In many furnaces, the drive drum is the only motive force used to pull the belt through the hearth. In some situations, the drive drum must fight the motion of the hearth rolls driven at a slower speed and literally pull the fully loaded belt, at operating temperature, across the hearth rolls. If the furnace utilizes abrasive skid rails in the return portion of the furnace, the additional friction could compound the stress. We produce our drive drums to address these conditions, and we continue to investigate ways to make them even stronger. We know the quality of our drum construction will provide maximum use.

The ability of a cast-link belt to move uniformly and accurately through the furnace hearth is, in great measure, dependent on the quality of the drive drum. The engagement of the drive drum teeth against the belt links must be equal across the width of the belt to assure uniform stress per link and provide proper tracking of the belt.

We have been critically aware of this problem from the first drums we produced and, thus, have always profile ground the rows of teeth so that all of the teeth in a given row will engage the belt properly for uniform stress and guidance.

Furthermore, we have always cast a dual profile on our drum teeth, regardless of link style or pitch. The dual profile allows the end-user to “end-for-end” the drum after some years and use the second new profile against the belt. To use this feature, we produce rolls with both trunnions meeting the “drive end requirements” and, in most cases, the added shaft length through the expansion side bearing of the furnace causes no problem. In addition, we grind both profiles during original manufacture to match the belt style at no additional charge.