Magnetically loaded composite for roller drives

Electrically driven rollers are used in many areas of industry, for applications ranging from the transportation of heavy objects to high accuracy printing. Frequently, a number of rollers are driven from a simple electro-mechanical source. However, there has been a trend towards the use of individual roller drives, the motor being mounted either at the side of the machine, which still increases the space requirement, or inside the machine, and coupled to the surrounding roller through gears, which makes maintenance more complex. In addition, a high proportion of current rollers have a high mass, which leads to a significant energy requirement for acceleration. Urenco (Capenhurst) Ltd has developed highly advanced carbon fibre composite technology. This technology has been advanced by imparting magnetic properties to the composite, to facilitate the realisation of self-powered rollers, having mechanical properties superior to those of steel rollers, but for only a fraction of the mass. This paper outlines developments to date of these compact low inertia rollers