UNCC Students Improve CLT Baggage Belt

From the Charlotte Douglas International Airport internal newletter:

UNC Charlotte (UNCC) engineering students have made improvements to CLT’s baggage handling system. In August 2018, CLT participated in UNCC’s Senior Design Program. As part of the program, senior engineering students examined the Airport’s baggage handling system and came up with an idea to improve the system’s tilt table, which bags often got caught on.

The students measured the tilt table and came up with a new design. The old design was mainly a slide with a coating on it that helped bags move along. Over time, the coating would wear off, causing bags to get stuck. The students created a new design featuring rollers to help bags slide easier. In January, the new table was installed, which today is working well, Andy Williams, conveyor and loading bridge operations supervisor, said.

“They took leadership of it and ownership and came out with a fantastic design,” Williams said when talking about the students’ work.

The seniors who helped create and install the device were Frank Powell, Jeremiah Smith, Bala Sethuraman, Wyatt Taylor, Trevor Johnson, Marie Caceres Carvajal, and Jacob Sipe. They completed the work with the help of their mentor, Dr. Yesim Sireli, Siemen’s personnel, which operates CLT’s baggage system, and members of CLT’s engineering team.

“I feel like we were actually able to build something tangible that will have an impact on customers in the future,” Sipe, a member of the UNCC team, said. “We were able to get real world experience of how to design and build something.”

Click HERE to see a video of the new tilt table in action.