Belt conveyor head & tail pulley nip point guards
20th September 2019
Nip point accidents happen when people, clothes or hair are caught between the tail or head pulley and the conveyor belt. These pulleys are located at the ends of a belt conveyor section. Because they drive an entire length of a conveyor, these pulleys are powerful and can cause frightful injuries. Head pulleys return the belt to the underside of the conveyor. Tail pulleys return the belt to the top of the conveyor (the load side). Nip point guards help prevent these accidents and should never be removed.
Belt tracking shouldn’t require constant tweaks
There are times when the guards are removed for ease of maintenance. If the belt isn’t properly tracked, your maintenance crew will remove guards every time they work on the system. If this happens too frequently, it’s possible that they will simply leave the guards off.
Belts tend to lose tracking for a number of reasons, including:
Incorrect weights conveyed on the system
Incorrect running speeds
Lack of consistent maintenance
Improper belt tension
Inadequate belt cleaning
These root causes can increase the number of times your guards are removed. Addressing them makes your system run better while reducing the number of times a pulley must be accessed, which helps avoid this type of injury. See your conveyor’s technical documentation for detailed adjustment instructions.
You may want to fully enclose these and other pulleys if the conveyor is located in high-traffic areas, or people have frequent interactions with it.