Sustainable baggage handling

Sustainability and ‘green operations’ have become the new buzzwords in the airport industry. Airports are looking for ways to reduce their environmental footprint by recycling water and waste, reducing energy consumption, reducing noise, and improving access to airplanes and cars to reduce emissions.

Siemens engineers are designing the next generation of baggage handling products with sustainability at the center of attention. Products that will require less energy and be easier to install and maintain thus reducing the materials and energy needed for those tasks; and smart software and controls that will enable products to adapt themselves to the operating conditions are just two examples of how Siemens is providing answers to the sustainability challenges of the industry.

Reduced power consumption

Belt conveyors are by far the greatest power consumers within a baggage handling system – Siemens has devised several simple measures to reduce belt conveyor power consumption and is currently working with airports in the US on the analysis of power savings with results yielding an average decrease of 34% in power consumption.

Soon, Siemens will release two new baggage handling products, the SIBAG 300 C Flat Carousel and the second generation High Speed Diverter: HSD II.

Clever control cuts consumption

The SIBAG 300C flat carousel is a completely new baggage carousel concept that incorporates the patent pending “smart” control system. This control system balances the usage of the redundant drives to reduce energy consumption by up to 50% and provides extended service life. The system can monitor and record drive motor and carousel system run time and engage the lowest run motor as the primary drive motor. This selective process reduces drive assembly wear and extends system life over traditional, 100% engaged carousels. Installation and maintenance time is decreased with easy tensioning of the carousel chain by rotating the pins on the chain guide wheel assembly by 180 degrees on any number of chain links.

The HSD II is a new model of Siemens’ flagship horizontal sortation device (high speed diverter) with over 1,500 units installed in the US. Siemens worked with its customers to jointly identify opportunities for improvement and implement them in the new HSD II model.

The new HSD II achieves up to 24% higher throughput at lower conveyor speeds with simple and independent speed adjustment of the vertical paddle belts to improve control over bag orientation during the divert process. Several maintenance friendly improvements were also incorporated – all maintenance can be performed from the sides, mechanical settings were replaced with user-friendly servo set-up procedures, and parts and components replacement has been made significantly easier.

These are just a couple of examples of Siemens’ answers to the demanding challenges of an airport industry increasingly embracing the need to be more sustainable.

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