Power Balance of Starting Process for Pipe Belt Conveyor Based on Master-Slave Control

An output power imbalance usually occurs in the driving motor of pipe belt conveyor due to the load disturbance and a variety of environmental interferences. This paper focuses on the operating condition of pipe belt conveyor where the head and tail with inclined angle are equipped with a motor separately. The discrete element method is used to propose a discrete model of the pipe belt conveyor, and its simulation model is established in the AMESim. According to the direct torque control method for the three-phase asynchronous motor, the principles for controlling the balance of dual-motor power are analyzed. A master-slave control strategy is proposed, where the master motor is controlled using a speed-given strategy and the slave motor is controlled using a torque-given strategy. A simulation model is built for the dual-motor driven system in the MATLAB-Simulink. After establishing a correlation between parameters through VS2010, a joint simulation model was established for the control system of the pipe belt conveyor. Simulation analysis and field test of the starting process are performed. Results of comparison with the traditional master-slave control strategy demonstrate the ability of the proposed method to balance the master-slave motor power of the pipe belt conveyor more effectively.