Engineering & Mining Journal

OCT 2017

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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CONVEYORS 60 E&MJ; • OCTOBER 2017 www.e-mj.com Conveyor systems offer mine operators a seemingly simple solution to a perpetu- al problem — getting bulk material from Point A to Point B in the quickest, low- est-cost and most reliable way possible. And at the most basic level, a sufficient number of frames, pulleys, idlers and mo- tors, and a roll of conveyor belting can be arranged to transport just about any type of mined material almost anywhere. But, as the saying goes, the devil is in the de- tails: Simplicity and engineering elegance are not necessarily one and the same, and the frequent need to assign critical pro- duction flow to a single conveyor system can elevate the risk of high downtime costs to a level that makes faulty design, component failures or unplanned mainte- nance unacceptable. The bulk conveying market is moving in the direction of larger, faster, longer and often more specialized conveyor sys- tems that deliver high performance while remaining energy efficient, and in some cases, causing less impact on the local environment. A rundown of conveyor-re- lated project news illustrates the trend. In July, thyssenkrupp's Industrial Solutions group announced it won a con- tract to supply a material handling sys- tem for the new Oyu Tolgoi underground mine in Mongolia. The project consists of nine conveyors with a combined length of 9.5 kilometers (km) and seven transfer towers operating at a design ton- nage of 7,100 tons per hour (t/h). First production from underground is expect- ed in 2020. The underground portion of the material handling system will transport 95,000 t/d of copper ore to the surface from a depth of nearly 1,400 meters (m). The main under- ground components are four high-lift con- veyors, each equipped with 1.6-m-wide steel-cord belts and dual 5,500-kilowatt (kW) gearless drives from Siemens. Addi- tional conveyors will feed the main incline conveyors and tie the new underground system into the existing process facility. The contract calls for thyssenkrupp to provide engineering, design and supply, as well as site support services during the construction and commissioning phases. According to the company, the system will be designed with an emphasis on ease of maintenance. Additional design attention will be focused on the ability to safely move the system's drive compo- nents, which are massive in terms of size and weight, to their underground installa- tion sites and to ensure they can be safely exchanged in the future. Overhead bridge cranes will be strategically placed to aid in the erection of the major structures and assist in subsequent maintenance. Peter Sehl, vice president of mining technologies at thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions (USA), told E&MJ; that during the various stages of the project, regular design reviews will be conducted with an eye toward making the system as safe and reliable as possible. "In order to improve the overall reliability of the conveying system, there is an emphasis on making the system maintenance friendly. Inter- changeable transfer chute sections allow the owner to safely remove sections of the chutes so that liner replacement and general chute maintenance can be con- ducted in their maintenance shop rather than in confined spaces in the transfers. Idler rolls are designed to be quickly re- placed and a system will be developed to use equipment to safely change heavy idler rolls and reduce the risk of injury to maintenance personnel," Sehl explained. Moving More For Less The industry is asking for conveyors with higher capacities, lower energy costs and safer, more reliable components, along with less environmental impact. Here's how system suppliers are meeting those requests. By Russell A. Carter, Contributing Editor thyssenkrupp is designing an underground conveyor system, a portion of which is shown here in model format, to transport 95,000 t/d of copper ore to the surface at the future Oyu Tolgoi deep mine in Mongolia.

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