Category: Tech Talk

A LEADER in a highly specialised steel product manufacturing field, Bisalloy Steels owes its success in the Australian mining industry to the benefits of local knowledge, imbued with a successful combination of resilience and formability. Established in 1980, Bisalloy Steels is Australia’s only manufacturer of high-tensile and abrasion-resistant quenched and tempered steel plate. With its heritage firmly grounded in the critical mining and manufacturing sectors, the company provides its highly sort-after products to a range of markets including defence, energy, mineral processing, structural engineering, and transport. Within the mining sector, the company’s Bisalloy Wear steel plates find use in a broad range of products including demolition and ground engaging tools, earthmoving buckets, drag line buckets, wear plates, chutes, dump truck…

WHEN Tui Industries CEO Jason Sulzberger decided he wanted to improve the way vibration monitoring of machinery was done, he knew where to start. With 60pc of time taken up in collecting data, and a lack of consistency in the data even before it could be analysed and diagnosed, he set his team to the task of eliminating the need for manual field monitors. The result is the development of a sensor system that is continually on-line, allowing the time previously used in data collection to be applied to analysis and monitoring of the condition of machinery in a plant. The Tui system allows the vibration monitoring to be completely controlled by external experts, who can focus solely on the…

A REVOLUTIONARY new filter produced by Metso offers exciting potential to maximise water recovery and re-use in mines, making dry stacking of tailings more feasible than ever for companies. Driven by the growing volume of tailings which have led to recent catastrophic dam failures, as well as overall and increasing scarcity of water, the mining industry is seeking sustainable solutions and strategies to address the rising risks and costs, compliances and increasing global resource footprints. While it is well-known that the risk of tailings dam failure could be completely avoided by dewatering and dry stacking the tailings, accomplishing the task has not been easy with a lack of available technology. Enter the Metso VPX filter, which has proven to provide…

HYDRAULIC cylinders are the powerhouses of modern mining operations. They work tirelessly in the harshest environments for thousands of hours lifting enormous loads and coping with earth shattering impacts. When all is well, these cylinders are seldom given a second thought on a busy mine site, but when they fail, they suddenly become the focus of attention as equipment goes out of operation and expensive downtime builds. Repairing hydraulic cylinders is viable from both a time and a cost perspective, especially when there is the option to drop off a worn cylinder and pick up a repaired one straight off the shelf. WesTrac’s parts exchange system works exactly this way and ensures that their customers are up and running as…

TYRE fitting in the mining industry is a tough job, with wheel and tyre combinations weighing many tonnes, bolts needing to be torqued to hundreds of foot-pounds and some fittings located metres off the ground. Fitters are often required to hold heavy tooling overhead in awkward positions for wheel, tyre and suspension maintenance. Despite following industry best practice, worker fatigue and Lost Time Injuries (LTIs) are still serious issues that need to be mitigated in the tyre bays of modern mining operations. They say a problem shared is a problem halved, and this certainly rings true for several companies that have been working towards creating a world-class tyre facility at Bengalla’s multi-million tonne coal operation in the Hunter Valley Coalfields…

IT’S essential for underground mining that adequate ventilation systems are in place. The Ventchoke system is a low cost mechanism that can control  secondary ventilation circuits underground with any vent duct installation. After 30  years working underground, UVS chief executive officer Darren Gilbertson took matters into his own hands to improve the ventilation issues he had experienced, and developed Ventchoke. Designed and innovated over four years, it has been through strict condition testing on-site, including 13 months initial research and development on a Kalgoorlie underground mine site. The Ventchoke offers a solution to the problem of ongoing repairs by eliminating costs on maintenance. It will work continually without attention for a minimum of 12 months, offering massive saving to mines…

RELIABLE ventilation in underground mines is literally as important as breathing, which is why a Low profile, fixed shape, low friction ventilation duct, developed by Polyline, WA, is transforming how air flows for underground miners. Ventilation is vital for maintaining workable temperatures, oxygen flowing for both humans and machines and to remove diesel particulates from machinery being used in the tunnel. Polyline, for the past 21 years has specialised in underground ventilation. Polyline is excited to introduce a new low friction ventilation duct called “Split PolyDuct”, designed specifically to minimise transportation, handling, running costs and mine downtime. To enhance its usability, Split PolyDuct comes with reusable storage and transport cradles. Polyline managing director Justin Reed emphasised the importance of this…

IMAGINE being able to have your best production day every day. This is now a reality thanks to developments in big data acquisition and modelling, machine learning, prediction and simulation software and a dramatic increase in the accuracy delivered by all these tools. Welcome to the new era of digital twinning an entire mine. Typically, mine optimisation was conducted in silos – drilling, blasting, crushing, recovery, milling etc. – looking at individual decision choices and set points within a plant to achieve the best results in that specific centre. However, by utilising historical and current data from the entire mine value chain, modelling the whole process and then relating it back to the individual geology blocks, it is possible to…

The mining industry is showing greater interest than ever in safe and sustainable solutions for managing tailings. We have started seeing actions within the financial and regulatory context but mostly financial and operational considerations driving the shift away from Tailing Storage Facilities (TSFs). As levels are rising of many tailings dams, and new licenses are harder to come by, we need to find cost-effective ways to dewater mine tailings. Water scarcity is another issue bringing sustainability to the forefront and is likely to accelerate the trend away from wet tailings disposal. One company leading the industry in tailings best practice is The Bloomfield Group in NSW Hunter Valley at its Rix’s Creek Mine. The Australian owned and operated mining and…

GLOBAL Pumps’ new mechanical seal, the SlurryPro Elite, is a completely flushless seal that doesn’t require any form of seal water to stay lubricated. Based in South Australia, the company supplies mines and industry around the world with innovative pumping technology. Its new seal, the SlurryPro Elite, can be retrofitted into all existing pumps and will eliminate extraneous gland water pumps, water injecting, contaminated water storage and constant management issues The addition of the seal will also reduce unplanned downtime of the slurry pumping process on sites. The secret to the design is explained by Global Pumps Sales Director  Darren Seeley. “A patented conical design, engineered in Italy, circulates the slurry around the seal, and uses the slurry itself as…

HEIGHTENED risks associated with wet tailings dams, as well as cuts to water allocations in mining projects, impelled FLSmidth to seek a solution to dry tailings systems that would be cost efficient for larger mines. The solution IT developed, with a functioning system currently operating in an iron ore project in WA, is economical for mines with a throughput of more than 30,000t of dry stack tailings a day, and can also be applied to mines with lower production levels. Dry tailing systems cut costs and risk. The elimination of wet tailings dams and the re-use of process water on the site minimises environmental risks to the community, cuts complexity and helps mining companies attain a social licence to operate.…