Australia is the creative hub for many exciting innovations in the mining industry and the new Wear Asset Monitoring (WAM) system from Alloy Steel International (ASI) is a perfect example of local ingenuity.
Real-Time Wear Plate Condition Monitoring
The use of wear plate to protect chutes, conveyors, truck bodies and dozens of other vulnerable areas that are in constant contact with abrasive ores or slurries is standard practice across the mining industry. Just like sacrificial anodes, these hard steel or ceramic shields take a beating to keep plants in operation and the mine in production.
However, when these wear surfaces need replacing, the cost of a shut down to repair or replace them is significant. The cost of an unplanned shutdown due to a failure is even more significant. So, mining operations are constantly trying to assess the condition of their protective wear surfaces, measure their thicknesses and use historical and empirical data to predict their remaining useful life.
This is all good in theory, but in reality, some of these surfaces are buried under hundreds of tons of material in some cases and are corralling huge conveyors in others. Once again, the cost of measuring their thicknesses at strategic points is difficult, time consuming, expensive and often dangerous.
Alloy Steel International has over 30-years’ experience in the wear plate business and they recognised this challenge being faced by their customers around the world. In response to this, a team of four dedicated professionals was created, who put their effort and expertise – right here in Australia – into a real-time, wireless wear monitoring solution development that is as tough as the conditions it must work in and as reliable as the proverbial Swiss watch.
The Australian Mining Review visited Alloy Steel International’s HQ in Malaga, Western Australia, to take a closer look at this revolutionary new product. One part of this enormous facility is dedicated to the manufacture of Arcoplate and a host of other wear resistant products. Another part of the factory houses a fully-equipped scientific laboratory for material analysis, an electronics lab, a computer-aided design facility, CNC lathes and milling machines and an abundance of qualified technicians and engineers to bring each of these departments together.
WAM in a Nutshell
“In simple terms, the Wear Asset Monitor (WAM) is a small device embedded into a specially manufactured and machined section of wear plate that is fitted to the chute, bucket or tray body, as part of the normal protective surface,” explained Kyrylo Sliusenko, manager of the project. The device features a probe, with two measuring tips, which protrude through the plate in two different planes to measure wear independently in each orientation if required. It is also possible to measure only a single plane if necessary.
It is these probe tips that wear down as the surrounding plate also wears, to give real time measurement of a plate’s thickness – 24/7. A node attached to the probe also houses an in-built temperature sensor.
The measurements are transmitted from the embedded device via a local 3G network, for reliable data transfer, and is stored in the cloud, transmitted to Alloy Steel’s technicians for constant monitoring and are also sent to the client.
WAM in Condition Monitoring
The most powerful aspect of the WAM system is its ability to become part of a total condition monitoring system. By its design, WAM is a minimally intrusive, online condition monitoring system for wear liners installed on a wide range of mining equipment. The system reduces human-machine interaction (improves the EHS program of a mine site).
It also eliminates planned production stand-down time for manual inspection of mining equipment and therefore increases production efficiency. Currently, machines are serviced based on running hours and are visually and ultrasonically tested regularly in an effort to measure the thickness and general condition of the wear surface. This assumes that a technician can actually reach all the surfaces that require testing. As mentioned, it can often require a partial shutdown to render the area safe for inspection and clear ore or other material in order to access the area to take readings. Naturally, this creates expensive downtime.
Even with access to the necessary areas, accuracy of results with conventional ultrasonic thickness testing is not guaranteed. Any flaws within the material or even separate layers of stacked material can create ultrasonic reflections that do not reveal the true thickness of the material.
In complete contrast, as the probe tips wear in relation to the surfaces in which they are implanted, the true and correct thickness of the wear material is continually sent to maintenance managers. So, not only is the system safer for staff, it is also substantially cheaper to run as it does not require a partial shutdown to retrieve measurements and the wear information is available instantly.
WAM Hardware
The system consists of fully encapsulated and powered-for-life wireless modules with probes embedded into wear liners, developed by hardware engineer, Max Perry. The sensing unit communicates its information over a long-range low energy wireless network, which allows the data to pass across busy metal structures, typical in the mining industry, back to a host gateway. The gateway transfers the data received from sensing units to the WAM software via mobile 3G/4G or a plant (WiFi, Ethernet cable) network. All communication channels are securely encrypted.
The system enables automated collection of machine health data and helps to turn it into required maintenance activities without the need to stop for inspections and before any catastrophic failure occurs.
WAM Software
The transmitted data from each sensor is stored in a highly secured database infrastructure, fronted by a web-based user interface created by software developers Michal Olszak and Adam Chochol. This system delivers cross-platform performance and provides asset visualisation via 2D and 3D maps and displays all valuable and relevant information at a glance including: alarms; status bars; trends for actual wear (both horizontal and vertical where applicable); the gap between skirt liner and conveyor belt (where applicable); internal temperature; battery level and a skirt liner gap adjustment feature. Using the system as a subscription-based online service, customers have 24/7 online access to their assets’ actual condition dashboards. This will soon include additional features such as regular and on-demand reports on the current status of wear parts, automated emergency messages sent via email or SMS, as well as machine health prognosis and integration to Customers’ CMMS or ERP systems.
Smart Wear Liners
Alloy Steel International has now fused its new WAM technology with its full suite of alloy, cast and ceramic wear plates, taking wear liners to the next level, with the new Smart Wear Liner. Smart Wear Liners utilise the new WAM sensors to constantly monitor liner condition and communicate the information through encrypted wireless data channels, via a web-based application, right to the client’s desktop or smartphone.
Due to the compact size of the electronics, the hard face thickness of a liner is not compromised. Virtually any grade of currently manufactured ASI liners can be equipped with the chip and be ‘smart’. The new generation of wireless gateways allows large metal-intense mining production areas to be covered quickly and reliably.
The sensors have 200m of communication signal coverage onsite and up to 2km in open spaces with line-of-sight to towers. WAM uses 3G/4G, WiFi or ethernet to transfer data to the Cloud. Each gateway features an inbuilt GPS module for geolocation and has 8GB of onboard memory, which means no data loss in case of an internet connection problem and instant upload of stored data once connection is re-established.
With such a number of significant features packed into a compact, smart and rugged device, it is little wonder that the WAM system is gaining international attention. Its ability to provide accurate wear information – even if it is buried under tons of rock – in real time, which a machine is in operation makes it a real game changer in the modern mine site. Another great Australian technology success story in the making.
More information:
Alloy Steel International
08 9248 3188
[email protected]
