Technical articles

During Summer travels through the countryside you can often see large grass fields filled with numerous large round bales of hay and straw waiting for being transported to the farms to feed animals. Basically, you are witnessing another agricultural engineering invention that has helped farmers around the world to complete their harvesting so much more efficiently.

In the industrial development of agriculture, the combine harvester machine is one of the most impactful technical inventions.  As the name reveals it comes from combining 3 different harvesting operations (mowing, threshing, and cleaning seeds) into one single process. The combine can harvest a wide variety of different crops such as corn, grain, oats, sunflowers, and rye. The straw that remains after the harvesting is left on the land to dry. When the straw is dry the farmer can spread and plowed back into his land. Alternatively, he can process the straw into round bales and collect them as food for his horses and/or cows.

ElectroStatic Dissipative (ESD) and AntiStatic (AS) Conveyor-belts

Most conveyor belts are made of certain polymers with high surface resistance. This provides certain insulation that does not allow electrostatic charge and discharge. Those belts are called insulated or conductive if they have a surface resistance (resistivity factor) higher than 1012 ohm/sqm. The issue with such belts is that the discharge of static build-up electricity during the conveying may damage the conveyed products or may even cause other damages during the manufacturing process. Conveyor belts used in certain applications may not be charged electrostatically.

While enjoying some freshly served tasty wines on a terrace on the slopes of Villány or Eger, probably you do not think of the journey the grapes have been making from the wine ranks to the glass. The bottle has probably been conveyed during filling, during packing, and during sales.  But it is very likely that the very first occasion the product met with conveyor belts took place at the time of harvest.