SME membership manager Tara Davis told International Longwall News that more than 4000 attendees are expected to be on site at the Salt Palace Convention Center by US Monday.
While short courses, mixers and other activities began over the weekend and will continue later on in the week, the full conference and exposition schedule will run from Monday through Wednesday.
Davis said the exhibit floor at the convention centre is sold out, with an estimated 371 vendors setting up their displays and preparing to talk about products, services and emerging technology with guests. Several companies have even opted to collaborate and show together in one space.
While neither the attendance nor the vendor total are records for the society, the group was very happy with the numbers as they are very similar to last year's totals when the meeting and exhibit took place in Denver, Colorado – historically one of the best locations for SME annual meetings, she said.
“We are excited to hold our annual meeting in SLC and welcome the opportunity for networking with new industry professionals as well as our members coming from all around the world," Davis added.
The event, entitled "New Horizons, New Challenges", is scheduled to run through February 27.
Conveying education
Also in Salt Lake City this week, Western-based conveyor firm Overland Conveyor will offer its seventh biennial symposium on conveyor technology and bulk material handling.
Held in conjunction with the sessions and exposition of SME 2008, Bulk Material Handling by Belt Conveyor 7 kicked off with weekend short courses and will wrap up February 27.
The workshop includes the following presentations:
Evolutionary Belt Conveyor Design – Optimising Costs – Dr Craig Wheeler, University of Newcastle;
Dynamics of long belt conveyors with distributed drives – Professor Gabriel Lodewijks, Delft University;
Conveyor Belt Rubber Indentation Research – Thomas J Rudolphi, PhD, Iowa State University;
Simulation as a Tool to Determine Stockyard Handling Capacity – Eric Monrad and Dr Harry King, Sandwell Engineering; and
Interfacing Belt Feeders and Hoppers to Achieve Reliable Operation – John Carson, Francisco Cabrejos and David Goodwill, Jenike & Johanson.
A presentation entitled "Simulation for Equipment Sizing – Longwall to Stockpile" will also be offered, authored by Australian expert Edmond O'Donovan of EJ O'Donovan and Associates. The paper, according to organisers, will focus on the method of determining capacities for various face and outby systems.
“[It] sets out to show that a single nominal capacity is not sufficient to size the different systems. The manner in which the longwall is operated and the overall system configuration can have a significant impact on overall productivity," organisers said, adding that the importance of component availability on overall output will also be included in the discussion.
Another topic, "Predicting Material Behavior on Conveyors using DEM", will also be taken on by Colorado School of Mines experts Dr Graham Mustoe and Bin Ren. Discrete element modelling, or DEM, can eliminate the need for the simplifying of assumptions that is needed using other analysis methods.
The effects of idler spacing belt speed and sag with various types of bulk materials will be examined in the presentation using the DEM method, which models the bulk material as a discrete system of particles with specified distribution of size and interaction laws for dry versus wet as well as the belt's geometry shape using a 3D CAD illustration.
