Making a lasting impact
According to Kinder Australia chief executive officer Charles Pratt, one of Australia’s largest mines had a problem no one else could solve.
“The miner had been around the world and tried three or four different options from other suppliers,” Pratt told Australian Mining. “All of those solutions failed.”
The miner, an iron ore major in the Pilbara, was experiencing frequent failures in its primary sizer’s load zone. Critical components were wearing out quicker than expected, and top belt cover damage was causing an uptick in cleaning, tracking and spillage issues.
Kinder was brought on-site to discuss a solution that would stick.
“The mine initially contacted us about another product and invited us to site to inspect the issue,” Pratt said. “Straight away I realised the product they enquired about wasn’t going to be suitable because of the severity of the situation.
“They had a severe impact issue in their transfer point, which was damaging the conveyor belt, destroying the impact idlers and causing unscheduled downtime.”
With the demands of modern mining, unscheduled downtime is an issue every miner wants to avoid.
According to Pratt, the failures the iron ore miner was facing in its primary sizer load zone not only brought production to a standstill but also inflicted substantial financial losses, significantly affecting overall profitability.
“The system handles 5500 tonnes per hour of iron ore with a lump size up to 500mm,” he said. “The financial implications of any production downtime were staggering, equating to approximately $1.5 million in lost revenue per hour.
“The miner needed the system to last longer than their 12-to-13-week shutdown period, but they were lucky to get four weeks before one part or another needed replacement.”
Kinder engineers quickly got to work designing four unique concepts to combat the issue and protect the conveyor belt and components, and presented them to the miner for review.
A high-capacity and high-speed impact belt support system design was the stand-out thanks to its ergonomic and maintenance-friendly features, and cost-effectiveness.
This led to the development of what is now known as Kinder’s K-Shield Dynamax impact idler.
“This choice proved advantageous, especially when compared to larger impact beds that would have required the use of more extensive lifting equipment and cranes,” Pratt said. “We were able to increase belt life by up to 33 per cent, and we’ve seen great success at other sites with the idler since.”
Pratt said that after two years, the targeted load zone has experienced no major service interruptions.
“Prior to the K-Shield Dynamax impact idler installation, roller and idler frame failures were a monthly maintenance occurrence and have now been extended to over 18 months,” he said. “Conveyor belt service was also extended from six to nine months to up to 12 months.
“This, coupled with effective noise reduction, has greatly boosted the overall system efficiency.”
The K-Shield Dynamax impact idler boasts features like a torsion spring element, sway bar suspension with polyurethane bushes, and a customisable heavy-duty frame with the ability to be implemented into any trough angle or roller quantity configuration.
These innovations came as a result of Kinder’s dedicated team of engineers working across Australia to support its customers to develop cutting-edge solutions to real problems.
“You can’t just innovate for the sake of innovation,” Pratt said. “You need to be solving problems, and if you don’t get to see those problems, you’re not going to have the ideas to solve them.
“Our strength is our ability to enter a site and identify an issue, then engineer equipment that makes a real impact to our customers’ operations, and we’re keen to continue developing those solutions into the future as we expand across Australia.”