Conveyors
Sidewall belts for steep and vertical conveying
Reviewed August 2026
Short answer
A sidewall belt has flexible corrugated walls bonded along both edges and transverse cleats between them, forming moving buckets. It carries bulk material from roughly 40° up to vertical in a fraction of the length a conventional incline would need. Specify it by capacity, lift height, material and the base-belt requirement.
A sidewall belt turns a conveyor into a bucket elevator that still runs on conventional idlers. It is the tool for lift in a small footprint.
How it is built
- Base belt — a conventional fabric carcass with a cover grade chosen for the material
- Sidewalls — corrugated flexible rubber walls bonded along each edge; heights from tens of millimetres to several hundred
- Cleats — transverse dividers between the walls that form the carrying pockets
What to send us
- Required capacity (tph) and the material (type, bulk density, lump size, moisture)
- Lift height and the conveyor profile — feed section, vertical section, discharge
- Belt speed if fixed, and any headroom or footprint constraint
- Environment and any fire-performance requirement
Our engineer confirms the sidewall height, cleat spacing and base-belt spec against the capacity and lift.
Related questions
When floor space or headroom is tight, when the lift is high relative to the available length, or when a near-vertical section is unavoidable. It costs more per metre than plain belt but saves civil work and footprint.
The sidewall height and cleat spacing set the cross-sectional area; belt speed and the material's bulk density do the rest. Very lumpy or very sticky material needs review.
