If you build conveyors, silos or mobile silos for frac sand, CamFlex lets your equipment move more sand with a smaller belt, in a smaller footprint. A 30" CamFlex CF3030 running 600 FPM climbs a 60° incline all day long and moves roughly 600 tons of frac sand an hour. A conventional belt can't load that much material that fast from a machine that size.
That is the number one reason CamFlex is the belt for frac sand. Everything else it does well is gravy on top.
Buy it the way that fits your build: CamFlex belt on its own for your conveyor, or the belt and a complete Cambelt conveyor together.
Reason one: more sand, smaller belt, smaller footprint
CamFlex carries frac sand on molded conical nubs that grip every grain, so the load stays put at 60° and 600 FPM. Speed and angle together set capacity, and that is where CamFlex outruns a conventional belt.
CamFlex CF3030 at 600 FPM, 60° incline
- Belt: 30" CamFlex, 3" nubs
- Capacity at 100% belt fill, 100 PCF: ~830 STPH
- Working capacity, 100 PCF: ~600 STPH
Steep is what shrinks the machine. To reach the same discharge height, a conventional conveyor at 20° needs about 2.5 times as much belt and nearly 5 times the ground as CamFlex at 60°. Less belt, less steel, less footprint, and the tons per hour go up, not down.
For an equipment builder, that changes the design. A steeper, narrower belt that carries more means a shorter, lighter conveyor for the same lift. On a mobile silo, it means less conveyor to fold, haul and set up. On a fixed silo, it means filling faster from a smaller footprint. Your machine out-produces bigger competitors without getting bigger.
The gravy on top
Throughput is why you buy CamFlex. These are why it keeps running on frac sand.
What frac sand does to a conventional belt
Frac sand is nearly pure quartz: hard, angular at the fracture and rounded at the grain, and moved by the trainload. That combination finds every weak point in a conveyor belt.
- It grinds. Quartz is harder than the steel in most conveyor components. Every pass across a transfer point wears the carrying surface.
- It finds the glue line. Cleats and sidewalls that are bonded onto a flat belt have a seam. Fines work into that seam, and the attachment peels.
- It attacks splices. Mechanical fasteners and field splices are the first thing to wear, catch or fail, and each failure stops the line.
- It rolls back. Round grains on a flat or lightly cleated belt slide downhill as the incline rises. A conventional belt gives up throughput as the angle climbs, so the machine gets longer to compensate.
- It makes dust. OSHA identifies sand used in hydraulic fracturing as a source of respirable crystalline silica (OSHA). Spillage and carryback put it in the air.
One piece, no glue line
CamFlex is molded as a single piece of rubber: base belt, sidewall and nubs cured together, not glued on afterward (Cambelt). There is no seam for sand to work into and no bond to fail.
That is the difference that matters most on frac sand. Cambelt's own words: "Nothing glued on, nothing to delaminate" (Cambelt). CamFlex fully molded belts are unconditionally guaranteed against delamination of the sidewall from the base belt.
The compound is chosen for the job, too. Cambelt specifies the rubber and the wear surface to the material, the impact and the tons per hour, not to what happens to be on the shelf (Cambelt).
Enclosed by design
CamFlex runs best enclosed. On Cambelt's own conveyors, CamFlex runs inside a precision-manufactured enclosure that creates a vortex, holding material to the belt so it can run at higher speeds. You can buy the belt alone and build it into your own conveyor, or buy the belt and the enclosed conveyor together from Cambelt.
For frac sand, the enclosure does two more jobs. It keeps sand on the belt instead of on the ground, and it reduces dust at the source, where silica exposure starts. Less spillage means less cleanup and less sand lost between the railcar and the truck.
Buy it from the people who make it
When you build CamFlex into your equipment, you buy it from the factory that molds it. Cambelt makes its belt in Salt Lake City and has been engineering conveyor applications since 1959 (Cambelt). Cambelt also builds its own conveyors and transloaders around CamFlex, so the belt is proven on frac sand in Cambelt's own machines.
That matters to your customers, too. Replacement belts and technical support come straight from the factory that molded the original. Cambelt designs for mean time between failure, not list price (Cambelt).
The bottom line
Frac sand jobs are measured in tons per hour. CamFlex moves more of them with a smaller belt, at 60°, in a smaller footprint. And it keeps doing it, because there are no seams to peel and no splices to fail.
For an OEM, that means a conveyor or silo that out-produces a bigger machine, and customers who keep running.
Talk to a Cambelt engineer about CamFlex for your conveyors and silos, as a belt or as a complete conveyor: 801.972.5511 or cambelt.com.
Tell us about your frac application
We want to hear how you handle frac sand. Whether you're designing a new conveyor, building silos or mobile silos, or fighting a belt that won't last, tell us about it. Share the details and a Cambelt engineer will follow up:
- What equipment you build or run: conveyor, fixed silo, mobile silo
- Tons per hour you need to move
- Incline and lift height, and the space you have to work in
- The belt you run today and where it fails
Call 801.972.5511 or reach us at cambelt.com.