I am installing a conveyor system to move a wooden pallet which weighs 3500lbs a distance of 35 feet. The conveyor is not driven , what would be the correct angle to allow the pallet to move from one end to the other under it’s own force?
I can’t answer the question, but I can ask more questions!
How fast do you want it to be going when it gets to it’s destination?
How fast is it going when it gets to the start of the conveyer?
Is it a conveyer with a belt, or the kind with the rollers that look like skate wheels?
How much force is required to move the belt, if any, with no load. I.E., how much friction in the system?
Make sure that at the end you put an upslope equal to the downslope so that you can stop the thing. If this is a one time thing I would go to the harware store see if I could rent or buy a block and tackle rig. I would be quite reluctant to let a 3500 lb. object roll down a slope all on its own.
If there’s fairly low friction in the conveyor, you ought to set it up level, so that it won’t roll on it’s own. You should only need a few people to get it moving (think about pushing a car, which weighs in the same ballpark). Once you get it rolling you need only to push it hard enough to overcome the friction in the system. Stopping it will require the same amount of energy you used to start it. Lettign it roll on its own is an inivitation to disaster, since it will accelerate at (9.8 ms[sup]-1[/sup] / 90) * A, where A is the Ramp angle with respect to horizontal.