Rail conveyor system

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Rail conveyor system in the Regensburg University Library

The rail conveyor system is an automatic transport system for the transport of light goods up to approx. 50 kg in buildings and production facilities. It consists of profile rails , curved elements, arched elements and transfer switches installed in the building to change the direction of travel. The goods are transported by self-propelled containers that are equipped with an electric motor. Rail conveyor systems have been in use since the 1960s and were first built by Telelift .

In the beginning, rail conveyor systems were designed to transport files and distribute mail in administrative buildings. Other areas of application were added later, e.g. B. in hospitals (laboratory samples, medicines), in large libraries (books, media), in large printing plants (goods to be transported: printing plates), in retail (shoes, jewelry) and for material supply in automobile assembly.

The rail conveyor system became known to a larger television audience in the 1970s through the WDR children's series Lemmi and the Schmöker .

Rail conveyor systems are suitable for horizontal and vertical transport within buildings and production facilities. In the first systems, the destination in the transmitting station was determined by setting a combination of numbers on the conveyor container. Since the 1990s, target addressing has been carried out using inputs on a membrane keyboard or a touchscreen . The containers travel in the rail conveyor system at up to 1 m / s.

Due to their modular design, rail conveyor systems can have a considerable expansion. The rail conveyor system in the French National Library in Paris consists e.g. B. from 6.6 kilometers of profile rails, 151 destination stations and 300 containers.

Individual evidence

  1. See Telelift story [1]