard form of shear pin, etc.
