Process Analysis of the Hot Plate Welding of Drive Belts

Most industrial machines use belt transmission for power transfer. These mechanisms often use the round belts of several millimetres in diameter that are made of thermoplastic elastomers, especially polyurethane. Their production process calls for bonding the material, which is often performed by hot plate butt welding. In order to achieve proper design of an automatic welding machine, the authors analysed the hot plate welding process of round belts. This process consists of five phases. It is necessary to recognize all the physical phenomena that occur during welding, especially those connected with thermomechanical properties of material. This knowledge is necessary to determine the temperature distribution during each step of the process. The paper presents a standard welding cycle together with an explanation of the physical phenomena in each phase. An analysis of these fundamentals will be used to derivate the function of temperature distribution during all process phases. In addition, some assumptions for calculation of temperature distribution and some fundamental physic correlations were presented.