Engineering & Mining Journal

APR 2013

Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr

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develop solutions for gearless conveyor drives, and reports that the first project to be developed jointly will be undertaken in Chile. Elsewhere, ABB and Joy Global completed a shovel retrofit project for the largest merchant coke producer in the U.S. last October. ABB replaced the shovel's obsolete drives and relay controls, giving it another 10 years of life as well as cutting its energy consumption by up to 20%. Energy-efficient Drive Systems from Nord Getriebebau Nord GmbH & Co. KG (Nord Drivesystems) has been supplying drives to users in all sectors of industry since the company was founded in 1965. Today, it has subsidiaries in 35 countries around the world, complementing its headquarters in Bargteheide, near Hamburg, and its other plants in Germany. The company specializes in drive technologies such as drive motor-gearboxes, frequency converters and servo-controllers. Typical applications in the minerals industry include drives for mills, conveyors and other materials-handling systems and, as Nord's manager for the cement and minerals sectors, Robin Werner, told Best of Germany, these areas now form one of the company's most important markets. "Our aim is to optimize the energy efficiency of our motors and gearboxes," he added. Nord offers motor-gearbox sets with capacities from 10 to more than 200,000 Nm, while building its own electric motors up to 200 kW size. In fact, it says, its customers have something like 40 million potential design variations to chose from, enabling them to select exactly the right unit for the job. "We help customers through the process of selecting the correct gearbox," Werner said, pointing out that customers can use online tools as part of the process. 2013 • VDMA MINING SUPPLEMENT Time-critical orders can be turned around in 24 hours, the company claims. As an example of minerals-sector use of its drives, Nord reports that the major European cement and aggregates producer, Holcim, has equipped its operations in Croatia with these units. At the Sumber and Ocura quarries, for instance, they are fitted to all of the conveying systems, including belt conveyors, bucket elevators and screw conveyors, each of which has markedly different operating characteristics and loadings. At Holcim's 750,000 mt/y-capacity Koromacno cement plant, meanwhile, Nord drives are used for all of the materials-transport systems, including conveyors. The company has supplied helical, parallel and bevel-geared motors for these applications which, in some cases, require the units to be manufactured to explosionproof standards. As it has been using a uni-block casing system for more than 30 years, Nord says, this presents no problems, with all of the gearbox bearing seats and sealing surfaces being machined to high tolerances on the latest CNC-machining centers. Nord reports that Holcim has been so pleased that it recently signed a three-year contract to replace existing units with Nord drives at all of its operations in nine eastern and central European countries. VDMA Gearless Drives: The Key to Higher Production Companies in the global mining industry are facing major challenges, says Siemens. If they are to improve productivity while simultaneously cutting costs, mining companies need high-performance products that are also energy-efficient and offer maximum availability and flexibility. Such products also need to comply with VDMA 45

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