Australian Bulk Handling Review

Engineered from our production line into yours

sew abhr 7-8.14 frtcvr IHS service.indd 1 7/07/14 4:44 PM

www.BulkHandling.com.auVolume 19 No 4 July/August 2014

Grain handling feature: GrainCorp in regulation battle New Quattro and Bunbury terminals Accurate wagon loading using a

camera-based system

Alex Harrison’s 35-year conveyor monitoring journey

Evaluating transfer chutes for increased throughput

Conveyor rollers: Megaroller steps up presence

Perfecting Particle SizeSturtevant Air Classifiers are designed and configured for classification, separation and recovery of dry metals and minerals without the use of water or auxilliary equipment.

Three Sturtevant Models are available to meet a variety of needs:

• Whirlwind® Air Classifiers (pictured above)• Side Draft™ Air Classifiers• Superfine® Air Classifiers

Perfection in Dry Separation

www.sturtevantinc.com

Sturtevant_ABHR Ad.indd 1 9/5/13 12:04 PM

Australian Bulk Handling Review: July/August 20144

CONTENTS

6 95 jobs go as Penrice chemical plant buyer gets cold feet

8 Yara’s Pilbara ammonium nitrate plant nearing completion

9 Powtech expo starts September in Germany

10 AMIRA study on moisture measurement and control in iron ore conveyor systems

12 Alex Harrison’s 35-year conveyor monitoring journey

16 Intium Solutions’ Roller Condition Monitoring (RCM) system

18 CHoPS conference returns to Israel 3 – 7 May, 2015

20 Honeywell’s conveyor monitoring

22 ContiTech conveyor belt electronic warning systems

24 Jenike & Johanson on evaluating transfer chutes for increased throughput or for use with a different material

28 Flexicon supplies Norwegian candy supplier

32 Flexco improves lead time for nylon rollers

32 Conveyor roller maker Megaroller opens Perth office

38 Australian Belt Cleaning (ABC) launches conveyor skirting system that hovers above belt

38 TUNRA course in Perth from November 18 to 20

39 Beumer sells 3 high-capacity layer palletisers

40 Bürkert pneumatic control systems

GRAIN HANDLING FEATURE

44 High-tech bulk-rail load optimisation, by Thomas Landgrebe etc

48 GrainCorp in battle over grain handling regulations

53 Kerman building Quattro grain facility

54 Kinder polyurethane skirting outlasts FRAS rubber for grain

55 4B lauds pneumatic ratchet tool

56 Ahrens delivers Bunbury grain terminal

58 Eximo flexible ducting for grain

59 AF Systems touts new Falcon offerings

60 Volvo supplies CBH with wheel loaders

61 Cat subsidiary buys Pacific Rail Engineering’s track business

62 Kilic orders for DOH and stacker

63 Flexicon debuts ultra-heavy-duty bulk bag filler

64 Petkus’ Granifrigor mobile grain cooler for silos

65 Miners not happy with infrastructure privatisation

68 Expert panel discusses dust explosions

71 Camfil’s Stinger explosion isolation valve

72 Publish or Perish

73 WEARX awarded Olympic Dam wear contract

73 Armorite composite in wear plate application

75 Weighing: Precia-Molen low cost modular system, and Lafarge Dowlow installation

76 PEER REVIEWED PAPER Impingement process of a flowing bulk solid stream in chutes. By Kazimierz Golka & George Bolliger

82 Munson screen classifying cutter replaces hammer mill at US lab

84 Transhiping: Uni of Tasmania studies floating warehouse

85 Siemens gear units for Indian coal power

86 Project update: Roy Hill’s 344km iron ore railway

89 Lockheed, Sandpit team up for satellite stockpile monitoring

90 Westpac appoints new national agribusiness leader

www.bulkhandling.com.au

EDITORCharles MacdonaldTel: +61 2 9080 4443Email: [email protected]

REPORTEROliver ProbertTel: +61 2 9080 4484Email: [email protected]

ADVERTISING SALESPeter DelbridgeLevel 2, 120 Sussex St, Sydney, NSW 2000Tel: +61 2 9080 4478 Fax: +61 2 9299 4622Email: [email protected]

PEER REVIEWRonda McCallumTel: +61 2 9080 4354Email: [email protected]

PRODUCTION MANAGER/GRAPHIC DESIGNERMagazines byDesign - Linda GunekTel: +61 2 8883 5890Email: [email protected]

FOR SPONSORSHIP & EXHIBITION OPPORTUNITIESPeter DelbridgeTel: +61 2 9080 4478 Fax: +61 2 9299 4622Email: [email protected]

PLEASE SEND ADVERTISING MATERIAL TORonda McCallum Email: [email protected]: +61 2 9080 4354

PUBLISHING DIRECTORPeter Attwater

SUBSCRIPTIONSNatalie Gardner – Tel: +61 2 9080 [email protected]

ABN 66 086 268 33AUSTRALIAN BULK HANDLING REVIEW (ABHR) is published 7 times a year by Informa AustraliaLevel 2, 120 Sussex Street,Sydney, NSW 2000, AustraliaPO Box Q1439, Queen Victoria Building Post Office, NSW 1230Tel: +61 2 9080 4480Fax: +61 2 9299 4622

ISSN 1444-6308 Circulaton: 5,837 (audit period ending April 2014) Member Circulation Audit Bureau (Australia)

Copyright © 2010 Informa Australia Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the editorial or pictorial content by any manner without written permission of the publisher is prohibited.While contributed articles to ABHR are welcome, return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings and photographs if they are to be returned and no responsibility can be assumed for unsolicited materials. All rights in letters submitted will be treated as unconditionally assigned for the publication. All products listed in this magazine are subject to manufacturer’s change without notice and the publisher assumes no responsibility for such changes.The publisher’s advertising terms and conditions are set out in the current Advertising Rate Card, which is available to read before placing any advertisements.

contents JULY/AUGUST 2014

Engineered from our production line into yours

sew abhr 7-8.14 frtcvr IHS service.indd 1 7/07/14 4:44 PM

www.BulkHandling.com.auVolume 19 No 4 July/August 2014

Grain handling feature: GrainCorp in regulation battle New Quattro and Bunbury terminals Accurate wagon loading using a

camera-based system

Alex Harrison’s 35-year conveyor monitoring journey

Evaluating transfer chutes for increased throughput

Conveyor rollers: Megaroller steps up presence

ABOUT THE COVERThe problems with ageing drives and some solutionsSEW-Eurodrive explains the costly mistakes mines make in endlessly repairing old drives and equipment, and some alternative paths they should consider.Breakdowns in drives can cost mines thousands of dollars per incident. For example, hydraulic power and belt drive failures cause up to 47% of downtime at mining operations. Each incident results in up to $3000 per hour of lost production.“Offering a cost-effective service, we can replace the equipment with a new SEW-Eurodrive drive solution as opposed to repairing the fault,” explains Ian Tribe, product manager for industrial gears at SEW-Eurodrive on page 80. “With new engineering and required adapters as a part of this solution, the cost is usually less than that of repairing the old drive or only slightly more.”

44

12 20 28

73 86


As ABHR’s Grain Handling fea-ture, starting on page 48,

makes clear, new grain handling terminals and competitors are shaking up an industry, to date, dominated by GrainCorp in the east and CBH in the west. Con-

tractors and equipment suppliers are capitalising on the new business.

In Newcastle, the first major new grain port development in 25 years – the Newcastle Agri Terminal (NAT) – made its first shipment in February 2014.

The $28m facility, owned by CTC, Glencore Grain, Olam and CBH Grain has 60,000t of storage, and can load and un-load at 2,000tph, thanks to a shiploader featuring a Cleveland cascade chute.

Further south, Kerman Contracting is designing and building the $67m Quattro grain export facility at Port Kembla in NSW, which is expected to be complete by October 2015.

Quattro is backed by logistics company Qube Holdings, and agribusinesses Noble Group, Cargill Australia and Emerald Grain. Qube is chaired by the canny Chris Corrigan, who previously built Patrick Stevedores into a formidable force.

Once up and running, Quattro will have a throughput of 1.2mtpa of grain, with equipment and engineering being provid-ed by materials handling specialist, Kotzur.

Moving west, and at a more advanced stage, is a new grain termi-nal at Bunbury in WA owned by Bunge Australia and built by Ahrens.

The terminal, costing between $30m and $40m, made its first 18,000t shipment in July to the Philippines. In the next two years, Bunge plans to export 500,000t of WA grain to Asia and the Middle East. The site has storage of 50,000t and can handle grain at 1,000tphr.

East coast grain handling incumbent, GrainCorp, which has seven port facilities, is unhappy at regulatory settings which it says disadvantage it while providing a leg-up to the new competitors.

The ACCC has been receptive to GrainCorp’s arguments, which has irked farmers and their lobbyists who argue the com-petition authority doesn’t understand the grain handling and ex-porting industry.

Federal government seems to be listening. As ABHR went to press, draft legislation looks likely to continue to set a higher regula-tory bar for GrainCorp vis a vis its new competitors.

A new approach to rail loadingFilling grain cars to the right level is a headache for the grain indus-try. Overloading is dangerous and can damage the tracks. Under-loading costs profits.

Remarkably, the loading process is still largely manual. How-ever, a new technology from Cooperative Vision Systems (CoViS), which has been trialled at a number of Graincorp sites, promises a high-tech solution.

CoViS’s camera-based system relies on the fact that grain enter-ing a rail wagon will cause it to sink on its springs. By measuring the displacement of the wagon, to fractions of a millimetre, grain companies will have an accurate measurement of weight.

For the full story, see page 44.

Competition hits grain handlers

EDITORIAL

By Charles MacdonaldEditor – ABHR

Money saving features...• Low power consumption• Reliability• Low wear and tear• Low maintenance• High capacity• Light weight belt• Steep angles of inclination• High belt speeds• Dust tight• Complete settling of material on belt• True belt tracking• Simple conversion from open to closed conveyor Both belt and product

are carried on a cushion of air

For further information contact:Aerobelt Australia Pty. Ltd. Phone (02) 4631 2919 Mobile (0419) 279 566 Fax (02) 4631 2915 Email [email protected] www.aerobelt.com.au

Aerobelt TM

Belt conveyorAir-cushion

Products

Film of airBelt conveyorFan

Return idler

Aerobelt JA14_1.indd 1 23/07/14 3:28 PM


NEWS

Contact: ???????????

Penrice Soda has been on a downward spiral since April when the company first announced the appointment of ad-

ministrators. At that stage the company’s shares traded at 4.9 cents, valuing the business at $4.9m, against combined debts approaching $200m.

In 2013, the company had stopped manufacturing soda ash at the Osborne site, electing instead to import material from North America. The move was billed by Penrice as part of an ambitious “transformation” strategy, designed to rescue the company from difficult trading conditions.

Until recently, Penrice Soda had sounded a bullish note on the prospects for sodium bicarbonate from the Osborne plant, Austral-ia and South East Asia’s only manufacturing site for the material.

“Sodium bicarbonate demand globally continues to grow and develop, especially in the Asia Pacific region where de-mand for Penrice Sodium bicarbonate outstrips the capacity of the plant,” stated Penrice’s website.

McGrathNicol had been negotiating with an un-named buyer for the plant since April. However, in a disappointing move for staff at the Osborne plant, this company has now withdrawn.

McGrathNicol partner Sam Davies told the Adelaide Adver-tiser that “Unfortunately the barriers to a sale of the Osborne plant proved too high for the preferred bidder.

“While we were engaged in ongoing discussions with sev-eral parties, ongoing trading losses meant that the preferred bidder represented the only credible option to achieve a go-ing-concern sale.

“We are now seeking alternative strategies to realise re-sidual value from the plant.”

Penrice Soda also operates a limestone quarry at Angaston where operations continue as normal. Negotiations continue for the sale of this operation.

In 2009 Penrice’s shares were trading at up to $1. How-ever, the company appeared to be on the skids in 2010 when it reported a 41% fall in net profit to $5.1m.

At that time, broker Wilson HTM said that “The earnings outlook remains highly sensitive (both positive and negative) to the timing and magnitude of improved soda ash demand. While Penrice appears cheap, it remains a high risk investment (ie. earnings uncertainty and relatively high debt levels).”

By 2011, Penrice returned a loss of $1.2m. On top of that, it wrote down its businesses by nearly $25m due to tough condi-tions stemming from the high Australian dollar. Glass bottle demand, the main market for soda ash, was down significant-ly, with beer sales declining and wine producers starting to export bulk wine, to be bottled overseas.

At the time, the company’s chairman, David Trebeck said that “It is also of little comfort that the company is not alone among Aus-tralian manufacturers large and small in facing trading pressures.”

In 2012, Penrice reported a loss of $6.7m which it sheeted home to “poor demand from key Australian soda ash markets, partly offset by continued growth in sodium bicarbonate ex-ports and income from the Selective Salts Recovery (SSR) busi-ness.” On top of its trading loss, the company reported write-downs of almost $57m, generating a statutory loss after tax of $63.6m for FY 2012.

In 2013, Penrice’s trading loss had blown out to $21.4m. On top of this it recorded write-downs of another $30m for a total statutory net loss of $50m. The company was ex-pressing concern about its debt position, now up to $112m, although it still had its bankers on side.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Penrice stopped manufac-turing soda ash in Adelaide in June 2013 and restructured its soda ash business around an import and distribution model. It formed a joint venture company, Pro Asia Pacific, with the world’s largest independent soda ash distributor, Soda Ash Holding BV, sourcing soda ash from American Natural Soda Ash Corporation, the world’s largest soda ash exporter.

“Soda ash manufacturing has been the company’s Achilles’ heel, making substantial losses,” explained Penrice managing di-rector and CEO, Guy Roberts at the time. “Against the backdrop of a volatile Australian dollar, by moving from local manufactur-ing with high and increasing fixed costs to an import and distri-bution model, Penrice will benefit from better aligning supply with domestic demand and a new flexible and competitive cost structure that can be maintained throughout demand shifts.”

But it was too little, too late for the company, with debt continuing to rise and the company eventually losing the confidence of its bankers.

95 jobs go as Penrice chemical plant buyer gets cold feet

McGrathNicol, administrator to the besieged Penrice Soda Holdings, announced in late June that the company’s Osborne sodium bicarbonate plant would close with the loss of 95 jobs.

Contact: www.penrice.com.au

“Soda ash manufacturing has been the company’s Achilles’ heel, making substantial losses,” explained Penrice managing director and CEO, Guy Roberts in 2013.

Penrice’s Osborne plant.

Penrice’s Osborne plant.

Heavy Duty Bin Isolation Gates

Flocculant Preparation

Rockbreaking Systems

Roller Mounted Ball Mills

Lime Mixing

Feeder TechnologyA Revolution in

MORE FEED | LESS SPACE | CHANGE OF DIRECTION

Transmin’s Low Profile Feeder™ (LPF) is an original hybrid feeder delivering the advantages of both belt and apron feeders. It holds the unique ability to change direction using a bend transition within a single feeder; improving space utilisation, flexibility of plant layout and reducing capital expenditure.

Change of Direction

Lowest Profile

Rockbreaker Automation

Safe | Efficient | Reliable

Innovative solutions for Bulk Materials Handling since 1987.Please contact us for a detailed product overview brochure. For more information, call 1300 640 359 or visit www.transmin.com.au/abhr

W I N N E RINNOVATION

EXCELLENCE AWARD

2012

W I N N E RC.Y. O'CONNOR AWARD

FOR EXCELLENCE IN ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY

2012

8 Australian Bulk Handling Review: July/August 2014

NEWS

Yara International is the world’s largest producer of ammonia nitrate and com-

plex fertiliser, responsible for 20% of the global ammonia trade.

Haslestad said the new plant currently under construction was a clear “extra val-ue-add” bringing further downstream pro-cessing to the region.

The plant will produce 350,000 tonnes per annum of technical ammonium nitrate (TAN), using ammonia from the neigh-bouring Yara Fertilisers plant as a feed-stock. TAN, which is not an explosive by itself, will then be sold to an Orica-operated company for mixing with fuel oil to create explosives for use in mining.

The $800m investment is being funded by a joint venture comprising Yara Inter-national (45%), Orica Limited (45%) and Apache Corporation with a 10% share.

Haslestad said the new plant was geo-graphically well placed to tap into product demand from Pilbara mines, while there was also export potential if required.

Mark Loquan, head of Yara Pilbara, said the TAN plant will be integrat-ed with the existing ammonia plant

through “tie-ins” which are expected to be in place in August 2014.

“There are a number of benefits from having the two plants in close proxim-ity to each other. We believe we can achieve significant operational and or-ganisational efficiencies,” Loquan said.

“The total TAN project is now around 80% complete, with several modules already assembled on site by local contractors.”

When Yara Pilbara Nitrates begins operations next year the company antici-pates a world class production facility, which could represent a major new val-ue adding project for the WA economy.

“This project represents a signifi-cant infrastructure investment for Western Australia,” Loquan continued. “Yara is creating over 400 jobs at peak construction, with ongoing employ-ment for about 60 permanent opera-tional workers.”

Preferring not to fly workers in and out of Karratha, Yara Pilbara is build-ing 60 homes so its workforce can live close to their families. Loquan says the

practice of “living local” is better for workers as well as the company.

“We believe having our people here in Karratha, in close proximity to our plants makes sense for us. It promotes continu-ity in our operations, and for those of our team members with families it means they can be together and share in being part of a larger community.”

Yara International relies on 50 years of experience in designing, constructing and operating ammonium nitrate plants around the world. Loquan said that experience was crucial to the company’s safety initiatives.

Loquan said safety was at the forefront in design, with the TAN facility incorpo-rating a range of specific safety measures including early detection/warning sys-tems, infra-red cameras, firewalls, deluge systems, fire resistant rooms and a second-ary containment/bund wall.

“When it comes to safety in all our op-erations we are never satisfied. We pursue a philosophy of “Safe by Choice” and we are encouraged that earlier this month Yara Pil-bara Fertilisers achieved 900 days without any total recordable injury,” Loquan said.

Yara’s Pilbara ammonium nitrate plant nearing completion

Jorgen Haslestad, chief of the world’s largest producer of ammonium nitrate, Yara International, has visited the company’s under-construction technical ammonium nitrate plant in the Pilbara, which is intended to help provide explosives for use in mining.

(left to right) – Finn Almas, Yara TAN project director; Jorgen Haslestad, Yara International CEO; Mark Loquan, Yara Pilbara chief executive. The three stand in front of one of the TAN plant modules at the construction site.

NEWS

Powtech focuses on equipment for size reduction, grinding, mixing,

fractionating and screening, filtering, agglomerating, dosing, weighing, emp-tying and filling, as well as the complete particle analysis process.

From September 30 to October 2 this year, more than 700 exhibitors from over 25 countries will showcase their mechani-cal processing technologies and associ-ated products. Around another 250 exhibi-tors will present the latest developments in sterile production processes for phar-maceuticals, food and cosmetics at the parallel TechnoPharm show, exhibition company NürnbergMesse said.

Willy Viethen, NürnbergMesse’s director of exhibitions said: “Powtech is much more than just a trade fair for the individual stages of mechanical pro-cessing. In Nuremberg, designers and operators of equipment for the powder and bulk solids processing industry will also find a lot of innovative solutions for linking up these process stages.”

The exhibitors at Powtech will pre-sent technical solutions for all flows of powders, granules and bulk solids within

a company, starting with solutions for in-coming goods with all options for empty-ing big-bags, containers, silos and sacks.

They will also showcase current de-velopments in pneumatic and mechani-cal conveying such as bucket conveyors, screw conveyors, hoppers, vibrators and belt conveyors as well as vacuum and pressure conveying systems.

In addition, NürnbergMesse said, more than 200 Powtech exhibitors will intro-duce innovations and improvements in filling and bagging systems, palletisers, big-bag filling equipment and other solutions for packing or filling powders and granules.

Automation will be a key focus of the event. The world’s leading vendors of field instrumentation or process control technology – such as Endress+Hauser, Vega, Proleit or Siemens – have for many years been using the event to showcase their solutions, NürnbergMesse said.

Safety and the environment will also be covered. Around 80 exhibitors at the trade fair will specifically focus on in-novations relating to safety issues

Powtech expo set for Germany

Powder and bulk solids handling trade fair Powtech will take place in Nuremberg, starting in late September 2014.

Visitors at 2013’s Powtech exhibition. An explosive demonstration at Powtech last year.

Contact: www.powtech.de/en/

Our vacuum lifters can lift and move a huge range of products from

10kg to 2,000kg.

VACUUM LIFTING

SOLUTIONS

CALL US NOW ABOUT THE NEW JUMBO FLEX 50

Lift sacks, cartons, buckets, drums and almost anything weighing

up to 50kg

FREECALL

1800 992 [email protected] www.millsom.com.au

LIFT AND MOVE SACKS EASILY

WITH ONE HAND


Second AMIRA iron ore moisture studyA new study from AMIRA International, to begin later this year, will examine moisture measurement and control in iron ore conveyor systems.

AMIRA International is a research-focused mining industry association

based in Australia, which takes on a num-ber of projects on behalf of its members, who operate in the resources, exploration and mining services sectors.

During the company’s P1097 project – Systematic Evaluation of Transport-able Moisture Limit (TML) Measurement Methods for Iron Ore Fines Bulk Cargoes – it became apparent that opportunities existed to improve moisture measurement and control for the iron ore industry, and that economic moisture reduction may also be possible due to moisture migration on conveyors.

Moisture must be high enough in iron ore processing to suppress dust, yet low enough to ensure material handling issues do not occur, ensure any TML require-ment is not exceeded, and to avoid unnec-essary freight costs.

Water reduction capability is particular-ly relevant for ores that are mined below the water table, wet processed, or just mined in a high rainfall area. In addition, the ability to further reduce water content in the ore has economic advantages throughout the transport chain where a one percent re-duction in moisture content can equate to multi-million dollar transport cost savings.

To address these issues and more, a new two-year collaborative AMIRA

project is currently being developed, ti-tled P1150 – Moisture Measurement and Control for Iron Ore Conveyor Systems.

It will be conducted by two well-re-spected research providers: TUNRA Bulk Solids Handling and Scantech, under the leadership of Dr Tom Honeyands. AMIRA International will have overall responsi-bility for the development of the project and subsequent management/oversight once sufficient industry support is se-cured to start the project.

The project proposes to address the following two critical aims:

Develop an effective means of auto-matic calibration and monitoring of mois-ture through the ore on high speed con-veyor belts for a range of iron ore mineral types, using a low frequency microwave sensor combined with a mineralogy de-tection device. This system will provide automatic moisture detection throughout the whole depth of the iron ore on the belt, rather than just at the surface.

Exploit the tendency for moisture mi-gration due to dynamic belt oscillation

on high speed conveyors to develop conceptual moisture reduction system designs for moisture liberation from an iron ore stream.

AMIRA says sponsors for this project will benefit by having the ability to meas-ure iron ore moisture content online and in real-time for a range of ore mineralo-gies via a global calibration matrix.

“Sponsors will gain exclusive ac-cess to this solution for the period to be agreed after the completion of the pro-ject,” said project manager Olga Vere-zub. “Sponsors will also benefit from understanding the mode of moisture migration (to the top or bottom of the belt), and the rate of moisture migra-tion through the definition of dynamic moisture migration characterisation curves specific to their ore and han-dling system.

“This design information will be used to identify or create economic moisture reduction systems where liberated water and/or a wet portion of the ore stream can be separated. It is envisaged that this separation would ideally occur at a con-veyor transfer and any entrained ore re-processed and returned to the belt.”

The project is planned to commence in October 2014.

The moisture content of iron ore is a crucial factor in iron ore mining, shipping, transport and logistics.

The benefits of improved measurement and control.

Contact: olga.verezub@amirainternational

10

NEWS


STEEL CORD BELT MONITORING

Conveyor Technologies specialises in the remote scanning of steel cord

belts for strength testing. Located in the Central Coast city of Gosford in NSW, the company is run by its founder, Dr Alex Harrison, who has been working on belt strength monitoring systems since he first came up with the initial concept while working with the CSIRO in 1979.

“The system was the first in the world to test and measure strength in a steel cord belt,” Harrison told ABHR. “It happened because mines were trying to determine where damage was located in a belt.”

Miners, who were looking to find ways to predict the deterioration of their belts before catastrophic failures occurred, initially looked to X-ray tech-nology as the solution.

“Their first attempt was to use an X-ray fluoroscope to image the cables

onto a flat screen, and then video-re-cord what they see, but the persistence of the signal was way too long to be use-ful,” Harrison explained.

“So we developed what we call the conveyor belt monitor.”

The monitor developed by Harrison at the CSIRO was licenced to three com-panies, two of which failed. One, Har-rison said, continues to use the initial technology, but that technology is not the same as that used now by his busi-ness, Conveyor Technologies.

“I went to the United States in 1991, and the upshot of that was I developed a new and alternative monitoring sys-tem to what we developed at CSIRO. It’s more portable, it’s lightweight; it’s a dif-ferent system. So the system we have at Conveyor Technologies, that I’ve used in the US for 20 years, is a different

system to what we developed originally in Australia.”

In one application, Conveyor Tech-nologies’ system works by placing a transmitter and receiver roughly 10cm apart from each other on the same side of a conveyor. The transmitter transmits an electromagnetic signal, and depend-ing on the strength of signal received by the receiver, the technology behind the devices determines how much steel there is in the belt.

The technology records up to 1,000 12-bit samples each second, meaning Con-veyor Technologies can measure down to a resolution of 1 millivolt of signal. “We can detect a fifth of one broken cable in a steel cord belt,” Harrison said.

“It’s an electromagnetic, non-destruc-tive test. Our device detects a signal from the belt at normal speed, which is a

Expert's 35-year conveyor monitoring journey

Conveyor strain expert and entrepreneur Alex Harrison spoke to ABHR’s Oliver Probert about his company’s growth since its founding in 1993, and his experience in the conveyor monitoring industry since getting started in 1979.

Conveyor breakage can cost operators in three key ways. First, the actual cost of fixing or replacing the belt and other equipment. Second, the cost of unexpected downtime. And thirdly, the inherent safety risk that conveyor breakage can pose. Pictured is a South American belt, which is remotely scanned by Conveyor Technologies’ system.


function of the amount of steel. If there’s any rusted out cables, or any damage, we can detect the loss of steel.

“Our software converts those detected signals into a safety graph. First of all we detect the signal from the belt, which relates to the damage level, and we convert that using stress analysis into a safety factor graph, and that indicates closeness to failure.”

Those graphs, Harrison said, give the business’ clients a good idea of how long it will be before they will need to shut down their belt and fix the damage that’s been detected. When that does occur, Harrison said, the company can design a cable repair plan for that issue.

“It’s real-time monitoring which works with the belt at full speed. We can detect events to within half an inch of where they are on the belt, and the system can be calibrated to an exact level of damage. Our stress analysis program will be in-voked at that level.”

Harrison was quick to define the difference between his sys-tem and a rip detection system, which is often installed into con-veyor belts by their manufacturers.

“Various belt manufacturers have rip detection systems – a series of embedded loops which detect things impinging a belt – but that’s a different type of monitoring system to ours,” he

Conveyor Technologies’ software gives accurate readings of belt strength at a high frequency, Harrison said.

Harrison’s business hopes to detect severe breakage before it happens.

• Multi-Ply • Steel Cord • Solid Woven• Rip & Impact Resistant • Cross Stabilised Steep Incline • Chevron & Feeder • Special Construction

Safety • Quality • Strength • Endurance • Performance

Small enough to care,BIG enough to deliver

Conveyor Belting trusted across Australasia:60

yearscombinedexperience

Leading supplier

Extensive high quality range

Tailored products to meet your needs

Competitively placed

Manufactured to exceed stringent Australian, International and Site specific standards

Tel: +61 (0) 2 4961 2199Fax: +61 (0) 2 4961 1785

Email: [email protected]


explained. “Ours does continuous moni-toring of the length of belt, while a rip detection system is only as good as the amount of sensors placed in the belt.”

After leaving the CSIRO in the mid-80s, Harrison took a role as a professor of engineering at the University of Newcas-tle, where he is still a conjoint professor of engineering.

In 1991, Harrison moved to the US, to grow his business there. And it is in the US that Conveyor Technologies now has systems installed on some of the world’s longest, widest, strongest and fastest conveyors.

The company’s strongest is an ST6600 in Alabama, which moves coal. The 3km long conveyor is powered by four 2,000 horse power motors, giving it a total output of 8,000 horse power.

The longest belt on Conveyor Tech-nologies’ books is in Colorado, and measures 16km centre to centre. The company does test a longer one, which is 19km long according to Harrison, but is not doing so at the moment.

A 2.13m-wide belt in Ohio makes for the company’s widest, and the fastest is another North American belt which Harrison told ABHR runs at more than 7.5m/sec.

And all of them are tested by Conveyor Technologies remotely, via the internet.

“From about the year 2000 all of

our scanning technology was comput-erised, all our signals were digitised, and made adaptable to sending over a telephone line for remote monitoring, using the telephone line and the Ether-net systems in the mines.

“All our remote scans are done with internet protocol where possible. If you just use a telephone line it can be noisy, and it can be expensive.”

Conveyor Technologies supplies all the equipment involved in the monitoring process, free of charge. From there, Har-rison said, the company charges around $2,500 to $3,500 per test (typically). Tests occur once every two to three months, so long as no faults are predicted.

“Some belts with higher damage rates we do test monthly,” he noted. “Also, if we find a splice that’s bad, for example, but the operator doesn’t want to shut the belt down for whatever rea-son, we will scan the belt every day. We’ll do that right up to the point when it’s about to break, and we call them and say ‘Right, better shut it down now, boys, it’s about to break.’

“We’ve been doing these tests re-motely for 15 years, and we’ve never had a belt go down the hole … our sys-tem is cost effective.”

The company also plays a role keep-ing manufacturers accountable for the belts they produce.

“Manufacturers which make steel cord belt usually do so to AS1333/4 Standards. We’ve had belts that haven’t lasted nine months; brand new belts that have fallen apart in nine months’ time, because of defects in the align-ment of the cables, in the cord plane of

the belt. You end up with rapid fatigue and bending, and the cable can break spontaneously.”

For that reason Conveyor Technolo-gies will test a new belt for a customer, and tell that customer if they’ve bought a quality product, or if they’ve been sold a belt with issues.

“We’re not liked much by belt manu-facturers,” Harrison joked. “A lot of belt manufacturers have now developed a technology which is similar … we have run into these instruments in the past.

“When there’s no human intel-ligence involved, and they’ve pro-grammed the software to do automatic testing, you can get severe errors in calibration and reporting, to the point where the client will get an automatic email every five seconds or five min-utes … It doesn’t help the client detect real problems.”

Also, Harrison pointed out, there’s a conflict of interest issue when belt manufacturers design systems aimed at testing the quality of their own prod-uct. “Once a belt manufacturer makes a belt, and puts it into operation with his own scanner on it, it’s not in their best interest to tell the mine that they’ve made a bad belt, that they’ve laid the cords slightly misaligned or something. So it’s a conflict of interest.”

Harrison said his experience with US mines was that they recognised this as a conflict of interest, and they were keen to work with an independent test-er. But he’s not so sure Down Under.

“The Australian mines … I’m not too sure what they think yet. In the United States the mines definitely understand the issue of conflict of interest, and they come to us for the testing.”

Harrison said his company’s tech-nology often shows up with different results to the manufacturers’ test sys-tems. He recalled one scenario where a pair of belt manufacturers put their equipment on a belt.

“One manufacturer’s system said there were about 10 errors in the belt, and one’s thought there was only two or three,” he said. “So the miner was left with the dilemma, if the belt was going to break tomorrow, or is it not a problem?”

When Conveyor Technologies test-ed the belt, it found four to six errors, then cut the belt open and found all er-rors as they predicted.

“I put that down to the inability to calibrate, or an inability to understand the physics of the equipment they’ve got. It’s not really their core business; they make belts, they don’t scan belts. We’re independent mechanical engi-neers, and we don’t have a conflict of interest in this regard.”


The belt scanner in action.

‘Right, better shut it down now, boys, it’s about to break.’

Harrison said that belt users often fall into the trap of just scheduling a belt replacement every two or three years, and said that in some cases this can cost upwards of a million dollars to do.

“With our program, we know we can double and triple the expected life of a belt … when we find localised damage, we can design a repair, which entails cleaning out the damaged spot, cutting

cables in the belt where the damage is and getting rid of all the rough ends, then laying cables again.”

One of the more impressive things Harrison has done is convert an idea which was developed through aca-demic research, and commercialise it. He put his success in this way down to two factors.

First, he said that it was important to have the best interest of the clients at heart, despite the fact that the very nature of commercialisation might suggest that you have to be in it for the money.

And second, he said, was that you had to know the industry like the back of your hand. “You need to have a rap-port and an interaction with the indus-try you’re working with,” he said.

“I was brought up on a farm. I’m practical, I can weld; I can build things. So when I talk to the mining people I’m not just seen as an academic. Part of be-ing successful is knowing the industry you want to work in, and have them help you and work with you.”


Dr Alex Harrison at a US minesite.

Contact: www.conveyorscience.com.au

LEADERS

IN MINE TO

MARKET

SOLUTIONS.

Qube Bulk is the preeminent

supplier of Rotabox solutions in

Australia. No other company can

truly offer the suite of services

provided by Qube under one roof.

MINE

ROAD

RAIL

PORT

SHIPContact our Perth office on:

08 6141 1901 or visit

www.qube.com.au


Intium Solutions was launched by Tim Jones and Jason Boyd in 2010 and Jones,

now the company’s managing director, tells Australian Bulk Handling Review the pair wanted to design a solution to a problem that miners needed fixed.

Conveyors rely on a bed of idle rollers to run smoothly. When those conveyors begin to fail they can damage the belt, and this can eventually lead to a belt tear or, in extreme cases, a belt fire.

Miners and other conveyor operators mostly deal with this issue by monitoring their rollers through auditory, visual and heat testing, and replacing them when they sound or look like they’re about to fail. But this, Jones explains, is trouble-some for three key reasons.

The first is that roller monitoring in itself is an expensive business. To pay someone to walk up and down a convey-or, listening for a fault, is not particularly cost-efficient. The use of heat detecting technology and other operator equip-ment can add to this excessive cost.

The second issue is that it can be un-safe to have people close to conveyors. This is especially true for underground conveyors, conveyors which run through confined spaces and conveyors which traverse difficult terrain.

The third is that this kind of auditory, visual and heat measurement and moni-toring isn’t an exact science, and some-times catastrophic failures cannot be caught before they occur.

So Intium designed a system which looked to tackle all three of those issues head-on.

“We’re getting a lot of interest out there,” Jones says. “The reason is [the system] meets with a lot of the objec-tives that miners have: increasing avail-ability, improving safety and reducing cost – they’re the three big things at the moment.”

Intium’s RCM system incorporates a small, simple, low electricity vibration sensor on each frame of a conveyor. That sensor is calibrated to detect vari-ations in frequency which are typical of a conveyor roller.

“It’s taking a vibration reading, through an on-board filtering system, which focuses on the frequency it needs to. Every two minutes it wakes up, takes a vibration reading and pings it off to a collector, which is a hub on the central network.”

Each collector is responsible for up to 500 sensors, and communicates the

sensors’ readings, via the internet, to In-tium’s database every hour. If a conveyor has more than 500 sensors, more than one collector is used, and it’s all incorpo-rated into a single system.

“It’s called a smart mesh network,” Jones continues, “which means that the sensors actually pass their information through to each other, in order to get

Vibration analysis nips roller failure in the bud

Perth-based Intium Solutions says its Roller Condition Monitoring (RCM) system can save conveyor operators millions of dollars a year through the detection of problem rollers long before they fail, ABHR’s Oliver Probert reports.

Intium’s RCM sensors are small, low energy vibration sensors, which are attached to each frame of a conveyor to detect irregularities in idler rollers.

The sensors along an Intium-equipped conveyor communicate via a mesh network with their collector, which in turn sends packaged data to Intium’s database once per hour. This data is then processed, and a Roller Priority List is sent to the client,

which can schedule targeted roller swaps as required.

CONVEYORS & CONVEYING SERVICES


them to the collector. They’re wireless – they don’t require pow-er or data cabling – and the collector will set the network up so the sensors send the packets of information via various hops between each other, to get back to the collector.”

The ‘smart mesh’ system is especially beneficial, he says, in high-metal environments and enclosed areas like chutes and tun-nels, which are not typically wavelength-friendly.

Once Intium’s database receives the information from its collectors, it is put through the company’s data processing and translated into a Roller Priority List, which is in turn given back to the client.

“That’s where a lot of the magic happens,” Jones says. “In the Intium database, there’s a lot of processing going on, and all of that information will be put through algorithms, to work out which frames have rollers that need servicing.

“That information is served back to the customer as a Roll-er Priority List. That information is refreshed every hour; so for all intents and purposes it’s a 24-hour monitoring system on that conveyor.”

Intium’s Roller Priority List gives conveyor maintenance staff an exact guide to which rollers are most likely to fail, and thus gives them an idea of the rollers they need to replace when they have their next scheduled maintenance shutdown. By op-erating this system, operators avoid having to shut down their conveyors in an unexpected manner when they find a roller which is close to failure. The system, as Jones puts it, takes the ‘surprise factor’ out of roller maintenance.

“A priority list will pick up all the rollers with issues at that time, whereas a manual logging and tagging process might only pick up a proportion of that list,” he says. “What we’re finding is the ROI figures are extremely compelling.

“There are two main business cases. One is avoiding cata-strophic failure (belt tears and belt fires caused by failed roll-ers), and we do that by alerting to shell failure when it happens. The second one is a substantial reduction in the number of un-scheduled stoppages required to change out rollers. In a lot of cases we would expect at least a 50% reduction in unscheduled

stoppages to change out rollers … that saves the customer mil-lions of dollars per belt.”

Since winning a number of awards in 2011 and 2012, in-cluding the WA Innovator of the Year award in 2011 and the 2012 Innovative Technology Award at the Australian Bulk Han-dling Awards, Intium has been deployed in the field for rigor-ous testing.

As well as quietly picking up another award – this time it was AustMine’s 2013 Innovation Award – Jones says Intium’s system has been tested in the past year on a pair of conveyors in WA, and has shown itself to be effective at doing exactly what it was designed to do.

“In the last year we’ve been involved in commercial trials on two minesites in WA. Those trials are completed now, and each of them went for in excess of 12 months. What they’ve proven is that the system is working effectively in the field.”

Off the back of those successful trials, Jones says Intium has a contract in place with “one of the major players” to install the system on one of its conveyors. Intium charges for the individ-ual bits of technology, and then charges a subscription rate for the continued use of the service. Jones hopes that this contract will help his business leverage more work.

“It’s a big deal for us, but it could also lead to rollouts on other sites as well – this particular customer has multiple sites – and we have proposals with other major players. We’re getting a lot of interest out there … we’re in discussions with a lot of major miners around the country.”

17

Contact: www.intiumsolutions.com

Intium says its system analyses vibration irregularities so conveyor operators can schedule roller change-outs before failures occur.

“The system, as Jones puts it, takes the ‘surprise factor’ out of roller maintenance.”


Victoria – Head Office:20-22 Macquarie Drive Thomastown Vic. 3074 AustraliaTel: 61 3 9465 8777 Fax: 61 3 9465 8788N.S.W. Office:Tel: 61 2 9844 5495 Fax: 61 2 9844 5478FreeCall 1800 334 005Web: www.jacmor.com.au E-mail: [email protected]

JAC 035

Jacmor Screw Conveyors are designed and manufactured to the end user requirements.

MobileScrew

Conveyors

Victoria Head Office20-22 Macquarie Drive Thomastown Vic. 3074 AustraliaTelephone: 61 3 9463 0888 Facsimile: 61 3 9465 8788

E-mail: [email protected]

FreeCall 1800 334 005 Web Site: www.jacmor.com.au


Amit Parimoo, Schenck Process Australia’s new senior sales representative.

NEWS

CHoPS was born in 1995 in Israel in the form of a rather more humble na-

tional conference. Two more events were held there in 1997 and 2000 before, in Bu-dapest in 2003, it morphed into a fully in-ternational event, held every three years.

Attendees at the event include scien-tists, academics and researchers from the bulk solids and particle handling communi-ties, with Australian experts like Professor Mark Jones of the University of Newcastle and Associate Professor Peter Wypych of the University of Wollongong on the inter-national advisory committee.

CHoPS will have four parallel oral ses-sions as well as poster sessions. There will be many plenary and keynote lectures from international experts on various topics.

Conference chairman Professor Haim Kalman and co-chairman Professor Avi Levy have invited authors wishing to pre-sent a paper or poster to submit an abstract

electronically by September 18, 2014. Search the CHoPS wbsite for the abstract application portal.

Topics to be covered at CHoPS include:• Solids processing • Particle characterization• Measurements, controls & on-line

monitoring• Size enlargement• Size reduction (crushing, grinding,

milling)• Drying of particulate materials• Coating• Segregation & mixing• Storage of bulk solids • Mechanical conveyor & feeders• Pneumatic, hydraulic & capsule

conveying • Freight transportation• Separation & classification• Environmental aspects• Modeling and fundamentals

• Production & handling of nanoparticles• Industrial case studies

Abstracts should not exceed 480 words, with titles not to exceed 20 words.

Going back to 1995, Haim Kalman, as-sisted by a group of Israeli industrialists, launched the first conference in Hert-zeliya where the lectures were presented in Hebrew. Most of the participants were local and four leading scientists were in-vited: George Klinzing, Jeorg Schwedes, Gabi Tardos and Alan Rawle.

By the time the third event was held in 2000 at the Dead Sea, a swelling inter-national contingent from 20 countries con-vinced organisers to hold a fully interna-tional event every three years.

In 2009, CHoPS was organised joint-ly with the 10th ICBMH and sizeable BULKEX exhibition in Brisbane.

CHoPS returns to Israel in 2015One of the essential conferences for bulk solids academics and researchers, the International Conference for Conveying and Handling of Particulate Solids (CHoPS), will be held in Tel Aviv from 3 – 7 May, 2015.

Contact: http://www.chops2015.org/

Visitors to CHoPS in Tel Aviv can add on some attractive side visits to attractions like the Dead Sea (Photo credit Itamar Grinberg and www.goisrael.com).

For history buffs, Masada, an ancient fortification in the south of Israel was the site of a mass suicide of 960 Sicarri rebels and their families hiding there in the first Jewish-Roman war. (Photo credit Itamar Grinberg and www.goisrael.com).

Parimoo will be responsible for Schenck Process Australia’s range of weighing,

feeding, vibratory and materials handling equipment in the food, chemical, process, mining and transport industries on Aus-tralia’s West and South Coast.

A mechanical engineer by profes-sion, Parimoo has over fifteen years of

experience within the bulk material han-dling industry in India and previously worked with FLS Ventomatic and Ther-max Limited, the company told ABHR.

Prior to his transition to Schenck Pro-cess Australia in October 2013, Parimoo was associated with the group company Schenck Process India for six years.

Schenck Process Australia says it’s currently in the process of expanding its range of products for pneumatic convey-ing and biomass handling systems for al-ternate fuel applications.

New face at Schenck’s mining divisionIndustrial handling machinery specialist Schenck Process Australia has appointed Amit Parimoo as its new senior sales representative for heavy, light, power and mining.

Contact: www.schenckprocess.com.au

Hairline border is attached

angle 325 Edge Pad 10 CMYK 5,10,20,0

Full page size 210 x 297 + 5mm bleed -Text 185 x 270= 230 x 307 and

High speed COBRA in actionTAWI Vacuum-assisted Lifting: Special models built to suit.

BAGS

BALES

We are System Designers, Suppliers and Integrators

20+ bags/mincapability for all these machines

for

for

Okura 4 axisrobot designedjust for bag and box palletising

B&C Form Fill and Seal machine - well proven with over 30 systems operatingin Australasia, for potting mix, seeds, sandstones, and more recently for chaff.

Payper open-mouth bag filler

Kockums havefully trained local servicespecialists, for on-site, and remoteassistance.

for

Complete the process with high-speed pallet hooding or wrapping machines, with pallet and slip sheet dispensers,and chain conveyors ,for the totalturn-key system installation.

Note copied file remained 230 x 307 from Suplier Head Office VIC - Tel: (03) 9457 8240

www.kockumsbulk.com.au

AB-pac1213b

The Professionals in Powder Handling and Packaging

QR

cod

e



Neil Freeman is Honeywell’s global vertical market man-ager of mining and metals, within the company’s pro-

cess solutions division. He aims to find out customer needs and requirements, and to see if Honeywell can satisfy them with its existing technology, or can help solve them with new developments.

He works with mining and metals customers to find potential spots in the supply chain to achieve better business value through the use of automation technology. Honeywell provides automa-tion, and has quite a large portfolio in that space.

“From a customer’s perspective, we have to find the busi-ness value generated by a technology,” he tells ABHR. “Part of what I do is visiting customers and spending a bit of time on their site, trying to find business value associated with potentially applying different solutions to their processes …

Because without that, neither us nor the client really has a business case to develop that product.”

The issues which kept coming up when he was first visiting sites were associated with conveyor systems. Freeman says in his experience 50% of unplanned downtime on mineral handling sites was due to conveyor faults: ripped conveyor belts, failed idlers and pulley wear to name a few.

“One of the issues that kept coming up was that of convey-ors. People see a conveyor and think it just runs, but there’s a lot of issues users are faced with which they need to mitigate. If they could find out how to mitigate them they would have significant business value results.”

Honeywell tried to identify each of the most common issues found in conveyor systems, and came up with the BeltAIS, or the Belt Asset Inspection System. The BeltAIS (pronounced Belt

Honeywell’s conveyor monitoring a response to industry need

Massive US technology business Honeywell has taken its talents to the field of conveyor system monitoring, with its total asset health monitoring system and BeltAIS defect detection system. Honeywell’s Neil Freeman spoke with ABHR’s Oliver Probert about the technologies.

Honeywell’s BeltAIS monitors the condition of belts and analyses them for wear and tear.


Every time. Time… after time… after timeSaving time and money

PERFECT FLIGHTSPERFECT FIT, PERFECT ALIGNMENT

If you experience problems with mis-fitting flights, talk to us and save money!Every time you fit a BulkNet TruHelix flight it fits perfectly, Saving you time and money.No gaps on centre tube.No flight end misalignment.Less welding.Shorter assembly time that will save you moneyAnd you get a better finished product!BulkNet’s Australian made TruHelix flights are the best in the world due to our revolutionary new production method.

We know that every BulkNet flight will be Perfect… and that’s a big claim.

Would you like to know more?…Email: [email protected] or go to www.BulkNet.com.au or 1800 069 675

BulkNet ad concepts_PRESS.indd 1 14/03/14 4:37 PM


Ace) offers customers the ability to detect, monitor and report on all elements of the conveyor belt, providing real-time belt examination and metre-by-metre analysis, and reducing moni-toring schedules if wear and tear on a belt is not significant.

BeltAIS is a prime example of Freeman’s plans to look at Honeywell’s vast industrial experience to help find solutions in new industry areas. Honeywell’s pulp and paper division al-ready had developed a video-based system to determine defects in paper. Freeman’s division decided to adapt that to apply it to conveyor belts, to monitor for cover defects.

The BeltAIS is designed to perform repeated defect analy-sis of a conveyor belt’s surface, helping to identify potential risk zones and to assist in degradation analysis, upon which further action can be initiated.

It is based around video inspection linked to robust analy-sis and decision support software. A high-speed, high-resolution camera built into a heavy-duty housing monitors the surface of a conveyor belt for tears, edge tears, gouging, non-uniform wear-ing, splice problems and other defects.

Rated at temperatures up to 100°C, and featuring an inte-grated light source and on-board processing and storage, the camera can function at shutter speeds up to one ten-thousandth of a second, and can stream 32fps video.

In addition to the physical technology, Honeywell’s Belt-AIS cover defect monitoring system includes image analysis and decision support software. This features different algo-rithms to detect cover defects and can automatically adapt to each particular belt.

It also features ‘region of interest’ analysis, allowing selec-tive detection of edge tears and load-bearing wear, intelligent categorisation of defects by intensity and location on the belt, synthetic 3D imaging for better inspection of defects, database and charts to track severity and changes over time, and report-ing and interfacing capabilities.

“Part of what people were saying is they need to be able to predict and adequately plan for conveyor repairs, idler repairs and conveyor replacement,” Freeman says. “Cover defect moni-toring gives you the ability to monitor the belt’s surface in real time, and look at it for defects. We can look at that in a pseudo 3D perspective to determine what maintenance is required.”

Through this technology, Freeman says the company can help conveyor operators improve the decision making of their maintenance processes.

“Conveyor belts are not really something people have in stock, they tend to be specifically constructed items with quite a long lead time. The manufacturing process is a batch process, and so if a company needs to replace a worn-out belt, they can get a lot better price for a longer lead-time. In an emergency, a manufacturer will charge top dollar for it.”

An ultimate decision needs to be made by the clients them-selves; Honeywell aims to help provide operators with the best and most useful information about their systems.

The BeltAIS camera is heavy duty and shoots in high-resolution, high frame rate video.


“At the end of the day, we’re experts in automation, and measuring things,” Freeman notes. “At the end of the day, the decision is in their hands.”

Following that mantra, Honeywell has developed its total asset health monitoring solution, designed to integrate with the BeltAIS system, as well as other third party systems, to automate and simplify the overall conveyor system monitor-ing process.

“Our plan was to develop things nobody else has. In or-der to do the overall conveyor monitoring scheme, we have to be able to integrate information from different systems,” Freeman explains.

The key components of Honeywell’s system include its One-Wireless Network, Equipment Health Monitor, Field Advisor, Digi-tal Video Manager and Asset Manager.

OneWireless Network is a wireless system combining in-struments and devices on a single redundant wireless mesh net-work. Equipment Health Monitor measures temperature via a wireless multiplexer.

Field Advisor is made up of software and tools to config-ure and manage the execution of field tasks by mobile work-ers. Digital Video Manager is the video monitoring system that can be integrated into the control system for monitoring di-verse operations, and Asset Manager is Honeywell’s integrated health assessment dashboard.

Contact: www.honeywell.com


BeltAIS is designed to integrate with Honeywell’s total asset health monitoring solution.

CONVEYOR INSPECTION

Conti Protect warning systems protect conveyor belt systems from major damage. The systems’ splice elongation measure-

ment is designed to monitor large conveyor belts. It detects irregu-larities in the splice length with the help of magnetic markings.

“Monitoring the splice increases the operational safety of conveyor systems with ever lower safety factors and ever higher conveyor belt strengths,” said Arndt Bunzel, application engi-neer at the ContiTech conveyor belt group.

Conti Protect belt rip detection detects longitudinal rips in the conveyor belt early on with the help of vulcanized conductor loops. “With improved conductor loops and a lower electromagnetic sus-ceptibility to faults, the belt warning system prevents incorrect messages and thus expensive system standstills,” said Bunzel. “On-line support is also available. Our experts can log into the system and check and optimize processes via remote maintenance.”

Conti Inspect systems supply data that can be used to make decisions regarding the remaining service life of the conveyor belt and to estimate investment costs more accurately.

“This makes an important contribution toward reducing op-erating costs and protecting the environment,” said Bunzel.

The mobile belt thickness measurement system measures the thickness of the conveyor belt across the entire length of the belt. “Surface damage can be detected at an early stage with the Conti Inspect continuous surface inspection system. The most modern scan technologies are used to inspect the conveyor belt surface and to gain a detailed image of the belt surface and quality.

“A cord monitoring system monitors the steel cord of the carcass with a magnetic-inductive procedure and allows its con-dition to be assessed precisely.”

In the development of its electronic warning systems, Con-tiTech says it leverages synergies from the company and builds on the expertise of the Continental Automotive Group, which develops and produces electronic systems for the passenger and commercial vehicle industry.

Conveyor belt electronic warning systems

ContiTech has developed electronic conveyor belt warning and inspection systems to detect damage at an early stage and to determine the state of conveyor belts.

Contact: www.contitech.de

ContiTech says its electronic warning systems increase operational safety and save money.

Office Address: 2/27 Jack Williams Drive PENRITH NSW 2750

Postal Address: P.O. Box 4395 PENRITH NSW 2750

All Enquiries: T. +61 2 4724 9444 | F. +61 2 4732 5881 | E. [email protected] | www.bellebannecp.com.au

• Used in Australasian Materials handling industry since early 1970’s.• Comprehensive range of tried and tested Primary and Secondary

Belt Cleaners, Vee-Ploughs, Skirting Systems and Tracking Devicescatering to site specific applications.

• Market leader in performance of critical components. (Tungsten Carbide Blades)

• “Back to Basics” approach on high performance products coupledwith market affordability.

• Improved traction as dimples grip belt• Improved belt tracking due to positive grip• Reduced belt tension required due to• Increased coefficient of friction• Extreme wear resistance• Outstanding adhesion• Minimal change in rubber hardness with age• Tiles more resistant to cracking or “pull out”• Suitable for use in underground mines• Easy to install with less joins• One product suits all pulley face widths

Belt Cleaning / Belt Tracking & Skirting

Pulley Lagging

Lorbrand Composite Rollers

CAI Mechanical Fasteners & Accessories

Maptsoft (Mine Asset Performance Tracking Software)

• Manufacturer of quality products in the USA for the past 30 years.• Providing an alternative quality choice in today’s competitive marketplace.• Manufacturers of the following fasteners: Bolt Solid Plate, Rivet Hinged, Staple and Lacing.• Manufacturers and providers of universal tooling and accessories; Fastener installation

tools, belt cutters, belt skivers and belt clamps

• Asset performance tracking, inspection, reporting and maintenance scheduling made simple.• Use of RFID technology and ruggedized PDA’s to gather information. Complete paperless system.• Allows the end user to evaluate the absolute performance of assets. (Cleaners, rolls, pulleys)• Completely scalable where the software can be applied to other assets. (Drives, gearboxes, chutes)• Performance of any asset automatically distributed amongst management hierarchies.• Reporting structure provides trending capabilities for any asset, along with improved warranty

management capabilities.

• Lorbrand has manufactured conveyors, rolls and frames since 1985.• Cutting edge composite roll design technology. • Products designed with safety and performance as a priority.• Interchangeable design to fit all existing structures.• Capability to hold stock sizes per customer requirements, to reduce lengthy delivery times.• Variety of composite materials. High Density Polyethylene (HDPE), Nylon,

Fire Resistant Anti-Static Nylon (FRAS). No limitations on lengths.• AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL FRAS STANDARD ACHIEVED: AS 4606 -2012,

also complies with NSW guideline standard MDG 3608 – 2012.• Multiple roll diameter manufacturing capabilities: 114mm up through 196mm.• Multiple lengths available up to 2500mm.

Total Conveyor Maintenance Solutions

www.facebook.com/BBConveyorProducts

Available in Standard and FRAS Rubber


TRANSFER CHUTES

IntroductionTransfer chutes are used to change the el-evation and, in some cases, the direction of a stream of bulk material, e.g. from one belt conveyor to another. If the per-formance requirements are not demand-ing, the design can be very simple, such as using a flat impact plate to catch and direct the material from an incoming belt to a receiving belt. Such chutes are often designed with little or no knowledge of the flow characteristics of the material to be handled. Unfortunately, when a plant increases throughput or changes the ma-terial, these simple designs often fail to perform reliably.

Some of the problems associated with failed chute designs include: plugging, excessive wear of chute surfaces, unac-ceptable dust generation, high belt wear, product spillage and particle attrition. These problems often lead to significant maintenance costs because of the need to unplug chutes, pick up spillage, or fre-quently replace wear liners. Poorly per-forming chutes can cause environmental problems and production losses.

The most effective way to overcome these problems is to first characterize the properties of the bulk material being han-dled, then apply the continuum method or Discrete Element Modelling (DEM) to analyse the chute. The most important characteristics of a properly designed transfer chute are: maintain particle ve-locity through the region of impact, gain and control the stream of material, keep

impact angles small, and keep the chute no more than about one-third full.

Prior to DEM technology coming into widespread use in the last decade, the con-tinuum method [1] was used successfully for the design of many transfer chutes. Flow properties measurements are used to determine the material and chute interac-tions, such as wall friction and wear resis-tance, which allow prediction of material velocities at the region of impact as well as the region of discharge to the receiving belt. Royal and Craig [2] present an over-view of relevant flow properties tests re-quired for effective transfer chute design using the continuum method.

In recent years, DEM has been rapid-ly developed both in its theories [3] and computational speed to become a state-of-the-art simulation technique. As a result, it is increasingly used to study the physics of industrial particulate problems [4]. More work still needs to be done to develop a more comprehensive theory and experi-mental techniques to study and quantify the interaction between particles and be-tween particles and fluid (e.g., air) under various conditions. The goal is to develop a general theory to link the discrete and continuum methods. From this, particle scale information, generated from DEM simulation, can be quantified in terms of governing equations, constitutive rela-tions and boundary conditions that can be implemented in continuum-based pro-cess modelling. Using flow properties to calibrate the particles and wall properties,

DEM models are quickly becoming the mainstream technology for belt-to-belt transfer chute design [5].

Increasing the throughput of a trans-fer chute and/or changing the materi-al can have a significant effect on the chute’s reliable operation, and the results can be dangerous and potentially costly. As tonnage rates have increased over the years, associated costs due to blocked chutes, belt wear, belt tracking, spillage, dusting, etc. have increased dramatically. This paper will analyse the best approach to evaluate if the throughput of an ex-isting transfer chute can successfully be increased, and whether or not a new ma-terial will flow through an existing chute. If the evaluation is negative, new or modi-fied transfer chutes are required.

Two common designs of transfer chutes There are two main types of transfer chute designs: a rock box or micro-ledge design, and a hood-and-spoon design, as illustrated in Figure 1. In a rock box or micro-ledge design, some material builds up in the chute so as to force particles to flow against other particles. The main ad-vantage of this type of design is to mini-mise wear with free-flowing, rocky (i.e., hard, abrasive, angular) material. Instead of impacting a liner, the flowing stream of material impacts stagnant material sit-ting on the rock boxes, ledges, or shelves, thus significantly reducing impact and sliding wear of the liner. The downside is that fine, sticky material may build up on the shelves and eventually plug the chute.

The hood-and-spoon design, which was invented by Jenike & Johanson in the late 1980s [6], consists of a hood to cap-ture the material with a low impact angle and a spoon to control the material exit-ing onto the receiving belt. Both the hood and the spoon are designed such that the material is centred and concentrated in the correct position. As a result of no ledges in the chute, wet and sticky mate-rial can pass through easier than with the rock box design, usually at a higher ve-locity. The higher velocity can be utilized to minimize wear of the receiving belt by ensuring that the material’s exiting veloc-ity is in the same direction and close to

Evaluating transfer chutes for increased throughput or for use with a different material

By Carrie E. Hartford* and Terry Tan*, Ph.D, Senior Engineers, Jenike & Johanson, Australiaand John W. Carson*, Ph.D., President, Jenike & Johanson, USA

Figure 1: Rock box design and hood-and-spoon design.

or slightly greater than that of the belt. However, this higher velocity and more particle contact with the chute surface causes a higher wear rate than a rock box design; therefore, wear liners may have to be replaced on a regular basis. Advantag-es and disadvantages of each design are listed in Table 1 below.

Transfer chute design becomes more challenging when the material is both rocky and fine and sticky, since the design must prevent plugging and minimise wear. Two examples of this

type of difficult-to-handle material are: coal overburden containing soil, clay, sand and large rocks; iron ore contain-ing fines, lumps and some clay. For such materials, a hybrid type of trans-fer chute design, considering elements of both rock box and hood-and-spoon designs, may be required.

Increase transfer chute throughputBelt-to-belt transfer chutes are typically de-signed for a specific material and capacity.

However, through the life of a plant or port, there is often a demand for transfer chutes to handle increased capacity. The reason could be to meet increased produc-tion at a plant, or to handle more clients’ product using the same equipment at a port. By handling a larger quantity of mate-rial than before, one can maximize assets and generate more profit.

Increased throughput usually means increased material bed depth on a belt conveyor and/or higher belt speed. Inside a transfer chute the resulting change in

TRANSFER CHUTES

Table 1. Advantages and disadvantages of rock box and hood-and-spoon designs

Rock box design Hood-and-spoon design

Advantages • Ideal for abrasive material, large rocks, free flowing material; • Long liner life;• Usually low discharging velocity hence low impact on receiving belt; • Relatively easy to design.

• Ideal for wet, sticky, low abrasion material;• Plugging minimized, since material does not slow down

significantly; • Minimum dust generation and product degradation;• Central loading on receiving belt;• Discharging material’s speed can match receiving belt

speed to minimize belt wear.

Disadvantages • Fine and sticky materials build up on the shelves and eventually plug the chute;

• Usually generate more dust because of more product degradation;• Higher power required for material re-acceleration on receiving belt; • Less control of material direction, such as centring on the

receiving belt.

• Higher chute wear rate due to higher material speed and more contact area;

• Expensive to fabricate wear liners because of curved shapes;• Optimized design is complicated to achieve.


material trajectory often causes increased impact to the hood or material rock box, and lower discharge velocity after im-pact. The progression of problems is shown in Figure 2.

Whenever there is a demand to in-crease throughput, it is not advisable to attempt without prior evaluation, since this can easily lead to transfer chute plug-ging and spillage.

Both continuum and DEM models can be used to evaluate higher throughput in an existing transfer chute. Flow properties must first be measured to provide inputs to the model. These include: wall friction, cohesive strength, bulk density, particle density, and chute angle values [2]. Once a model has been calibrated for a specific material, it can easily be run for various flow rates to determine the limits of a transfer chute. If more capacity is required than what is available, the chute can be re-designed/modified to ensure reliable flow.

An example of what can happen when throughput is increased is shown in Figure 3. This hood-and-spoon trans-fer chute was designed for 200 tph of a sticky, cohesive material. It worked well as designed at this tonnage rate, as shown in the figure at the left. However, there was a desire to double the throughput. As can be seen in the figure at the right, the DEM model clearly shows that, in-stead of the stream’s trajectory being gently redirected, the stream impacts the hood. As shown in Figure 4, the result is a nearly doubling of the material-induced

pressure acting normal (i.e., perpendic-ular) to the chute surface in the region where the stream first contacts the hood. This would cause a significant increase in wear and spillage. The solution in this case was to redesign the hood-and-spoon to accommodate the higher throughput.

Change material put through the chuteOver time the material to be handled may change from the material for which the transfer chute was initially designed. Some common reasons include: • mining areas have changed since the

mine was started; • the mining area is now under the wa-

ter table;

• clay, which was not included in the design specifications, has been found in the ore;

• water has been added due to envi-ronmental requirements for dust suppression;

• water has been added or removed so as to change the material’s flow prop-erties, e.g., material prone to flooding or plugging;

• a completely new type of material will be handled, e.g., bauxite through a transfer chute that had been de-signed for handling coal.A rock box is an ideal way to deal with

wear, since the bulk material slides on it-self, and the elements of the chute are not subjected to impact or sliding. However, unless carefully designed, a rock box is far from an ideal way to control the stream of flowing material. When a plant handles a wet, sticky material this is also hard and abrasive, changing out the rock box to a hood–and-spoon design to control the flow of material and minimise buildup could lead to accelerated wear problems requir-ing the plant to frequently change out ex-pensive liners.

This was the case at an iron ore export terminal in South Africa. The owner want-ed to convey a wet, sticky iron ore through an existing transfer chute system that was designed with rock boxes for free flowing lump iron ore. They were planning to re-place their chutes with hood-and-spoon arrangements, but they had significant con-cerns regarding wear.

The solution was to use a honeycomb ar-rangement to capture some of the bulk ma-terial so as to minimize wear. Figure 5 pro-vides an illustration of this type of design, which is a hybrid of rock box and hood-and-spoon designs. The honeycomb rock boxes contain many small pockets, but the shape of the sliding surface is still controlled by the hood-and-spoon chute design. The hon-eycomb was used only on portions of the hood and the spoon that were expected to

TRANSFER CHUTES

Figure 2: Progression of problems caused by increased belt speed and/or bed depth.

Figure 3: DEM output showing 200tph through hood (left) and 400tph (right) through the same chute.

Figure 4: DEM output showing material-induced pressures acting normal (i.e. perpendicular) to chute surface at 200tph (left) and 400tph (right)

experience the highest impact. The honey-comb surface was contained in a removable box so that it could be replaced quickly and easily in the field when necessary.

ConclusionsIncreasing throughput and/or handling dif-ferent material through existing transfer chutes can have significant financial bene-fits, since it allows a company to maximize the use of its assets. Continuum and DEM models are good predictive tools to analyse the feasibility of such a usage change. DEM is an excellent analytical tool but it does not tell the designer how to change the trans-fer chute’s design to avoid problems, and it

requires flow properties input from meas-urements. Running multiple DEM models on various designs is time consuming and, in the end, may still not result in optimum design. Practical field experience and sol-ids flow knowhow are immensely useful in knowing what to change and how.

References[1] Stuart-Dick, D. and Royal, T.A.: Design Principles for Chutes to Handle Bulk Sol-ids. Bulk Solids Handling, Vol. 12, No. 3, Sept. 1992, pp 447-450.[2] Royal, T. A. and D. A. Craig: Effective Chute Design, Presented at Seventh Inter-national Bulk Materials Storage, Handling

and Transportation Conference, The Uni-versity of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, Oct. 3-5, 2001. Used with the permission of the publisher.[3] H.P. Zhu, R.Y. Yang, Z.Y. Zhou and A.B. Yu, Discrete simulation of particulate sys-tems: theoretical developments, (invited contribution), Chemical Engineering Sci-ence, 62 (2007) 3378-3396.[4] H.P. Zhu, Z.Y. Zhou, R.Y. Yang and A.B. Yu, Discrete particle simulation of particulate systems: a review of major applications and findings, Chemical En-gineering Science, 63 (2008) 5728-5770.[5] Bharadwaj, Rahul, Using DEM to Solve Bulk Material Handling Problems, Chemi-cal Engineering Progress, September 2012, pp. 54 – 58[6] Generalized high speed belt-to-belt trans-fer chute, US Patent 4,646,910, August, 1985.

Carrie E. Hartford* and Terry Tan*, Ph.D, are Senior Engineers for Jenike & Jo-hanson based in Perth. John W. Carson*, Ph.D, is the President of the company. He is based in Massachusetts, USA.

TRANSFER CHUTES

Contacts: [email protected], [email protected] [email protected]

Figure 5: Cutaway of hood showing replaceable honeycomb box at impact point and photo from actual installation.


Nidar manufactures 150 products under 35 brands on 10 production lines. The company’s plant was built in

1950 and has been updated regularly with modern bulk han-dling equipment to improve productivity and the working environment.

In fact, the five-level plant (four storeys plus basement) has been extended six times to accommodate growth in produc-tion, explains Tor Ove Kvingedal, one of three maintenance engineers. “But as with most old buildings,” he says, “the orig-inal layout was not always optimal for modern production.”

Where gravity feeding of materials is not possible, the plant transfers bulk materials using bulk bag dischargers, flex-ible screw conveyors, rigid augers and pneumatic conveyors;

equipment that reduces manual labour, contains dust, and fits in very tight spaces, as recently demonstrated with the addition of a twin half-frame bulk bag discharger, Flexicon told ABHR.

Bulk bag dischargers designed to save labour, reduce dustIngredients such as milk powder, sugar, starch, and sour coat-ing powder arrive in 1.1 tonne bulk bags. Nidar dedicates a number of bulk bag discharge stations to unload them, includ-ing six supplied by Flexicon.

The newest of the bulk bag dischargers is a twin half-frame unit, which handles two types of starch in a tight space on the plant’s fourth floor.

Norwegian candy supplier steps up standards with new machinery

Bulk handling machinery specialist Flexicon has supplied a variety of modern components for leading Norwegian candy supplier Nidar’s plant upgrade.

BULK BAGS

Ingredients such as milk powder, sugar, starch, and sour coating powder arrive in 1.1 tonne bulk bags, and are gravity fed into the processing lines where feasible.

Once a bag is hoisted into position, an operator pulls the bag spout over a Spout-Lock clamp ring, which creates a secure, dust-tight connection between the clean side of the bag spout and the clean side a of a Tele-Tube telescoping tube, which maintains constant downward tension to promote complete discharge.

BULK BAGS

Previously, starch was purchased in 25kg sacks which op-erators carried from the third floor to the fourth floor where it was dumped into two large vessels, each holding 200–300kg. Since the process consumes 100kg/hour of starch, 32 sacks were handled manually per eight-hour day. “The operators were climbing stairs numerous times a day to keep the vessels filled,” Kvingedal said.

As well as hard work, unloading sacks of starch by hand was a dusty process, Kvingedal said: “The starch dust is not harmful, but is unpleasant and can be very sticky.”

The new Bulk-Out BFH-C-X twin half-frame bulk bag dis-charger, also from Flexicon, holds two bulk bags side-by-side, providing enough starch to keep the line running for two or more days. “The system also reduces manual effort, contains dust and improves the working environment,” Kvingedal added.

Twin half-frame discharger overcomes horizontal and vertical space constraintsStarch powder originally flowed by gravity from the two large vessels on the fourth floor, through a pair of knife gate valves and 150mm diameter steel chutes leading to the third floor.

The large vessels could not simply be replaced with two separate bulk bag dischargers because the distance between the discharger outlets would have exceeded the distance be-tween the existing chutes, requiring new holes through the fourth floor and relocation of the chutes.

The ceiling height of only 4.5m also posed a problem, since insufficient headroom above the units would prevent loading and removing of bulk bags using a forklift.

To surmount both problems, Flexicon’s agent in Norway, Maskiner & Pulver Teknologi, recommended a 1.2m high, twin half-frame bulk bag discharger which holds two bulk bags side-by-side. The two-in-one unit discharges through two outlets spaced closely enough to obviate relocation of the knife gate valves and chutes, while the low profile design allows suspen-sion of bulk bags from a hoist, saving an extra 10 cm of head-room. “It was very tight,” recounted Kvingedal.

Removing the original tanks and installing the twin half-frame discharger above the chutes was straightforward. Nidar simply needed to provide a compressed air supply to power the unit.

Kvingedal said: “We installed the discharger in two days. A local company provided the hoist. It was critical to have the equipment installed quickly, because the starch is a key ingredi-ent on this production line.”

Norwegian tastes in candy“Any nation with self-respect has its own chocolate factory and traditional chocolate products,” notes Nidar’s website. Having flown the Norwegian flag since its foundation in 1912, Nidar is practically a national institution.

The firm develops and manufactures its products in the city of Trondheim (formerly known as Nidaros) on a 40,000 square metre site that includes production machin-ery, offices and warehousing. The factory employs 350 people, of whom 250 are operators. Annual production exceeds 15,400 tonnes.

The company produces chocolate bars, boxed choco-lates, marzipan, gummi candies, caramels, liquorice prod-ucts, and pastilles under a range of historic brand names.

“We are always innovating with different kinds of pack-aging,” Kvingedal said. “But launching new brands is harder. Norwegian people like their good old familiar chocolate bars, and many of our most successful brands date back to before the Second World War.”

SOME THINK LONG-DISTANCE TRANSPORT IS INFRASTRUCTURE- INTENSIVE. WE THINK DIFFERENT.Transporting materials from remote locations has tradition-ally required signifi cant infrastructure investments in road or rail links, vehicles, personnel and fuel. BEUMER o� ers an economical, e� cient and environmental alternative – long-distance overland conveying. This gives you a dedicated, around-the-clock transport link at the fraction of the cost of infrastructure development. The reduced noise and air pollution minimises environmental impact and improves personnel safety. Add to that a high degree of design fl exi-bility and customisation and you can see why overland conveying makes a big di� erence to operational e� ciency and environmental protection.For more information, visit www.beumergroup.com

BEU_PipeConveyor_AustrBulkHandlRev_GB_100,5x297mm.indd 1 12.05.14 13:33

Labour saved and dust levels reducedOnce a bag is hoisted into position, an operator pulls the bag spout over a clamp ring, which creates a secure, dust-tight con-nection between the clean side of the bag spout and the clean side a of a telescoping tube. As the bag empties and elongates, the telescoping tube maintains constant downward tension, promot-ing complete discharge.

Bag activators additionally promote flow through the spout by raising opposite bottom sides of the bag into a steep “V” shape.

Nidar considered installing extraction fans but decided they were unnecessary, since dust was contained by the discharger’s bag spout interface.

After descending through the telescoping tube, the starch pass-es through the knife gate valve and then through one of the two vertical chutes to a weighing station on the second floor. A hori-zontally-oriented 170mm diameter auger on the third floor can run in either direction, so each discharger can supply either of the two weighing stations, which sends signals to open or close the knife gate valves to regulate flow from the bulk bags.

“The twin half-frame bulk bag discharger is easy to keep clean using compressed air or a damp rag, and maintenance needs are very low,” Kvingedal said. “I don’t have any issues at all with the twin discharger.”


Contacts: (07) 3879 4180 Email: [email protected] Web: www.flexicon.com.au

BULK BAGS

(Left and middle): Nidar AS added twin bulk bag dischargers from Flexicon to handle two types of starch in a tight space on the plant’s fourth floor. (Right): Where gravity feeding of materials is not possible, the plant transfers bulk materials using bulk bag dischargers, flexible screw conveyors, rigid augers and pneumatic conveyors.

Norway’s leading supplier of candy/confectionary makes 140 products under 35 brands including its new salty-sweet candy Smash.

... If so, you can now expand your capabilities by joining the Australian Society for Bulk Solids Handling.The Society has a mission to enhance the discipline of bulk solids handling through research, education and sound engineering practice.Further information on the Society’s activities, its Constitution and registration procedures are available from the :

Australian Society for Bulk Solids Handling Centre for Bulk Solids and Particulate Technologies The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308 Phone: (02) 4033 9055 Fax: (02) 4033 9044 email: [email protected] Website: www.engineersaustralia.org.au/Australian-Society-Bulk-Solids-Handling

ARE YOU...A DESIGNER / MANUFACTURER / RESEARCHER / OPERATOR OF

BULK SOLIDS HANDLING... SYSTEMS / EQUIPMENT / STORAGE?

Membership is open to ALL practitioners in bulk solids handling and related technologies.

Complex materials handling solutions... for any size project.

No matter how big or small . . .Talk to us about our alternative pricing and project

delivery options to ensure the success of your project.

From standard equipment through to a full custom designed turnkey solution, IBS will work with you to achieve your specification within your budget & delivered to your requirements.

[email protected]

CHINA YCEC, Xinmin Industrial Park, Jiangdu District Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, China-225200

BANGKOK Unit 2901-2904, Level 29, 388 Exchange Tower, Sukhumvit Road, Klongtoey Subdistrict, Klongtoey District, Bangkok, 10110

(03) 9585 6391

www.integratedbulksystems.com.au


OVERHEAD

A new assembly machine commenced production in January 2014 at Flexco’s manufacturing facility in Baulkham Hills,

NSW, which Colbourn says has significantly improved lead times and product availability of the company’s CoreTech nylon con-veyor rollers in Australia.

“Australian-made is important to us and we are always look-ing at ways we can support the Australian manufacturing indus-try by bringing the manufacture of more products to our factory,” Colbourn, Flexco’s national sales and marketing manager said.

CoreTech rollers are made of lightweight, high strength, cor-rosion and abrasion resistant composite materials, making instal-lation and maintenance of conveyor rollers on site faster, easier and safer, according to Flexco.

Nylon rollers are typically up to 60% lighter than equivalent steel rollers, and Flexco points out that lighter weight rolls can often make for quicker and less-costly installation and reduce the risk of worker injury without sacrificing performance.

Flexco says its CoreTech rollers last significantly longer than

steel rollers in most applications because of their unique con-struction, featuring a rotating centrifugal seal that provides un-matchable protection from bearing failure.

The company says that no matter what, dirt will penetrate the primary sealing area. But CoreTech rolls actually allow the dirt to escape helping to prevent roller failure, it says.

The centrifugal seal is specifically designed to rotate with the roller, generating centrifugal force. This helps to ‘spin out’ fines, water, and other contaminants, preventing trapped mate-rial from damaging the bearing. This keeps operations up and running longer, and avoids costly maintenance downtime.

Flexco is looking to expand its line of conveyor rollers to in-clude a lower cost version of the CoreTech roll, made of light-weight, durable composite HDPE. The new idlers will be ideal for light to medium duty applications where efficiency and cost containment are critical.

32

Flexco improves lead time for nylon rollersFlexco’s Mark Colbourn told ABHR about the new machine which is helping the manufacturer improve its lead time on its CoreTech nylon rollers.

South African conveyor roller business Megaroller has sold its Australian arm to investor Jannie Kotze, who has opened a new office for the company in Perth, WA. ABHR’s Oliver Probert spoke to Kotze and Megaroller's NSW general manager, Stephen Botha.

CONVEYOR ROLLERS

Megaroller has operated a factory in Morisset, NSW for the past half-decade, but the South Africa-based operators of the

roller business were not particularly proactive in establishing the company as a major brand in Australia, Kotze explained to ABHR.

“What happened in Australia is because it was not the focus, they manufactured and distributed it here for the last five years, but not in a high-profile way,” he said.

Instead, Megaroller chose to be a bit more low-key, doing about half of its business directly with customers, and the other half through a range of distributors. “We’ve been in the Australian

market for quite some time, but not in the high-profile, driven way.”Kotze aims to change that.“The [Megaroller] owner in South Africa asked me, because

of my business background, to take charge of this one, and take it as an opportunity,” he explained. “So I looked at it, and re-looked at it, and in the end I decided it’s a good opportunity, and a good market. I think I’ve got enough energy, and so it’s an investment for me to take on and to grow.”

After buying Megaroller’s Australian business, Kotze set up an office for the company in June. He said the company is planning

Flexco’s new assembly machine. Flexco’s CoreTech rollers in action.

Megaroller opens Perth office

Contact: www.flexco.com


on opening a new factory in Perth, but it’s not yet clear how that would impact operations at the existing NSW premises.

Stephan Botha is the general manager of that premises, and he told ABHR the company’s real advantage comes from the qual-ity of its high-density polyethylene (HDPE) rollers. The rollers, which he said are fire retardant but not FRAS rated, are for that reason best suited to hard rock conveying scenarios, but not un-derground coal conveyors.

“As a standard, we like to believe we can do double the life of a steel roller,” Botha said. “And if you have a look at the other polymer rollers in the market we would like to think we can outlast others in the industry three-to-four times over, just due to construction.”

While Botha conceded that roller life is highly based on the individual variables in each case, he’s confident Megaroller’s products will stand up well against any of their competitors.

“You have different environmental areas, different belt speeds, different weights on your belt,” he said. “So that all influences the lifespan of the roller … [but] what makes our roller different to the others is the construction we have. It’s a 14 to 16mm HDPE polymer sleeve, which is the external of the roller. Then it’s reinforced on the inside; normally the polymer roller manufacturers just have the polymer sleeve … they don’t have the reinforcement on the inside. Ours does have that reinforcement. That’s one of the key features when you look at a polymer roller.

“The other thing is the structure where your bearing housing and the roller face join. Mainly, the polymer manufacturers have just a press, so they press the bearing housing inside the tube, and that’s how they leave it. Under heavy loads, you’ll find that those two separate and give way – they fail – and that gives free access to dirt, water, dust and everything that can get to your

bearings and ruin your roller. We actually fuse the bearing hous-ing and the polymer sleeve together.”

That fusing process includes a lot of heat and pressure, but Botha explained that the company can fully construct the rollers at its NSW warehouse.

“That’s just one of our processes, to fuse the end housing (or the bearing housing) and the outer sleeve together … We’ve got three guys working here full time, on about 12 different stations.”

Employing three people, Botha said, current capacity at the NSW site is about 900 – 1000 rollers a month. Lifting that capac-ity, though, is as simple as adding staff.

“If you changed that to one person per machine, you’d be able to bump that up to roughly 3000 per month,” Botha said.

“We normally have a lead time of about 14 days for orders of up to 300 rollers,” he continued. “That quick turnaround time is good for miners because we’ve got quick delivery. It also means we don’t have big [order] quantities all at once. That’s one of the advantages of manufacturing locally.”

That turnaround also helps deal with Australia’s industries specifically, according to Botha.

“The Australian mining industry doesn’t have a standard when it comes to conveyor belts. South Africa has a standard, so for all the different belt widths, your frame slot sizes are set, and standard, so you can actually produce en masse. That’s where China comes in and plays its role well.

“In Australia, because we don’t have those standards, spe-cifically with frame sizes, means [the Chinese builders] can’t have that quick turnaround of a standard product. That’s one of the other advantages of manufacturing locally, is we are pretty much a phone call away from getting the correct di-mensions, and delivering the product within two weeks, or 20 days if it’s a big order.”

Megaroller Australia’s Morisset, NSW plant contains all the machinery needed to manufacture HDPE rollers.

CONVEYOR ROLLERS

For all your standard and special idler & pulley needs

• Fastlocalfabrication• Consultationwithexpert,experienceddesigners

• Trough Idlers • Impact Idlers • Return Idlers • Flat Carry Idlers • Side Guide Idlers • Belt Tensioning Devices • Conveyor Pulleys• Self Cleaning Pulleys

2-4 Burns Road, Heathcote NSW 2233T: 02 9548 1044 F: 02 9520 7743

E: [email protected]: [email protected]

www.drcrollers.com.auACN 001 054 388

DRC QPH_3.indd 1 29/03/12 5:02 PM

ShorterLead Times

AT FLEXCO, WE TAKE YOUR SYSTEM’S PRODUCTIVITY AS SERIOUSLY AS YOU DO. The most advanced composite roller made from innovative plastic technology is now manufactured on Australian shores meaning shorter lead times and less downtime for your production.

Designed to overcome common issues with belt rollers, heavy-duty CoreTech™ Conveyor Rollers are strong enough to tackle the toughest environments while maintaining superior performance.

Made of light weight, high strength, corrosion and abrasion resistant composite materials, CoreTech rollers require less energy, and emit less noise than steel counterparts - plus superior plastic construction means that even advanced wear on the shell won’t damage the belt.

Phone: 1300 098 435Email: salesau@fl exco.com

www.fl exco.com

SuperiorPerformance.

Now assembled at the Flexco manufacturing facility in Baulkham Hills, NSW, Australia

TALK WITH A FLEXCO SALES REPRESENTATIVE TODAY!

TM

Conveyor Rollers

1213__AUSBlkHdlg_fp_CCT2.indd 1 1/7/14 8:53 AM

The company, which supplies con-veyor belts, cleaners and other prod-

ucts, is based in Sunshine West, a suburb to the west of Melbourne, Victoria.

Clark says that in addition to intro-ducing several new products in the last six months, such as conveyor cleaners, conveyor belting fabric and steel cord, a new approach to business is also work-ing wonders.

“We have concentrated more on supporting distributors and learning

to become a big player in the Austral-ian and American markets,” Clark told ABHR. And the new strategy appears to be working, with weekly sales figures nearly doubling in the last few months.

“Since changing plans as to where we are going as a company, things have been great,” Clark said. “Turnover is in-creasing weekly and product sales are up 82%.”

Clark told ABHR about a newly-signed partnership with industrial

rubber belt manufacturer Huahen, based out of Zhangjiagang, China. Manufactur-ing-aside, he said CBS aims to keep eve-rything in-house as much as possible.

“Everything is operated in house so even with Chinese manufacturers we have full control,” he said.

CBS has also recently adjusted its con-veyor cleaners with parts designed to be more interchangeable and longer lasting.

Contact: www.megaroller.com.au

Contact: www.completebeltingsolutions.com.au

Turnaround time and unique order arrangements are some of the benefits Botha said Megaroller can offer its customers, and the company needs to be able to claim such advantages over competitors because its rollers are about 15% more costly than competing brands, Botha estimated.

“I think our product is about 15% more expensive than alter-natives, but if you pay for our product, and your belts are clean (your scrapers are working), maintained and checked properly, we’ll give you a two-year warranty. So that 15% more actually buys you a little bit of peace of mind.”

Botha admitted that it is difficult to convince a minesite to pay a little bit more for its rollers, and it can be hard to convince an operator that rollers are anything but a commodity item.

“Rollers don’t have to be a commodity product, but it’s definitely hard to convert people’s thinking about conveyor rollers,” he said. “But this product will save you a lot of money in the long run. We’ve found that if you actually let someone try the product, they’ll find that they like the product. Not only does it last longer, it’s light weight, easier to handle, and is quiet.”

At times Botha has been told the rollers are too quiet, in fact. While most of the time a silent roller usually means it has failed,

Botha said with Megaroller’s products, it’s often the other way around. “You install them, and it’s quiet. But when there’s noise then there’s an issue, that’s just the way of their design.”

Botha said Megaroller’s product is designed to overcome the most common problems found in everyday conventional conveyor use.

“Number one is that it’s belt friendly,” he explained. “The belt in itself is the most expensive part of the conveyor, and so you want to protect that section as much as possible. Having a product that damages that belt, for me, doesn’t make sense. That’s the reason we went with polymer, and polymer ends. A steel roller, with steel ends, should that bearing fail, you end up getting that knife cutting affect felt in the length of the belt. Once that’s done you can’t fix that.

“That’s where the real savings come in. If you’ve got a prod-uct that – even if it fails – won’t cut that belt in its length, it just makes sense to use that product.

“Number two is that it’s environmentally resistant. When you’ve got harsh environmental conditions like chemicals, the sea breeze, and the hot sun beating down, that’s all stuff that steel doesn’t like. If rust occurs on a roller then you’ve again got that possibility of damaging the belt. Polymer can resist those environmental factors. The structure of ours and that polymer makes it environmentally resistant.

“We machine the product off after the fusing has all been done. We machine the roller off, making it concentric, which also brings noise pollution down, stops the vibration, and bal-ances it. All of that creates a better bearing environment. The heart of the roller is the bearing, and by doing all of those things, we can protect the bearing a lot better.”

Also related to the rollers’ bearings, Botha said, is his third key benefit: “Number three is our sealing arrangement. 99% of the market makes use of a labyrinth type seal, which if you inspect closely always has a free way for dust and moisture to make its way through to the bearing.

“We’ve actually introduced a patented sealing arrange-ment, where we put a polymer push on the shaft, where any contamination will need to creep underneath the polymer push – almost 70mm long. The amount of time contamination takes to get between the polymer push and the shaft is meas-ured in years.”


CONVEYOR ROLLERS

Megaroller Australia’s Morisset, NSW plant contains all the machinery needed to manufacture HDPE rollers.

Complete Belting’s sales on the upDaniel Clark, director of Complete Belting Solutions, says since he recently refocused the business, weekly sales have almost doubled.

The Bonfiglioli A series drives were specified by Belling-ham Engineering for a major project that is part of Rio

Tinto Iron Ore’s plan to expand its iron ore export capacity to 280 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa).

Bellingham Engineering was contracted to design and construct a Long Welded Rail Crane for the new 8 mile Flash Butt Welding Facility in Karratha, for which they needed a high quality gearbox that could withstand adverse weather conditions such as high heat and cyclonic weather.

Bellingham chose the Bonfiglioli A 05 2 and A 90 4 Helical Bevel Gear Units, which provide 1.1 and 7.5kW of power respectively to traverse hoists, which allows Rio Tinto to lift up to four pieces of railway at once, increasing their op-erational efficiency.

“They’re good quality motors,” says Bellingham Engineering project engineer, Mat Bates. “They’ve got a good gearbox, a nice paint finish and they never rust. We’ve selected Bonfiglioli in the past and again on this project because they are far more reliable than some of the other major companies.”

The Karratha project began over three years ago, and was an all-in-one job, involving designing the systems, and fabricating and installing components. Further expansion work is now being done.

The project involves an extension of a rail welding facility with a long-welded rail crane consisting of 27 monorails, each with an 8t hoist and specialised rail grab unit. All 27 hoists are able to operate simultaneously. The crane is capable of picking up 400 metres of rail at once, which can either be taken to stor-age bays, or loaded onto trains for transportation, often to pro-vide new railways for mines.

Bates says Bonfiglioli engineers were efficient and reliable when it came to installation and delivery. “The Bonfiglioli engi-neers are just as reliable as their technology, they always turn up on time. I’ve never had any issues with them, or the drives they supply,” he said.

Bonfiglioli, which is this year celebrating 25 years service in Australia, says it prides itself on engineering services including those provided by its Drive Service Centre (DSC). The DSC, op-erating throughout Australasia, combines local engineering skills with the global resources required to tailor larger, sophisticated and efficient drives to the needs of individual customers.

According to Bonfiglioli’s publicity: “The A Series units select-ed for the Karratha project have a wide ratio range (with up to four reduction stages), allowing one gear unit to be used where previously two were needed, saving Rio Tinto space and cost. Op-erating efficiencies are enhanced by high performance helical bev-el gear pairs, which also give the units significant energy savings.

“They are also innovatively designed for lower noise levels by locating the bevel gear pair on the second reduction stage of the gear motors. In addition to this, the monobloc universal housing offers optimum sizing and perfect gear alignment, which adds to the total noise reductions of the units.”

The A series units are functionally designed with a large ratio range of 1700 to 1 in a single gearbox with up to four reduction stages. Depending which A Series unit is used, power outputs range from 0.09–55kW, with torques from 150-14,000.

37

Bonfiglioli gears for Rio rail expansion

Bonfiglioli helical bevel gear units are helping power rail hoists for Rio Tinto’s Rail Capacity Enhancement Project in Karratha, Western Australia.

GEARS, MOTORS & DRIVES

Contact: [email protected]

Bonfiglioli says its A Series Helical Bevel Gear Units provide lightweight construction, while maintaining strength and durability.

Bellingham Engineering’s monorails with 8t hoists powered by Bonfiglioli Gear Units



NEWS

TUNRA, which is affiliated with the University of Newcastle, is Austral-

ia’s largest and most experienced bulk solids research and consulting organi-sation. It works on around 250 mining and industrial projects each year, with activities like flow property characteri-sation to the fore.

The Perth course in November will be delivered by four illustrious TUNRA engi-neers. They are: Emeritus Professor Alan Roberts, Associate Professor Craig Wheel-er, Dr Tobias Krull and Dr Dusan Ilic.

At the course in Perth, attendees will learn about:• The basic principles of handling

plant design

• Bulk solid flow properties and appli-cation to design

• Loads on bin walls – symmetric, eccentric• Discharge – shock loads and silo quaking• Stockpile design incorporating draw-

down, live capacity, base loads and locations of reclaim hoppers, feeders and tunnels

• Loads on buried structures in bins and stockpiles

• Chute design for feeding and transfer• Belt conveying, overview of various

types of conveyors, bulk solids and conveyor belt interactions, review of basic design procedures

Bulk Solids Handling course in Perth in November

Four senior engineers from bulk solids research and consulting organisation TUNRA Bulk Solids will convene in Perth from November 18 to 20 to deliver a three day training course entitled Bulk Solids Handling – Storage, Feeding, Transfer, Belt Conveying.

Contact: [email protected] Test equipment at TUNRA Bulk Solids.

GEA Nu-Con for all your Powder Handling needs. Our Rotary Valves come in a range of materials and configurations from a standard valve to fully demountable for easy cleaning without the need for tools. We supply to a wide range of industries including Chemical, Plastics, Minerals, Food, Dairy and Pharmaceutical.

engineering for a better world

GEA Nu-Con Pty Limited458 The Boulevarde, Kirrawee NSW 2232Phone: +61 2 9545 2600, Fax: +61 2 9545 1846

[email protected], www.nucon.com

“Quality solutions for quality products“

GEA Process Engineering

Rotary Valve_Horizontal Burg Bground.indd 1 7/17/2013 12:13:41 PM

CleanScrape has shaken up the Aus-tralian market for belt cleaners. No-

velly, it adopts a diagonal rather than 90 degree angle to the belt surface, which ABC says increases its efficiency while reducing maintenance.

The device won an award in the In-novative Technology category at the 2013 Australian Bulk Handling Awards.

ABC bills AirScrape as a “world innova-tion”. It was invented and patented by the prolific Wilfried Duenwald, who also cre-ated CleanScrape. It is being manufactured by German conveyor technology group Niederholz and has been running in a Ger-man installation for around three months.

In terms of its operation, AirScrape hovers freely above the conveyor belt, which ABC’s senior account manager, Mike Camphuis says “eliminates skirt friction and belt damage.”

“Its unique array of inward facing hardened steel diagonal blades deflects

larger particles inwards while it uses the airflow of the conveyor belt and con-veyed material to create an inward suc-tion, flowing any dust and fine particles back in to the product flow,” he said.

AirScrape is available in pairs of left and right hand side two metre inter-connectable pieces to form any required length. It is available in two different base widths of 90mm and 60mm to suite a va-riety of belt widths and chutes sizes.

The system is installed using spac-ers, floating the blades several mm free

above the belt and is attached to the out-side of the chute by utilising existing skirt clamps or a simple bolt and nut system. It is longitudinally and laterally adjustable to follow the contours of conveyor belt roller and belt trough angle.

ABC has sold a 30m section to a WA re-seller and is looking to run trials in Australia. The company, as it did with CleanScrape, is offering free 6-week trials for AirScrape.

Conveyor skirting system hovers above beltAustralian Belt Cleaning (ABC), the Australian agent for the German developer of the CleanScrape belt cleaning system, is launching a new conveyor belt skirting system in Australia called AirScrape.


AirScrape conveyor belt skirting system.

CONVEYORS

Australian Bulk Handling Review: July/August 2014 39

PALLETISING

The three palletisers are equipped with Beumer’s newly-developed

twin-belt turning device, the supplier said, enabling bags filled with building material to be turned gently, and stacked in the correct position on pallets, ensur-ing their dimensional stability.

Schwenk Putzentechnik manufactures ready-made building materials, designed to be mixed with only water on site to be ready for use. Efforts to avoid all possible mixing errors have led Schwenk Putzen-technik to make a point of maintaining a constant high product quality.

“We place great importance on present-ing our products optimally in the building

material trade,” Schwenk Putzentechnik plant manager Martin Markus said.

Fellow manager Peter Richter sin-gled out one key problem Schwenk Putzentechnik has had to tackle in its supply chain. “Our previous palletising solution caused considerable problems during the turning of bags,” he said. “Due to jerky movements the bags were deformed and sometimes even torn.”

While not impacting the quality of the end-product too much, the manu-facturer was not happy being unable to ensure a proper and constant appear-ance of the palletised bags. It wanted to fix this issue, while also raising

safety, boosting production capacity and reducing the dust emmissions during the process.

Beumer told ABHR that with its palletizing and packaging technology, Schwenk Putzentechnik has found the solution it needed.

Beumer supplies palletisers to German material manufacturer

German bulk construction materials producer Schwenk Putzentechnik recently purchaced three high-capacity layer palletisers from bulk handling specialist Beumer.

Peter Schmidt, head of the palletising and packaging technology business segment at Beumer Group

GEA Nu-Con for all your Powder Handling needs. Our Rotary Valves come in a range of materials and configurations from a standard valve to fully demountable for easy cleaning without the need for tools. We supply to a wide range of industries including Chemical, Plastics, Minerals, Food, Dairy and Pharmaceutical.

engineering for a better world

GEA Nu-Con Pty Limited458 The Boulevarde, Kirrawee NSW 2232Phone: +61 2 9545 2600, Fax: +61 2 9545 1846

[email protected], www.nucon.com

“Quality solutions for quality products“

GEA Process Engineering

Rotary Valve_Horizontal Burg Bground.indd 1 7/17/2013 12:13:41 PM

Gentle palletisingBeumer’s Paletpac machine enables the user to stack bags filled with bulk mate-rial on pallets exactly layer by layer, the company said. Due to the geometric pre-cision during layer and stack formation, stable bag stacks are formed.

Beumer supplied a system able to palletise 1,800 bags per hour as well as a system with a capacity of 2,500 bags per hour. Both are designed to allow employees to adapt the palletiser quick-ly and easily to different bag sizes with-out the use of tools.

With a pack height of up to 2,400 millimetres, the Beumer Paletpac stacks bags on any commonly used pallet size and in all technically possible packing patterns, the supplier added.

A multi-program interface enables the user to set parameters easily and quickly, with a human machine inter-face aimed at ensuring user-friendly op-eration of the system.

Stable stack formation“In order to turn the bags rapidly and gently to the required position ensuring their di-mensional stability, the systems are provided with our newly developed twin-belt turning device,” Beumer’s Peter Schmidt said. “In re-gards to the stackability, this device offers an immense advantage when compared with conventional turning processes.”

Beumer said the system moves the bags without stressing them from a mechanical viewpoint. Instead, two parallelly driven belt conveyors are used, which during the turning process are driven with different speeds bringing the bags gently into the desired position.

The intelligent control of the twin-belt turning device involves the physical prop-erties of the items to be packed in order to achieve an exact positioning preset by the respective packing pattern. In case of chang-es in bag sizes, all relevant parameters are registered and controlled via software.

For this, the system reverts to an ac-tive control loop. Regulation of the drives

is carried out by frequency converters, thus developing a gentle, regular rotation and ensuring that the bagged products are not deformed. This results in constant stack results for the whole service life of the system, according to Beumer.

Quiet and efficientIn addition to capital costs, operational costs, spare parts costs and also mainte-nance costs play an important role, and Beumer has designed its paletisers to mini-mise all of these.

They are designed to be absent of cost-intensive mechanical components, the manufacturer said, thus optimising main-tenance and repair costs in the long term and reducing life-cycle costs.

Beumer managed the Schwenk Putzen-technik order from the project’s initiation up to installation. Optimisation and main-tenance planning for the systems was han-dled by Beumer.

PALLETISING

(From left to right) The twin-belt turning device: Two parallelly driven belt conveyors, which are driven with different speeds during the turning process, bring the bags gently into the required position; In order to reach a precise packing pattern dependent positioning, the intelligent control of the twin-belt turning device involves the physical properties of the items to be packed; The Beumer Paletpac forms space-saving bag stacks.

Contact: www.beumergroup.com

A practical innovation from ‘Archimedys’ in Europe- superior replacement polymer screw modules

- in 4 special materials and in a wide range of sizes

Learn more: http://www.oldselevator.com/modularscrew/

PERFECTLY FORMED MODULAR SCREW FLIGHTS Assembled in seconds!No welding, perfect fit, easy assembly.

Olds network distributes Archimedys modules. Contacts:NZ - Mouats Engineering - 64 7 575-8616 Vic. & S.A. - Kockums Bulk Systems Pty Ltd - 03 9457 8245 N.S.W. & A.C.T. - EMTT Pty Ltd - 02 9623 4744 W. A. Lime Systems - 08 9259 8400 Qld. & N.T. - OLDS Engineering - 07 4121 3649

NEW

OLDS JulAug14_pt1.indd 1 28/07/14 3:18 PM

PNEUMATICS

Pneumatic control systems for small-to-large applications

Many processing plants have adopted pneumatic process control system methodologies. As the complexity of these control systems has grown, however, reliability and integrity have become more critical, as has the need for appropriate specification. Bürkert says its range of automation and pneumatic control technologies can work for small-, mid- and large-sized processes.

Pneumatics have many advantages, es-pecially in the pharmaceutical, food

and beverage industries where hygiene is paramount. Simplicity of design, low maintenance requirements, and a reli-ability due (in part) to the use of com-pressed air as the power source make them ideal for these industries.

In addition, the systems are regarded as being intrinsically safe and so can also be used in hazardous atmospheres, such as those in the petro-chemical industries.

The main control functions of mod-ern pneumatic control systems will ei-ther be grouped at a central point (a cen-tralised system), or located at the point of control, such as a process control valve (a decentralised system).

A centralised control solution is the more traditional solution and will usually involve a control panel containing a bank of control solenoids, which are connected to the pro-cess control valves using air lines alone.

In a decentralised system, the air sup-ply is fed direct to the control valve and the integral control head uses control sig-nals to determine what action is required.

The choice of system is dependent on the application, since both have their ad-vantages depending on the circumstances. The crucial point is to ensure that the sys-tem is properly designed and installed to ensure efficient and reliable operation.

Once the design scope is agreed, even for the simplest of installations, it is impor-tant to ensure the proposed design will produce an effective and efficient control system which will be easy to maintain, expand, and (if necessary) clean to the re-quired standard.

Although many of the components used in a pneumatic control system are rel-atively inexpensive, the cost of generating the compressed air is not, and so it is cru-cial that the air is used in the most efficient way. This also impacts the ‘green rating’ of your process line, which is increasingly im-pacting profitability, and being reported on the ‘triple bottom line.’

The first step is to clean and regulate the compressed air supply to the control system using air preparation units, which filter and regulate the air supply. These units remove water and oil aerosols, while also controlling the system air pressure, all of which makes them crucial to ensuring correct operation of the system as well as reducing wear and corrosion of the components.

Bürkert offers standardised filter-regulator air preparation units, with and without isolation valve kits, for all mani-fold sizes. Air preparation units are avail-able with a range of filter sizes, down to 0.01µm, as well having the option of an ac-tivated carbon filter which can remove oil aerosols to a level of less than 0.005mg/m3.

In addition, a range of connection sizes is available, plus explosive environment cer-tification to comply with regulations when operating in hazardous atmospheres.

As the system starts to take shape, there is a need for flow restrictors, one-way valves and check valves to ensure that the air pressure and flow direction is correct for the equipment it is supplying. These need to be matched to the applica-tion with regard to construction material, sealing properties and connection sizes, to ensure reliable and efficient service.

An example is Bürkert’s type TRG001, which contains a complete range of re-strictor valves, check valves and flow con-trol valves, with non-standard versions, materials and seals also available.

All of this equipment will need to be connected together and this requires careful selection of connectors, threaded, push-in or a combination of both. In all cases the application is the deciding factor when determining the correct design of connector, especially the material choice, which could require FDA approval or the corrosion resistance of stainless steel.

Whether installing a new system or making alterations to an existing system, ac-cess to a wide range of reliable connectors with the necessary approvals is crucial.


Bürkert Smart Panel with air preparation units.

• The laws of physics work in harmony inside the Olds Elevator.

• As the bulk material rotates, it is conveyed on the static screw as a mass flow.

• It is safer and does duties other methods can’t. In use around the world.

• Free videotaped test of your product being elevated - phone 07 4121 3649

Safer Bulk Solids Handling Elevator

Learn more www.oldselevator.com

O ne moving element a rotating casing, revolves around a static helical screwLower energy and maintenance costsDust explosion risks reducedSimultaneously elevate, heat, cool, meter, process.

OLDS JulAug14_pt2.indd 1 28/07/14 3:18 PM

Thursday 6th November, Doltone House, Darling Harbour Wharf, Sydney

Bulk Handling Facility of the Year (Resources and Infrastructure)

An award for a bulk handling facility servicing the resources sector (mining, grains, commodities), ports and terminals.

Bulk Handling Facility of the Year (Manufacturing and Processing)

An award for a bulk handling facility servicing the manufacturing and processing industries encompassing, food, pharmaceuticals, stockfeed, chemicals, plastics, resins, and building products.

Innovative TechnologyAn award for the introduction of new technology or improvement to established technology in the bulk handling industry.

Environmental Project of the YearAn award for a project or technology displaying environmental sensitivity and innovation in waste management, site or facility rehabilitation, recycling or energy/water conservation.

Dust Control Technology, Application or PracticeAn award for best practice in dust and fume suppression, management or control; or for innovation in dust control technology, equipment or application.

Best Practice in WH&S An award recognising the implementation of WH&S, ergonomic or risk management practices, policies or technologies to enhance the safety and health of employees and/or the general public.

Excellence in Transport and/or ConveyingAn award for new or improved technology affecting conveying and/or transport systems with positive impact on performance, reliability, efficiency and the environment.

Excellence in the Application of Gears, Motors or DrivesAn award for the application of gears, motors or drive technology in an Australian bulk handling facility.

Supplier of the YearAn award recognising exemplary service, performance and customer commitment by a supplier to the Australian bulk handling sector.

Excellence in Engineering PhotographyAn award for onsite photography of a bulk handling plant or facility, machinery, or engineers at work. The subject is not specific, but may include photos of conveyors, shiploaders or stacker reclaimers. Subjects may include resources and non-resources industries as well as rail and port bulk handling infrastructure. The judges welcome nominations from both professional and non-professional photographers and may, depending on the quality of nominations, choose to recognise each group separately. Nominations from professional photographers will be judged on a portfolio of 10 photos.

Australian Society for Bulk Solids Handling AwardRecognising an outstanding contribution to the field of bulk solids handling. PLEASE NOTE: Nominations for this award are welcome but this category will be judged only by the Australian Society for Bulk Solids Handling. Nominations, including a full CV, should be sent direct to Society chair Peter Wypych on [email protected] by August 15th.

The A.W. Roberts AwardAn award presented to a young engineer (aged 35 or under) who has made a significant contribution to bulk solids handling in the areas of research, design and/or practice. PLEASE NOTE: Nominations for this award are welcome but this category will be judged only by the Australian Society for Bulk Solids Handling. Nominations, including a full CV, should be sent direct to Society chair Peter Wypych on [email protected] by August 15th.

Moderator: CHARLES MACDONALDEditor, Australian Bulk Handling Review

ASSOC. PROFESSOR PETER WYPYCHSchool of Mechanical Materials & Mechatronic Engineering University of Wollongong

PROFESSOR MARK JONESDirector, Centre for Bulk Solids & Particulate Technologies,University of Newcastle

IVAN PRICEChairman, Kockums Bulk Systems

Judging Panel

The Australian Bulk Handling Awards were first held in 2006 in Melbourne.

The event gathers an audience of bulk handling engineers and technicians together to celebrate outstanding performance and high achievement across various facets of their industry.

At the 2014 event, which will be held at Doltone House’s Darling Island Wharf (opposite Star City), there will be awards for: the bulk handling facility of the year, innovative technology, dust control, supplier of the year, environment, WH&S, excellence in transport and/or conveying, excellence in the application of gears, motors and drives, and an exciting new category for excellence in engineering photography.

The 2013 Awards were sponsored by Schenck Process, Integrated Bulk Systems, Tenova TAKRAF, Bonfiglioli, Aurizon, Qube, the Australian Society for Bulk Solids Handling and ConvaTech.

Details of the 2014 event such as judging panel and categories are on the Awards website.

The ninth annual Australian Bulk Handling Awards will be held on Thursday 6th November 2014 at Doltone House in Sydney.

www.BulkHandlingAwards.com.au

Celebrating Achievement in the Bulk Handling Industry

Nomination ProcessWho can nominate...R Individuals can nominate themselves, their company, or their project

R Suppliers can nominate customers

R Customers can nominate suppliers

R Unsuccessful nominations from previous years can be re-entered

YES! You can nominate yourself or a colleague for an Award!

The Australian Bulk Handling Awards

Award Categories

How to nominateThere is no set application form or template for nominations.

Instead, nominations, which can be of any length, should be in the nominator’s own words and should include any photographs,

diagrams or illustrations that might aid the judges’ understanding.

The judges are not concerned with literary merit and encourage all sections of the bulk handling community to “have a go”.

Nominations close October 3rd, 2014 and should be emailed to Charles Macdonald at -

[email protected]

Or posted to: Charles Macdonald, Editor,Australian Bulk Handling Review (ABHR)

PO Box Q1439, Sydney QVB, NSW 1230

Nominations for ASBSH & A.W. Roberts awards close August 15th and should be emailed to Peter Wypych

on [email protected]

Questions?Unsure how to proceed?

Call Charles Macdonald on 02 9080 4443 to discuss a potential nomination.

Share the Kudos – Sponsor an AwardThe Australian Bulk Handling Awards offer a number of sponsorship opportunities to companies keen to associate themselves with the premier event in the bulk handling calendar. Sponsors’ names and logos will be extensively advertised in the months leading up to the Awards, and for several months afterwards. At the gala dinner, sponsors will introduce the winners and present trophies, while enjoying extensive signage and branding rights.

For more information contact Peter Delbridge on 02 9080 4478 or email [email protected]

2013 - 2014 Sponsors...

AwardsBrox_2014_6.indd 4-5 3/06/14 11:43 AM

Thursday 6th November, Doltone House, Darling Harbour Wharf, Sydney

Bulk Handling Facility of the Year (Resources and Infrastructure)

An award for a bulk handling facility servicing the resources sector (mining, grains, commodities), ports and terminals.

Bulk Handling Facility of the Year (Manufacturing and Processing)

An award for a bulk handling facility servicing the manufacturing and processing industries encompassing, food, pharmaceuticals, stockfeed, chemicals, plastics, resins, and building products.

Innovative TechnologyAn award for the introduction of new technology or improvement to established technology in the bulk handling industry.

Environmental Project of the YearAn award for a project or technology displaying environmental sensitivity and innovation in waste management, site or facility rehabilitation, recycling or energy/water conservation.

Dust Control Technology, Application or PracticeAn award for best practice in dust and fume suppression, management or control; or for innovation in dust control technology, equipment or application.

Best Practice in WH&S An award recognising the implementation of WH&S, ergonomic or risk management practices, policies or technologies to enhance the safety and health of employees and/or the general public.

Excellence in Transport and/or ConveyingAn award for new or improved technology affecting conveying and/or transport systems with positive impact on performance, reliability, efficiency and the environment.

Excellence in the Application of Gears, Motors or DrivesAn award for the application of gears, motors or drive technology in an Australian bulk handling facility.

Supplier of the YearAn award recognising exemplary service, performance and customer commitment by a supplier to the Australian bulk handling sector.

Excellence in Engineering PhotographyAn award for onsite photography of a bulk handling plant or facility, machinery, or engineers at work. The subject is not specific, but may include photos of conveyors, shiploaders or stacker reclaimers. Subjects may include resources and non-resources industries as well as rail and port bulk handling infrastructure. The judges welcome nominations from both professional and non-professional photographers and may, depending on the quality of nominations, choose to recognise each group separately. Nominations from professional photographers will be judged on a portfolio of 10 photos.

Australian Society for Bulk Solids Handling AwardRecognising an outstanding contribution to the field of bulk solids handling. PLEASE NOTE: Nominations for this award are welcome but this category will be judged only by the Australian Society for Bulk Solids Handling. Nominations, including a full CV, should be sent direct to Society chair Peter Wypych on [email protected] by August 15th.

The A.W. Roberts AwardAn award presented to a young engineer (aged 35 or under) who has made a significant contribution to bulk solids handling in the areas of research, design and/or practice. PLEASE NOTE: Nominations for this award are welcome but this category will be judged only by the Australian Society for Bulk Solids Handling. Nominations, including a full CV, should be sent direct to Society chair Peter Wypych on [email protected] by August 15th.

Moderator: CHARLES MACDONALDEditor, Australian Bulk Handling Review

ASSOC. PROFESSOR PETER WYPYCHSchool of Mechanical Materials & Mechatronic Engineering University of Wollongong

PROFESSOR MARK JONESDirector, Centre for Bulk Solids & Particulate Technologies,University of Newcastle

IVAN PRICEChairman, Kockums Bulk Systems

Judging Panel

The Australian Bulk Handling Awards were first held in 2006 in Melbourne.

The event gathers an audience of bulk handling engineers and technicians together to celebrate outstanding performance and high achievement across various facets of their industry.

At the 2014 event, which will be held at Doltone House’s Darling Island Wharf (opposite Star City), there will be awards for: the bulk handling facility of the year, innovative technology, dust control, supplier of the year, environment, WH&S, excellence in transport and/or conveying, excellence in the application of gears, motors and drives, and an exciting new category for excellence in engineering photography.

The 2013 Awards were sponsored by Schenck Process, Integrated Bulk Systems, Tenova TAKRAF, Bonfiglioli, Aurizon, Qube, the Australian Society for Bulk Solids Handling and ConvaTech.

Details of the 2014 event such as judging panel and categories are on the Awards website.

The ninth annual Australian Bulk Handling Awards will be held on Thursday 6th November 2014 at Doltone House in Sydney.

www.BulkHandlingAwards.com.au

Celebrating Achievement in the Bulk Handling Industry

Nomination ProcessWho can nominate...R Individuals can nominate themselves, their company, or their project

R Suppliers can nominate customers

R Customers can nominate suppliers

R Unsuccessful nominations from previous years can be re-entered

YES! You can nominate yourself or a colleague for an Award!

The Australian Bulk Handling Awards

Award Categories

How to nominateThere is no set application form or template for nominations.

Instead, nominations, which can be of any length, should be in the nominator’s own words and should include any photographs,

diagrams or illustrations that might aid the judges’ understanding.

The judges are not concerned with literary merit and encourage all sections of the bulk handling community to “have a go”.

Nominations close October 3rd, 2014 and should be emailed to Charles Macdonald at -

[email protected]

Or posted to: Charles Macdonald, Editor,Australian Bulk Handling Review (ABHR)

PO Box Q1439, Sydney QVB, NSW 1230

Nominations for ASBSH & A.W. Roberts awards close August 15th and should be emailed to Peter Wypych

on [email protected]

Questions?Unsure how to proceed?

Call Charles Macdonald on 02 9080 4443 to discuss a potential nomination.

Share the Kudos – Sponsor an AwardThe Australian Bulk Handling Awards offer a number of sponsorship opportunities to companies keen to associate themselves with the premier event in the bulk handling calendar. Sponsors’ names and logos will be extensively advertised in the months leading up to the Awards, and for several months afterwards. At the gala dinner, sponsors will introduce the winners and present trophies, while enjoying extensive signage and branding rights.

For more information contact Peter Delbridge on 02 9080 4478 or email [email protected]

2013 - 2014 Sponsors...

AwardsBrox_2014_6.indd 4-5 3/06/14 11:43 AM


A collaborative approach between GrainCorp and a specialised ma-

chine-vision enterprise investigated and trialled a high-tech system in which individual rail wagons are tracked at loading spouts using high-resolution cameras. Understanding that grain-han-dlers “have their hands full” while load-ing grain, the trialled system utilises wearable mobile technology to provide real-time feedback to fill wagons to ex-act specifications.

Use of the high-tech approach at GrainCorp sites showed that the technol-ogy effectively keeps track of the many factors that influence how much grain is loaded, including the type of wagons, track restrictions, grain density, load rates, and the human factor.

1. Bulk rail loading in the grain industry

Bulk rail loading in the grain industry is largely a manual process. Grain handlers operate spout equipment while the train moves below the load spout.

The objective of the grain handler loading rail wagons should be to fill the rail wagon to its optimal physical or legal weight limit, i.e. up to but not exceed-ing its limit. Exceeding the weight limit results in over-loading, presenting signifi-cant risk, while under-loading results in lost train productivity. For example a vari-able rail cost applying to each additional tonne of grain transported can be saved if under-loading is minimised.

In Figure 1, a partially-loaded wagon at a GrainCorp site shows how it moves as the grain handler controls the load-ing spout, attempting to optimise the volume of grain as per grain density, load rate, wagon volume and rail line specifications.

Load optimisation involves a variety of operational processes, all of which contribute to improving load optimisa-tion. These include wagon-by-wagon grain-density measurements, individual wagon-bogey tare-ing, operator training and management regarding wagon fill levels and information availability. A sub-stantial opportunity for improvement is leading to initiatives such as the one dis-cussed in this article.

2. The role of variability in load optimisation

Multiple factors are involved in grain bulk loading that directly affect load optimisation.

Firstly, the grain density (test weight) is the key driver of the weight. Grain density can vary significantly from one grain storage bin to another, and indeed occasionally even within the same bin. Commodity (wheat, barley, canola) den-sities can range from a high of 85kg/hl to a low of 60kg/hl. This can result in weight variations of over 40% for the same volume of grain and up to 30% within the same commodity.

Secondly, rail line axle loads vary ac-cording to track infrastructure compo-nents, track age, maintenance regimes, operating speed and safety, thus affecting weight limits from line to line.

Thirdly, mixed wagon types drive dif-ferent load hopper volumes, and different bogey configurations result in varying tare weights. As a result, a single train can have up to five different wagon types.

Taking these mechanical and infra-structural factors into account creates a complex and challenging task. Consider-ing a multi-site, multi-train, multi-product environment, it is understandable that wagon load factors can vary considerably. Coupled with inherent human-factors such as levels of experience and loading vigilance, the opportunity for both man-ual and technical load optimisation solu-tions emerges.

In the top plot of Figure 2, the trade-off between optimal wagon-loading (y-axis) and overload risk (x-axis) is depict-ed (using a modeled curve). Assuming a known load variability (obtained from historical data), a region along this curve reflects the nature of the load optimisa-tion process over time. A chosen under-loading “operating point” defines the process target, and importantly it results in greater inefficiencies as a function of the variability.

On the bottom plot in Figure 2, the effect of decreasing load optimisation variability is illustrated. A smaller varia-tion simply implies that wagons can be more fully loaded on average in propor-tion to the decrease in variability. It is

High-tech bulk-rail load optimisation

Load optimisation in the bulk-rail industry is in the spotlight with the industry challenged to improve safety and reduce costs. Optimal loading to manage safety, wagon under-loads and wagon over-loads presents an opportunity for innovative technical solutions.

GRAIN HANDLING

Fig. 1. Loading a wagon with grain at a GrainCorp site.

Fig. 2. Illustrating the risk-return relationship involved in load optimisation, where the process is set up to maximise grain transported without exceeding chosen overload risk levels. The two plots illustrate how wagons need to be under-loaded systematically according to the magnitude of the process variables (top), but improving this allows for higher returns (bottom).

By Dr. Thomas Landgrebe, Andre Le Vieux, Evan Jago

closing of this “gap” which bulk-handlers such as GrainCorp are focused on, and this also reflects the opportunity for in-novative technical solutions, as discussed in the next sections.

Increasing load factors towards their optimal weight also improves train pro-ductivity. With bulk handlers utilising a

network involving a number of trains that visit a number of sites on an ongoing ba-sis, faster turnaround times and optimal load factors ensure trains carry more grain per annum.

3. Using wagon-dynamics for live load-monitoring and weight estimation

An innovative approach to reducing load optimisation variability was considered by GrainCorp working together with the machine-vision specialists Cooperative Vision Systems (CoViS) and process op-timisation specialist Evan Jago. A project was undertaken at several GrainCorp up-country storage and handling facilities in July 2013/2014 to trial and prove a new technical concept.

The new technical concept involved using the displacement of rail-wagons (which rest upon a bogey supported by sets of springs) to provide live monitor-ing of the loading of the wagon. Such an approach effectively considers each wag-on-spring configuration as an approxi-mate weighing system (following Hookes law - that force exerted upon a spring is proportional to displacement, which ex-tends to springs in parallel).

GRAIN HANDLING

Fig. 3. Precision tracking of the downward displacement of wagons being loaded was shown to provide an excellent estimation of loading progress and weight during controlled trials. The inset shows calibrated weight measurements (y-axis) plotted against displacement measurements (x-axis) for four VHAF-type wagons, with best-fit "loading curves" describing this relationship.


Load optimisation products based on wagon displacement have generally not been developed/adopted due to practi-cal factors discussed in the next section. Most importantly, these include the need to develop measurement systems that train specific models per wagon and site (e.g. each wagon has a specific charac-teristic). Additionally, measurements need to be very precise, and since wag-ons move while loading, the need for an adaptive displacement reference point to-gether with catering for different springs across the wagons have ruled out tradi-tional approaches.

In order to undertake this feasibility study, three essential technical capabili-ties were necessary:• The ability to measure very small (rel-

ative to hopper sizes) displacement measurements with precision,

• A practical method for associating unique displacement relationships per wagon, and

• The movement of a wagon relative to the load spout and sensing equip-ment as the wagon is loaded must be addressed.

The technological solution to this problem is discussed in the next section.

The trial undertaken at GrainCorp sites involved a series of measurements repeated several times for a number of wagons, and across several wagon classes. Ground truth weights were provided by a calibrated weighing sys-tem, and weights were varied across a range of values. In Figure 3, a wagon in-volved in this feasibility study is shown, with an inset graph showing that wag-ons have predictable and repeatable relationships between loaded weight and displacement. This means that this principle could form the basis for a useful load optimisation system, with a technical method described in the next section.

4. Camera-based load optimisation system

The wagon load-dynamics feasibility stud-ies showed that technology capable of ac-curately measuring precise downward displacement of wagons, calibrated per wagon, would provide a useful load op-timisation tool. The Visual Displacement System (VDS) developed by CoViS utilises a camera mounted at a loading spout view-ing a portion of the side of a rail wagon, as depicted in Figure 4. The system accurately tracks the motion of a wagon as it is loaded, and translates the information to provide live feedback to the grain handler via a wearable ‘smart’ device.

The plots in Figure 4 show how the sys-tem utilises a specialised tag strip mounted across the entire length of the hopper, thus providing a constant reference for the imag-ing system independent of the position of the wagon as it is loaded. The design of the tag has a number of properties to achieve the required functionality, including the

GRAIN HANDLING

Fig. 4. The Visual Displacement System (left) utilises an imaging system mounted on the side of the rail-track to view a portion of the side of a wagon (see typical view in right image), and utilising a specialised tag strip mounted across the length of the wagon for robust precision tracking. The information is translated to a load indicator on a mobile device.

Fig. 5. Displacement tracking example showing how a wagon displaces vertically (y-axis) as the wagon moves relative to the spout/camera (x-axis). The blue curve depicts the current wagon measurements, shown against the model curve derived from previous runs (yellow curve) and a red curve for a simple translation of the information to the grain-handler interface.

Fig. 6. Two user-interface snapshots during a wagon load. In the left plot, the wagon is partially filled, and the user interface provides feedback pertaining to the offset to the optimal load i.e. 6% off target at this point. In the right plot, the end of loading has been reached, and the grain-handler is only 1% from the optimal level.

Australian Bulk Handling Review: July/August 2014 47

ability to track displacement with sub-mil-limetre precision in 3-dimensions, encod-ing of the wagon identity and robustness to partial destruction over time. The indi-vidual coloured tags are proprietary tags/barcodes for long range multi-tag decoding in outdoor environments where lighting varies and dust is prevalent.

The VDS system uses previous loading runs to form unique per-wagon, per-site reference models. These models are ma-nipulated automatically using deviations between end-point weights and target weights to result in a guide for grain han-dlers to load to optimal levels throughout the wagon load. Thus as a wagon is load-ed, the grain handler receives a real-time graphical prompt on the mobile device to indicate when to stop loading. This is in contrast to a weigh-bridge that provides after-the-fact loading feedback (if at all present).

Figure 5 shows an actual example of how this method works, showing a num-ber of curves plotted as a function of the downward displacement (y-axis) of a wag-on being loaded and the position along the wagon (x-axis). The blue curve shows measurements from the current wagon be-ing loaded, clearly showing large vertical “steps” as the wagon is stopped and loaded. A yellow curve shows the reference model for the wagon derived from previous runs, with the system continuously computing offsets with respect to this, and translat-ing these into a simple load optimisation prompt for the grain handler.

In Figure 6, two user interface snap-shots in time are shown as a grain-han-dler loads a wagon.

Finally, as the system relies on re-peatable displacement measurements due to spring compression, the system is designed to cope with the gradual age-ing of springs (and an eventual change in displacement behaviour) because the per-wagon profile models are updated upon each measurement. Coincidental-ly, the ability to automatically diagnose faulty springs has been highlighted as a useful secondary application.

5. In-field applicationThe technology was trialled at four GrainCorp sites (Parkes, Condobolin, Nevertire and Euabalong West) and uti-lised on two trains during 2013-2014 season. The trialling of the system in-volved comparing the overall displace-ments translated to weights, and in-dependently comparing these to end point weights provided by a calibrated weighing system. Multiple grain han-dler trials were also undertaken to ob-tain feedback on the effectiveness of the technology, and to test GrainCorp-specific modifications. In Figure 7 a grain-handler at Euabalong West is seen with the wearable mobile device while moving the spout.

The field trials demonstrated that the technology is feasible and practical, providing a new option for improving load optimisation.

6. ConclusionsIn this article, the importance of load op-timisation in the bulk rail grain-loading industry was highlighted. The multitude of challenges faced by bulk handlers in optimising wagon loads was discussed, explaining why trains are on average un-der-utilised and have a high level of vari-ability in load optimisation accuracy.

A novel and collaborative techno-logical approach was investigated at GrainCorp sites, using precision meas-urement of the displacement of a rail-wagon being loaded to provide live monitoring of the load. A very success-ful outcome led to the production-trial-ling of a camera-based monitoring prod-uct developed by Cooperative Vision Systems at four GrainCorp sites.

The system showed that the meas-urements could in fact be undertaken in practical scenarios, despite large dif-ferences in loading setups. The system also utilises a practical wearable smart-device for a direct retrofit to the grain-handler process.

AcknowledgementsThis project received partial support from Commercialisation Australia project CAUO6308, and was a successful collabo-rative project conducted by Cooperative Vision Systems and GrainCorp.

GRAIN HANDLING

Fig. 7. Grain handler loading grain at Euabalong West with mobile device attached to forearm.

Contact: Thomas Landgrebe, email - [email protected]


Less than six months after the federal government turned down a $3.4bn

bid by US agribusiness Archer Daniels Midland to buy Australian grains handling conglomerate GrainCorp, the Australian business has seen itself thrust back into the national spotlight.

Port rules, currently levied upon GrainCorp’s east coast export terminals, are unfair and need to be overturned or eased, according to the handler’s chair-man, Don Taylor.

GrainCorp has seven port facilities on Australia’s east coast, and has to conduct business at each of those terminals pur-suant to the Wheat Export Marketing Act 2008. What that means is GrainCorp is obliged to follow a set of rules put in place following the grain market’s deregulation in 2008, which force it to treat all custom-ers equally, and to make public a number of key pieces of market information, including prices, at times up to a year in advance.

The issue that has arisen since 2008, though, is competition has cropped up in the east Australian grain handling market, on a variety of scales. One particular port of note in this regard is Newcastle: the CBH, Olam and Glencore-owned Newcas-tle Agri Terminal shipped its first grain in February, and commodities trader Louis Dreyfus has operated a storage facility in Newcastle, with elevation being provided by Qube, since 2011.

And so it didn’t really come as much surprise in November last year when GrainCorp applied to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) to have regulation eased at its Carrington terminal, in Newcastle.

On April 7 this year, the ACCC hand-ed down a draft decision to comply with GrainCorp’s request.

“The variation would provide Grain-Corp with greater flexibility to compete against the two bulk wheat export op-erations at the Port of Newcastle,” ACCC chairman Rod Sims said in April. “Grain-corp’s bulk grain terminal at Newcastle

does now face competition, and on 12 November 2013 it applied to the ACCC to vary its access undertaking in recognition of this. Today’s draft decision proposes to consent to this application.

“The ACCC supports a tiered ap-proach to the regulation of wheat ports. Where there is sufficient competition, minimal or no regulation is required; where wheat ports have significant mar-ket power or are a monopoly and owned by a wheat marketer in competition with others upstream, then regulation is re-quired to ensure farmers can sell their grain into a competitive market.”

Taylor was in national papers at the time, explaining the handler’s application was just a matter of fairness.

GrainCorp chairman Don Taylor said that regulation, initially put in place to pro-tect growers, was unfair and was hurting the Carrington terminal’s competitiveness.

“[The regulation] was really designed to give the growers security of access for their grain to the export markets,” Taylor was quoted in The Australian at the time.

“Well that is there in spades, in my view. That is a competitive market al-ready. I would question why we need any regulation at all.”

GrainCorp in port rules tussle

An ongoing battle over grain handling regulations at Australia’s east coast terminals has taken GrainCorp to the ACCC and has seen the government propose a new set of laws, Oliver Probert writes.

GRAIN HANDLING

Photo credit Ingram Publishing.

Under the current legislation, only port terminal operators with a wheat ex-porting business must pass an access test, which involves them agreeing an access undertaking with the ACCC. That rule has created confusion, with the state of terminals like the Qube-operated Louis Dreyfus facility up for debate.

Farmers hit backWith the draft decision handed down, the matter was open for public com-ment. The most vocal response came from industry lobby group NSW Farm-ers, whose grain spokesperson Daniel Cooper said the ACCC’s decision con-firmed the regulator is out of touch with the grains industry.

Cooper said the ACCC’s decision would negatively impact on competition for farmers’ grain in northern NSW.

“The decision has also failed to give farmers any indication that the regulator had improved its understanding of the grain market since the issue was first highlighted last year by the Senate’s Ru-ral and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee,” he said.

“We are concerned the ACCC has failed in its administration of the port

access test which is supposed to ensure that vertically integrated grain bulk handlers such as GrainCorp are not able to use their network to the detriment of other grain exporters.

“In a deregulated market, farmers need those other exporters to compete with GrainCorp to ensure that they re-ceive a fair price for their crop. Yet the draft decision would enable GrainCorp to shut the door on them,” he argued.

Cooper’s comments accompanied a lengthy submission to the ACCC from NSW Farmers’ lawyers, HWL Ebsworth. The industry body’s key claim in its sub-mission was questioning GrainCorp’s as-sertion that the Newcastle Agri Terminal (NAT) was not under the same conditions as GrainCorp at Carrington.

“The information presented to the ACCC by GrainCorp and others, on which the ACCC’s draft decision is based, contains untested and un-founded assumptions that the NAT is not an associated entity of any one or more of CBH, Olam and Glencore and, therefore, not subject to the same reg-ulatory treatment as GrainCorp,” the submission reads. “There is no indica-tion that the ACCC has conducted any

investigation as to whether the NAT is an associated entity for the purposes of the Wheat Export Marketing Act 2008 and until such time as such an investiga-tion has been conducted, any decision to vary GrainCorp’s 2011 Port Terminal Services Undertaking is unjustifiable.”

GrainCorp respondsIn response to the submissions made fol-lowing the ACCC’s draft decision, Grain-Corp argued its case on the matter.

“The ACCC’s draft decision was cor-rectly based on the fact that there is in-consistent regulatory treatment of Grain-Corp’s Newcastle terminal, which is subject to the access test, and the neigh-bouring Louis Dreyfus and NAT facilities, which are not,” GrainCorp wrote in its May 14 response.

“NSW Farmers has speculated that there could potentially be circumstances or a combination of circumstances now or at some unspecified time in the future that might ultimately lead to the NAT be-coming subject to the access test under the Wheat Export Marketing Act.”

To that assertion from NSW Farm-ers, GrainCorp responded by saying, in simple terms, ‘get real’.

GRAIN HANDLING

KOTZURDesigning the future Designing,

manufacturing and installing storage and handling solutions world wide.

Kotzur Pty Ltd60 Commercial Street, Walla Walla NSW 2659 Ph: (02) 6029 4700 kotzur.com

Kotzur_JulAug14_HP_1.indd 1 23/07/14 9:23 AM


“The simple fact is that the NAT facili-ties and the Louis Dreyfus facilities are not required to meet the access test,” the han-dler wrote. “Speculation about the possi-bility of events that appear unlikely is not helpful to the decision-making process.”

Furthermore, GrainCorp pointed to the finer details of the Wheat Export Marketing Act, which dictate that the ACCC doesn’t even have the authority to decide on which facilities need to pass ‘the access test’.

“This power lies with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry,” GrainCorp said. “The Explanatory Memo-randum to the Wheat Export Marketing Amendment Bill 2012 states ‘decisions on whether a bulk wheat exporter is required to satisfy the access test (currently made by WEA) will be made by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’.

“The Department of Agriculture, Fish-eries and Forestry has made no such deci-sion and we are not aware of any actual or proposed process to reconsider this issue.

“In short, the ACCC has made its as-sessment of the variation having regard to the actual circumstances at the Port of Newcastle, including the regulatory

status of each of the three terminal facili-ties, and has therefore properly exercised its powers in making the draft decision.”

CBH weighs inThree days after being dragged into the matter by NSW Farmers’ submission, grain handler CBH responded, supporting AC-CC’s draft decision to ease off regulations imposed upon GrainCorp at Carrington.

“CBH supports the ACCC’s analysis in the draft decision in relation to the uncer-tainty that has arisen in the industry as to the introduction of the code,” it said. “As a result, CBH believes that at this time it is important that the ACCC takes into ac-count the rate of change in this industry and seeks to address resulting issues that are arising in relation to the current reg-ulation. In particular, CBH believes that having regard to industry dynamics, the current regulation is creating distortions and an unlevel playing field.

“In this situation CBH believes that it is important that the ACCC approaches this matter based on competition principles and commercial reality, notwithstand-ing the differences in the application of existing regulation. For example, CBH

believes that it is important to accept that export grain facilities owned by a grain exporter that is not subject to an access undertaking, are likely to provide an ac-tual constraint on grain terminals subject to access undertakings, even if there are components of the relevant grain facility that are owned by an additional party.

“Specifically,” it continued, “CBH sees no difference as a commercial matter that the Louis Dreyfus facility in Newcastle competes with GrainCorp’s Newcastle fa-cility, just because as the ACCC notes in section 5.3.2 of the Draft Decision, Qube owns the ship loader.

“The practical economic reality of this form of new competition in the industry was brought home by the an-nouncement in late March that Qube would build a new 1.3mtpa bulk han-dling depot at Port Kembla in a joint venture with certain grain exporters, initially with Noble and granting rights to Cargill Group and Emerald Group to join the joint venture.”

Quattro, the new $75m terminal, would have a similar ownership structure to the Louis Dreyfus/Qube operation at Newcastle, would undoubtedly present a

GRAIN HANDLING

Grain loading at the Newcastle Agri Terminal.

Delivering Bucketsfull of experienceThe world’s largest range of elevator buckets

l Large range and inventory of many sizes

l Higher capacity for existing elevators

l Durable, long life designs

l Free elevator design service

4B Australia Pty Ltd1/18 Overlord Place Acacia RidgeQueensland 4110Ph +61 7 3711 2565Fax +61 7 3711 2574Email [email protected] www.go4b.com

Visit www.go4b.com for more information

ElevatorBoltsCold Forged for the Highest Quality!

l Euro Bolts (DIN15237), Original Ref 70, Fang Bolts & Easifit Bolts

l Available in steel/stainless/zinc plated

l Wide range available from stock

Elevator BeltingSupplied Ready-To-Use, When You Need It!

l Abrasion Resistant (SBR), Oil Resistant (NBR), Flame Resistant (FRASOR), Food Quality (FDA), Steel Web Belt

l Full range of Belt Fasteners

Bolt ‘N’ GoThe Revolutionary New Assembly Method for Drop Forged Conveyor Chains!

l No welding or circlips required

l Chain flights are attached using a bolt and nut with a high strength hollow pin

l No need to remove chain from the conveyor for installation

TouchSwitchA Safer and More Efficient Belt Alignment Monitoring Device!

l Sensor is triggered by the force of belt contact

l Requires no heat build-up, so it's safer and more efficient

l Hardened stainless steel face for less wear

l External test knob and LED for sensor test and system verification

Watchdog EliteComplete Hazard Monitoring System for Bucket Elevators and Conveyors!

l Bearing Temperature, Belt Misalignment, Underspeed, Belt Slippage, Blockage Detection

l Fully programmable to optimize elevator operation

l LED displays for speed and set-up

l Simple, reliable, consistent

WhirligigThe New Standardfor Shaft Speed Monitoring!

l Three-in-one universal shaft sensor mount for better installation

l Sensor mounts to the Whirligig and the assembly bolts to the machine shaft

l Machine and shaft vibration does not affect the sensor’s performance

l Rotating target is enclosed behind a tough plastic cover

www.go4b.comwww.go4b.comwww.go4b.com

www.go4b.com

www.go4b.com

www.go4b.com

Buckets Full Page US.indd 1 9/07/14 2:52 PM


competitor to GrainCorp in Port Kembla, CBH said, and thus should be on the same level playing field.

“Irrespective of the precise corporate structure that is used, that facility will likely be a significant competitor to Grain-Corp’s Port Kembla grain export termi-nal,” CBH said.

“It is interesting to note that that facil-ity can provide immediately both open ac-cess and medium term take or pay arrange-ments, because of its corporate structure. That is something that GrainCorp’s exist-ing facilities cannot do and neither could CBH’s facilities in Western Australia. As such, it is clear that the existing regulation does not provide a level competitive field in relation to grain export terminals.”

Government steps inA draft mandatory port access code re-leased in early June by the minister for ag-riculture, Barnaby Joyce, could reverse a lot of the progress made by GrainCorp in its fight against regulation at its Newcastle terminal, however.

What does work for GrainCorp, however, is that Joyce’s draft code would also clamp down on a few of the newer terminals which GrainCorp cites as its competition.

“I recognise that there are likely to be a variety of views from stakeholders across the grains industry on the draft code,” Joyce said. “I encourage our stakeholders to get involved to assist in refining the code so it can best promote the prosperity of our industry and agricultural sector.”

While it could be perceived that a

newer code which focuses on regulat-ing most of GrainCorp’s competition, along with GrainCorp itself, would still achieve GrainCorp’s goal of getting on a level playing field, such a code would go against Productivity Commission recom-mendations. In April, the commission, which acts as the government’s advisory board, said imposed compliance to this kind of regulation can cost handlers mil-lions of dollars.

Joyce, though, was unperturbed.“This is another positive initiative that

will support our bulk wheat exporters so they can get on with their job, while profiting from export opportunities and helping build Australia’s wheat export in-dustry, which was worth $6.8 billion in 2012/13,” he said.

“This draft code of conduct will re-place that requirement to give all export-ers of bulk wheat fair and transparent ac-cess to port terminal services, regardless of who owns the terminal,” Joyce said.

The draft code of conduct will seek to address concerns around inequity in reg-ulations by applying to all grain export terminals and allowing compliance re-quirements to be reduced as competition for services increases.

Joyce noted significant investments in new port terminal infrastructure, such as Quattro and NAT, which he said will increase competition to the benefit of all sectors in the export chain.

“I am pleased to see the developing competition in the sector to provide more choice for farmers and exporters and more competition for their grain. Regulation

should be tailored to where it is most needed and to promote an efficient and profitable wheat export industry,” he said.

“This government is committed to en-suring farmers and exporters are not bur-dened with unnecessary red tape and regu-lations. We know exporters need to be able to negotiate access to critical infrastructure to meet the demands of international cus-tomers. The release of this draft code for consultation is an important step in ensur-ing we get the level of regulation right.”

The Department of Agriculture said it consulted the ACCC in creating the code, and said the commission will have an im-portant role in monitoring and enforcing the code once in place.

Taylor wants equalityFollowing the announcement of Joyce’s draft legislation, Taylor again said the east coast agribusiness giant is getting an un-fair deal, compared to other major grain handlers in the market.

Under the new legislation, Grain-Corp’s terminals would still be classed as ‘tier one’ facilities, and thus would be subject to heavier regulations than the ‘tier two’ facilities of some of its newer competitors.

Taylor, no doubt at least slightly frus-trated by the ongoing matter, reportedly told The Australian in mid-June: “We just think that it is logical that you not have one set of rules that apply to one party but not the other.”

Taylor said the code needed to be tweaked to make all terminals, and pro-posed terminals, ‘tier one’ facilities. He also said the code should grant automat-ic exemption from tier-one regulation to all operators in a given export zone, if it was sought by one player, according to the paper.

Taylor’s frustration is no doubt em-phasised by a poor year, by GrainCorp’s standards, financially. GrainCorp report-ed 2013/14 first half net profit after tax of $61m, down 44% from $109m in the first half of 2012/13. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation was down from $227m last year to $166m this year, a drop of 27%.

Taylor pointed to a below average car-ry-in and a smaller crop in northern re-gions as a reason behind the drop, saying this translated to lower grain receivals and increased demand from domestic end-users, limiting the amount of grain available for export.

He added: “While the intense com-petition for a smaller crop also means that GrainCorp Marketing’s result was lower year-on-year, it is pleasing that this business has reported a positive result in an environment that has been extremely challenging.”

GRAIN HANDLING

GrainCorp’s Newcastle grain terminal, pictured, is up against the new Newcastle Agri Terminal. But are they competing on a level playing field?


GRAIN HANDLING

Quattro is the joint venture between stevedore Qube Hold-ings, and agribusinesses Noble Group, Cargill Australia and

Emerald Grain. Kerman will build the new facility, which will sit at Berth 103 on Port Kembla's inner harbour. Construction is set to run from mid-July 2014 to October 2015.

Once up and running, Quattro is designed for a minimum throughput capacity of 1.2mtpa, with grain to be received by both rail and road delivery. Both receiving facilities, as well as the portside export facility, are Kerman's to build under the contract.

Kerman will partner with agricultural, industrial and mining materials handling specialist Kotzur during construction.

“Quattro Ports has been impressed with the collaborative approach that Kerman and Kotzur have taken to working with Quattro during the period from tender close to contract award,” said Tony Day, chairman of Quattro Ports.

“Quattro is confident that in selecting Kerman it has a part-ner who will deliver this important new development on time and on budget. This project is an important step in the process of establishing a new port logistics chain that services the needs of a competitive grain market.”

Kerman, the head contractor for the project, will take the lead in its design and ultimate delivery. Kotzur, acting as the main sub-contractor, will contribute with innovative structural, mechanical solutions for the grain storage area, Kerman said.

The export terminal development will comprise a road re-ceival hopper, a rail receival facility, an elevated overland in-loading conveyor system, eight flat bottom and nine small cone bottom silos at the grain storage area, bucket elevators and con-veyors for materials handling, ship loading conveyor and batch weighing system, weigh bridge and control buildings.

Kerman's executive director Mark Nagle was confident that together, the two contractors would do a good job on the project.

“Kerman and Kotzur have an excellent working relation-ship and have previously worked together on grain handling projects,” he said. “The respective strengths of the two organ-isations are complimentary to each other and hence create a strong and workable team.”

Quattro was announced by Qube and its partners in April this year.

The facility will require the deepening of a berth at Port Kembla to accommodate Panamax vessels. Singapore-listed No-ble was the first to commit to use the facility and to acquire rail services from Qube for the transport of grain to that facility.

In each case, Noble will commit to ‘take-or-pay’ Qube's ser-vices, meaning if Noble stops supplying grain to the export facil-ity, it will still have to pay Qube at least to some extent. Qube, in return, will build the facility for around $50 million.

“The investment is consistent with Qube's strategy to invest in port infrastructure that aligns with Qube's operations,” said Qube managing director Maurice James in April.

“This is a significant strategic project which we believe will alter the dynamics of the tightly controlled grain handling mar-ket. The joint venture looks forward to supporting grain produc-ers by providing high levels of service and modern infrastructure to customers seeking to export grain from Port Kembla.”

Kerman wins deal to build Quattro grain facility

Contact: www.kerman.com.au

Artist impression of proposed Grain Export Facility at Port Kembla.

WA-based Kerman Contracting has won a $67m contract to design and build the Quattro grain export facility at Port Kembla, NSW.

The benefits keep coming long after the build.Our extensive experience in both design and construction enables us to tailor a solution most suited to the operational functions, design life, durability, environmental and logistical challenges of your next project.

Call our Executive Director Mark Nagle on 08 9364 8466.

www.kerman.com.auProcess Plants Bulk storage and materials handling non-Process infrastructure industrial facilities accommodation villages

Kinder says its system was deployed with an ASX 100 agribusi-ness company, which had for a long time used FRAS-rated

rubber for its conveyor skirting.“Our customer is an Australian ASX 100 company founded

nearly 100 years ago and they are now recognised as an interna-tional leader in food ingredients and agribusiness,” Kinder tells ABHR. “Our customer was previously using a half-inch thick FRAS-rated rubber (Fire Resistant Anti-Static), necessary to comply with OHS regulations to avoid dust explosions.”

Kinder says the customer’s rubber had developed memory fatigue, and was no longer soft enough to conform to the belt sag between the idwlers.

“As a result our customer was experiencing a lot of product

escaping the skirting which was causing spillage,” Kinder says. “On average, skirting had to be changed every two years.”

As a result of this, Kinder says the customer made the decision to install the K-Snap-Loc Dust Deal System, using it to provide an effective seal at the conveyor transfer points.

In comparison to the previously used rubber, the five key benefits of changing to the engineered polyurethane have been, in Kinder’s words:• immediate spillage reductions because the new skirting of-

fers longer term memory shaping capabilities• longer-term replacement cost savings because the new skirt-

ing is 8 to 10 times more durable than rubber• immediate and ongoing reduction in maintenance costs due to

less adjustments, thanks to the memory-set, and less cleaning time• ongoing energy savings due to the Kinder skirting’s superior

low friction properties, achieving less drag on the conveyor• ongoing improvements to the preservation of the belt itself

because materials don’t collect under the slippery surface of the polyurethane, potentially causing damage to the beltEffective and reliable skirting is especially important in

grain handling, Kinder highlights, because of the explosive na-ture of grain dust.

“The grain handling industry is a high hazard industry where fires and explosions can occur from grain dust accumulation,” the manufacturer explains. “Over the last 35 years, there have been over 500 explosions in grain handling facilities globally, which have killed more than 180 people and injured more than 675.

“Grain dust is highly combustible and can burn or explode if enough becomes airborne or accumulates on a surface and finds an ignition source (such as hot bearings, overheated mo-tors, or misaligned conveyor belt).”

K-Snap-Loc is available in FRAS rated formulations specifical-ly for industries where combustion risks are present. Its unique design installs into most conveyor systems, according to Kinder.

“The system is made from high performance engineered pol-yurethane which can withstand high abrasive and high tempera-ture applications. There is a variety of formulas to suit high speed and hot applications,” Kinder says.

The polyurethane’s “memory-set” is used to apply downward pressure onto the belt’s surface to create a fine tight seal, so there is no need for manual adjustment, according to the manufacturer.

“Because of the low coefficient of friction there is a power saving by producing 60% less drag on the conveyor belt than tra-ditional skirting rubber.”

Polyurethane skirting outlasts FRAS rubber for grain business

Bulk handling manufacturer Kinder says its K-Snap-Loc Dust Deal System has proven itself to be 8 to 10 times more durable than FRAS-rated rubber in grain handling environments.

Contact: www.kinder.com

GRAIN HANDLING

K-Snap-Loc Dust Deal System close-up and in a grain

application.

● 100mm diameter tube with up to 8m3 / hour delivery rate

● Available with either Stainless Steel or powder coated components

● Versatile configurations up to 280m long for 100mm system

● 90 degree, 135 degree and 360 degree directional corners

● Horizontal and vertical travel

● Low power usage

● Robust construction

● Smaller size systems also available

Falcon Chain Conveying

SystemsFrom powders to granules & many other products.... We can handle your transport requirements

For more details contact: PO Box 4009 Nemingha 2340

Ph 02 6760 9611 Fax 02-6760 9616 E/ml: [email protected]



GRAIN HANDLING

Other styles of anti-rotation bolts such as fanged or pronged bolts

risk damage to the elevator belt as their protrusions penetrate the belt covers and carcass. The Easifit bolt does not suffer this drawback, claims Dennis, because there is nothing to tear into the belt.

The head of the Easifit is smooth and domed for sinking into the belt cover without causing any belt dam-age. Anti-rotation is provided by the tool which locks on to the bolt’s hex tip. When used with a nylon inserted (Nylock) nut, this becomes a secure fas-tener which will not come loose due to

usual belt vibration or elongation.“This system is especially popular

for repair jobs where the bucket must be attached on to an existing installed belt. In this case, reaching around to the back of the belt and inserting re-placement bolts can be cumbersome,” explained Dennis. “Once the replace-ment Easifit bolt is inserted through the belt and bucket, the entire fasten-ing operation can be conducted from the exposed front of the belt and inside the buckets. There are no fangs to set or the problem of elongated bolt holes that can no longer accept the square shoul-der of the Norway style bolt.”

Dennis says there are both manual and pneumatic versions of the tool.

4B says it is the only original manu-facturer of the most well known eleva-tor bolt types -Ref70 bolts, Euro bolts, Fang bolts and Easifit bolts.

4B lauds pneumatic ratchet tool

According to managing director Paul Dennis, 4B Australia’s pneumatic ratchet tool makes installing Easifit elevator bucket bolts simpler than ever.

Contact: Paul Dennis, email - [email protected] www.go4b.com

Easifit bolt. 4B’s ratchet tool.

[email protected] ahrens.com.au 08 8521 0017

Local KnowledgeN a tional Resources

The nswer is Ahrens.

• Conveyors •Substations •Commoditystorage

•Platework •Structuralsteel •Stockpilecovers

• Loading/unloadingfacilities •Gates&diverters

• Workshops/warehouses•Mininginfrastructure

• Extensive&cost-effectivematerials

handlingsolutions

• Experiencednationalnetwork

• Regional&remotespecialists

• Verticallyintegrated

• Largefabricationcapacity

55


Bunge is an agribusiness and food company which operates in 40 countries. In the new receival and export site’s first two

years of operation, Bunge plans to export 500,000 tonnes of WA grain to Asia and the Middle East.

The first shipment of 18,000 tonnes of wheat left the Bun-bury terminal for the Philippines in early July.

With a storage capacity of around 50,000 tonnes and the abil-ity to receive, blend and output grain at a rate of 1,000 tonnes per hour, Bunge describes its Bunbury terminal as a significant investment in the WA grain industry.

Bunge Asia’s chief executive Christopher White said the termi-nal is an integral part of the company’s growth strategy. He said the terminal, which cost Bunge in the range of $30 to $40 million, would complement the current grain supply chain and provide farmers with an alternate avenue to bulk export markets, in turn creating additional value for their products and businesses.

“The Port will provide increase choice and flexibility for WA grain growers in their grain marketing, and provide opportuni-ties to extract price premiums for their product,” he said.

“It will also provide economic and employment opportuni-ties both at the Port in Bunbury and up country through support and service businesses.”

The port facility is capable of handling multiple commodities, including wheat, barley and canola.

In addition to the main storage infrastructure of six 7,500-tonne flat bottom silos and four 700-tonne hopper bottom silos, the site includes 21 belt conveyors, two drag conveyors, two elevators, a batch weigher, two truck samplers, two product samplers and 22 jet filters for dust control. All silos are sealed to Australian Standards and have specially designed roof vents, fea-turing fail-safe valve mechanisms. The terminal also has on-site fumigation capabilities, full dust control on elevators and import and export laboratory facilities.

When planning the layout of the hoppers, elevators and con-veyors involved in the transfer of grain, Ahrens said its in-house design team focused on ease of operation for workers at the facility and a high level of efficiency for grain grower clients. Construction director Mark Smeaton said Ahrens’ dedicated ma-terials handling division provided critical design and engineering input to achieve the desired outcomes.

“Their experience and expertise was essential for such a large-scale and intricate project and they worked closely with our Design & Construct and Agri Industrial teams to meet Bunge’s requirements for a facility that was more efficient than traditional country co-operative bulk-handling receival sites,” Smeaton said.

Ahrens delivers Bunbury grain terminalDesign and construction group Ahrens said the bulk grain terminal it built in 12 months for Bunge Australia in Bunbury, WA, is well set-up for a highly efficient export operation.

56

GRAIN HANDLING

Bunge’s new Bunbury grain terminal, built by Ahrens, nearing completion (photo credit Bunge/Ahrens).

….main storage infrastructure of six 7,500-tonne flat bottom silos and four 700-tonne hopper bottom silos…

Contact: www.ahrens.com.au

“Following on from the design and engineering phase, our experienced site crews and sub-contractors were really tested on site, having to complete the civil, structural, mechanical and electrical works, as well as construct the flat bottom and hopper bottom silos, office and road intake buildings and the materials handling infrastructure. We also fabricated the structural steel and bases for the hopper bottom silos,” he continued.

“It was certainly a challenging project, but we are very proud of the end result, having delivered Bunge an outstanding new facility that meets their fundamental requirement for highly ef-ficient processing speeds.”

Smeaton said this efficiency was achieved through the config-uration of the truck samplers, incoming weighbridge, dual receival hoppers and outgoing weighbridge which allow trucks to easily transfer through the site without being impeded by bottlenecks.

“The road intake building enables two road trains to empty grain simultaneously, while the outbound process is also extreme-ly efficient with product sampled and weighed inline,” he said.

Bunge Australia general manager Chris Aucote said feedback from users of the facility since it opened in May 2014 had been extremely positive.

“The facility has been designed to turn around road trains in 15 minutes and the first few months of operation have con-firmed this is achievable and in some cases it has been even faster,” Aucote said.

“Automatic twin sampling probes and fully automatic dual 100-tonne weighbridges allow unhampered traffic flow and the 1200-tonne per hour grid speed means trucks can be unloaded in four minutes.”

Aucute noted that trucks delivering grain must be accredited by Bunge and all drivers must undertake an on-site induction to ensure the highest levels of safety and operation.

“As part of this process, we pre-book deliveries and give all drivers an allocated time for delivery,” he said. “This is the most effective way of running the port terminal and the most efficient outcome for the carriers.”

Aucote said the highlight of the project was the collaboration between Bunge, Ahrens and local contractors who delivered a world-class facility on time and under budget.

“This was our first major project in Australia for many years and Ahrens’ largest ever Agri Industrial project,” he said.

“The Bunge Bunbury terminal has introduced a new market-ing option for WA grain growers and this increased choice and competition is beneficial for grain growers, and not just the Bun-bury region but the wider rural community.”

57Australian Bulk Handling Review: July/August 2014

GRAIN HANDLING

The facility has been designed to turn around road trains in 15 minutes

1300 35 SEMF www.semf.com.au

Integrated grain handling solutions Engineering design Environmental approvals Project and construction management

SEMF66 Mesca QPV ad_HR EDIT.pdf 1 10/21/12 2:15 PM

327406A_SEMF | 2065.indd 1 13/11/13 3:24 PM

[email protected] with the Grain Industry

for over 30 years


Distributed throughout Australia and New Zealand by Eximo SpeedLOCK, GranuFlex is a 1.4mm thick polyurethane clear

ducting with a distinct green helix containing spring steel.The GranuFlex system contains an organic compound that is

added to the polyurethane to attract airborne moisture, to create a continuous circuit.

The removal of static build-up occurs as product moves through the ducting, so no snakeskins will form, according to the distributor, which adds that Granuflex does not lose its antistatic properties as it wears over time and the Helix does not require grounding. Tem-perature resistance ranges from -40°C up to +100°C.

“Antistatic GranuFlex has a very smooth bore, excellent abrasion resistance, resistance to oil and petrol and is com-pletely non-toxic which is of particular importance to grain handling,” Eximo SpeedLOCK said. “It is also completely free of halogen and softeners.”

The distributor says the ducting has a high chemical resist-ance and flame retardation characteristics, and offers high flexi-bility, excellent axial compressibility and resistance to aggressive and abrasive fumes and dust.

GranuFlex ducting is designed to clip into Eximo SpeedLOCK Standard heavy wall and grain duct, with hose tail fittings built into the modular duct.

Eximo says that as Granuflex is machined to such exact toler-ances, it can fully guarantee a perfect fit between the flex and its modular duct spigots.

GranuFlex can be ordered with a hose tail to make a com-plete and fully manoeuvrable ducting system.

Flexible ducting for grain and seed handlers

Ducted handling systems provider Eximo SpeedLOCK says its Granuflex polyurethane ducting is ideal for the suction and discharge of abrasive materials, particularly grain, where constantly high flow rates are needed.


Granuflex features a green helix containing spring steel.

GRAIN HANDLING

The company says IPB is China’s leading trade show for tech-nologies for size reduction, grinding, mixing, screening,

filtering, dosing, and conveying of powder and bulk solids, and is a good networking opportunity for manufacturers, plant op-erators and other businesses in the industry.

Designed to cover a wide range of technologies and ap-plications for the chemical, pharmaceutical, food, coating, mining, and ceramic industries, IPB 2014 is expected attract exhibitors from China, Germany, the US, the UK, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, Singapore, New Zealand, Ma-laysia, and India.

“The initial figures for IPB 2014 are promising,” Nürnberg Messe says. “IPB is assembling the leading companies in pow-der processing and plant engineering.

“In addition, almost all well-known domestic and overseas companies in the sector of particle size analysis will participate in IPB 2014, including Malvern, DKSH, Micromeritics, Beckman Coulter, Brookfield, HORIBA, and local brands like Bettersize, WINNER, and OMEC.

“IPB is an ideal platform for visitors to have face-to-face discus-sions with these companies in a single stop,” the company adds.

IPB is partnered with the Association of Powder Process In-dustry and Engineering, Japan.

200 exhibitors expected at Chinese powder and bulk expo

Exhibition business Nürnberg Messe says it expects around 200 exhibitors to showcase the latest technology trends in the bulk and powder industry at the upcoming 12th International Powder & Bulk Solids Processing Conference & Exhibition in Shanghai between October 14 and 16.

Powder and bulk handling will be the focus of IPB 2014 in China.

Contact: www.ipbexpo.com

Falcon has developed a number of new products for its range of chain and disk

conveyors. These include a self-cleaning corner manufactured out of stainless steel.

“In Italy, I saw first-hand some new and very interesting developments,” said Abra. “The purpose of the self-cleaning corner is to remove product that can build up in a conventional vertically placed corner.”

The new compact RI Series of single and dual drive units is manufactured in 304 stainless steel and is designed to reduce footprint size in confined areas. The single drive operates at 6m3 per hour, while the dual drive is rated at 12m3 per hour.

In conversation with ABHR, Bob Abra said that Falcon chain conveyors, which have plastic disks moulded to the chain at regular intervals, are uniquely versatile.

“They can transport a wide range of ma-terials, such as meals, cereals, pellets, plas-tics and minerals,” he explained. “They can carry out tortuous vertical and horizontal cir-cuits, with different capacities and extremely reduced power.”

AF Systems, based in NSW, specialises in the mechanical conveying of a large range of products includ-ing plastics, grains and powders of all descriptions. It can pro-vide systems with capacities ranging from 3m3 to 35m3 per hour.

Falcon was founded in 1972 and in 1975 was the first com-pany to produce a chain conveying system with plastic disks.

Contact: Bob Abra, email: [email protected]

Falcon distributor eyes new offerings

Bob Abra, managing director of AF Systems, which distributes the chain conveyors of Falcon of Italy, recently visited the latter’s Italian manufacturing plant where he assessed a range of new products and technologies.

Altra products help keep material moving throughout Australia.

Our global family of industry-leading “power brands”, extensive application knowledge and award-winning design advantages provide proven product performance and reliability. Thousands of Altra backstops, couplings, clutches, brakes, torque limiters and belt drives are hard at work in industrial applications including conveyors, cranes, winches, hoist, water treatment plants, coal power plants, oil and gas, marine, water treatment plants and more.

Many major equipment OEM’s and end users partner with Altra to access the latest power transmission technologies.

www.AltraMotion.com.au

Altra Industrial Motion AustraliaUnit 51/ 9 Hoyle Avenue Castle Hill, N.S.W. 2154 - Australia

Phone: +61 2 9894 [email protected]

Previously known as Warner Electric Australia

Warner Electric • Bibby Turboflex • Stieber ClutchMarland Clutch • Wichita Clutch • Boston Gear • TB Wood’s

Formsprag Clutch • Industrial Clutch • Twiflex Limited

GRAIN HANDLING

Falcon’s self-cleaning corner.

Falcon’s chain conveyors can accommodate sudden changes in direction, both vertically and horizontally.

9 Kudos and acclaim if you win 9 Easy to enter with no lengthy forms 9 Just a write-up in your own words

For more information contact Ronda McCallum Ph: 02 9080 4354 Email: [email protected]

Nominate your company for an Australian Bulk Handling Award


GRAIN HANDLING

Australia’s grain industry represents a quarter of all agricultural exports and

plays a vital role in the country’s economy. CBH Group is one of the country’s

leading grain organizations and represents more than 4,500 grain growers throughout Western Australia. In 2013, the company recorded its largest ever harvest, handling more than 15.8 million tonnes of wheat, barley, canola and oats.

But high summer temperatures, reach-ing over 40°C, and dense, fine dust makes this a difficult environment for man and also for Volvo’s wheel loaders.

Headquartered in Perth, the 80 year old CBH Group is a co-operative, owned by growers, and covers a dozen grain-grow-ing zones across the southern part of WA. Its fleet of L60 E-Series and F-Series wheel loaders move the grain from silos onto rail or trucks, to be transported throughout Aus-tralia and the world. The grain is shipped overseas from four ports in WA and then processed into different food produce, or used as feed for livestock.

CBH Group has been using Volvo wheel loaders as its primary loading equipment for over 10 years. Leon Fallon, network re-sources manager of operations, says: “With our product being an essential staple of peoples’ diets, we need a brand of wheel loader that we can trust.

“Each of the 59 Volvo machines moves around 200,000 tonnes of grain a year, working for eight hours a day and running for a lifespan with us of around 13,000 hours.”

Sustainable fleetIn 2008, a Sustainable Fleet Initiative – a program aimed at reducing the engine capacities and increasing the emissions ratings of all the vehicles and machinery used on its sites – was introduced at CBH Group. “Volvo products perform better all round,” says Leon Fallon. “Our wheel loaders use less fuel than other brands, and they are more efficient compact machines for our working environment.”

Volvo says its wheel loaders are characterized by lower fuel consumption. The company’s publicity says: “The F-Series range features a quiet, low-emission Volvo V-ACT D6E engine that deliv-ers high torque near idle rpm. Teamed with the Automatic Power Shift (APS) function, Volvo wheel loaders always select the right gear for fast, efficient work cycles.”

With excess-demand and supply shortages throughout the global grain industry, CBH Group says it cannot afford to have its machinery out of operation, otherwise the world’s food chain could be seriously disrupted.

CBH uses Volvo CE’s national distributor CJD Equipment to keep its fleet of equipment up and running. “CJD Equipment has been a great business partner,” Leon Fallon says. “The sales and service staff are committed to us and as a result we experience less downtime and more reliable machines.”

Founded in 1974, CJD Equipment is also headquartered in Perth and has a network of sales and service centres to cover Australia from coast-to-coast. According to Volvo: “Its team of

over 500 employees are well trained and experienced service technicians aim to be on-site within 24 hours to resolve faults or maintenance issues.

“Volvo’s range of wheel loaders offer unrivalled operator com-fort, with fully functioning in-cab climate control that keep opera-tors cool even in the blistering temperatures of summertime.”

“By keeping our operators comfortable while they work, they are more engaged in what they’re doing,” explains Leon Fallon. “This leads to a more productive workforce and that contributes towards our bottom line.”

Volvo goes with the grain Down UnderThe CBH Group transports, stores and markets about 15 million tonnes of grain a year. Equipment supplier Volvo says CBH relies on a fleet of its wheel loaders as a ‘staple’ of its loading tools.

Contact: www.volvo.com

Top: Volvo says its loaders are more fuel efficient than its opposition’s.Bottom: CBH has used Volvo wheel loaders as its primary loading tools for over 10 years.

Each Volvo machines moves around 200,000 tonnes of grain a year, working for eight hours a day and running for a lifespan of around 13,000 hours

Pacific Rail Engineering designs and manufactures specialized track prod-

ucts for the freight and transit rail mar-kets. It has facilities at Tomago, Chipping Norton and Revesby in NSW and Hender-son in WA.

Senior staff include: executive gener-al manager rolling stock, Steve Burraston; acting operations manager rolling stock, Glenn Starling; and maintenance manag-er rolling stock, Chris Vella.

Progress Rail had an existing joint venture relationship with PRE, the pair having, in their own words, “successfully developed and put into track the heaviest axle load turnouts in the world.”

PRE maintains ownership of its roll-ing stock division in Chipping Norton and Tomago.

“The acquisition of PRE's track business is another step in expanding our global footprint to meet our customers’ needs,” said Billy Ainsworth, Progress Rail presi-dent and CEO, with responsibility for Cat-erpillar’s rail business.

“With nearly 25 years of experience, PRE is well established in the Australian railroad supply market. This acquisition is a strategic opportunity to expand our offerings in an important market, includ-ing rail welding, maintenance-of-way equipment, asset protection products and wayside signaling products.”

“In acquiring the PRE Track Services business, Progress Rail has demonstrated confidence in the Australian track ser-vices sector and the opportunities it pre-sents to introduce product and service

innovation to this vital sector of our econ-omy,” said John Williams, PRE managing director.

“Our PRE employees, both past and present, can take pride in building the company into the recognized and re-spected company that it is today. I am confident Progress Rail will further im-prove the business through its consider-able resources and proven capabilities on a global scale.”

PRE recently launched a new wheel turning service that it says “offers rail freight operators in the Hunter Valley an efficient, competitive and affordable ser-vice with quick turnaround and lightning response. It also offers a way of reduc-ing handling costs and diminishing the wheel pool.”

Cat rail subsidiary buys Pacific Rail Engineering's track business

Progress Rail Services, wholly owned by heavy equipment giant Caterpillar, has concluded an agreement to buy the track business of Australian company Pacific Rail Engineering (PRE).

NEWS

Aerzen Australia57– 59 Rodeo Drive, Dandenong Vic 3175

Ph: +61 3 9188 3684

www.aerzen.com.au

World Leading Design & Innovation

• 100% Oil Free Air• Low Noise Level• High Efficiency• Reduced Life Cycle Costs• Proven Reliability• Made by AERZEN

DELTA HYBRIDRotary Lobe Compressor

• Flow rates upto 9,000 m3/hr

• Pressure to 150 kPag

DELTA BLOWERPositive Displacement

• Flow rates upto 14,000 m3/hr

• Pressure to 100 kPag

Aerzen HP_1.indd 1 28/07/14 3:24 PM

Kilic delivered four self-propelled DOH and stackers to Emerald Grain

in Victoria and NSW ahead of last season, and after that equipment performed to expectations, the engineering firm said it has now received orders for more DOH and stackers ahead of next season.

General manager Jason Kilic said the company was now working on a proto-type for a ‘reclaimer’, which can be an ‘add-on’ to the DOH and stacker and will retrieve the grain from the storage bunker.

“What’s unique about our new DOH and stacker is that you can drive it rather than having to tow it every time you want it repositioned, creating less ‘down-time’ for operators and grain handlers,” he said.

“As well as saving significant time and being more user friendly, the new ma-chines are electrically driven rather than diesel powered making it quieter and easier to maintain. The new design is also capable of moving canola, which behaves differently to wheat and other grains.”

Kilic said the company’s success has been built around innovation, which along with diversification, he said, is key to growth in the highly competitive engi-neering sector.

“At the same time the feedback we receive on our existing products allows us to improve our existing technology for future orders,” he added.

“Our engineers pride themselves on

coming up with new ideas and in talk-ing to existing clients to see how we can make our products better. In many ways it’s about taking an educated punt to in-vest in the development of a new product and then find potential buyers.”

Kilic Engineering says its DOH and stacker can move up to 600 tonnes of grain per hour, which equates to unload-ing around 10 B-Double semi-trailers per hour. The firm has manufactured DOH and stackers since 1999, when it built similar machines for Viterra, and has manufactured other grain handling equipment since the 1970s.

Kilic picks up more orders for grain equipment

South Australia-based Kilic Engineering has earned more orders for its newly re-designed drive over hopper (DOH) and stacker.

GRAIN HANDLING

Jason Kilic standing in front of the drive over hopper (DOH).

Contact: www.kiliceng.com.au

Give blood - you could save a lifeAustralian Red Cross 13 14 95


The system, which integrates Flexicon’s swing-down bulk bag filler, pallet dis-

penser and powered chain conveyor, is de-signed to allow safe, high-capacity filling of bulk bags of all popular sizes, including bags with wide-diameter spouts for pas-sage of irregular materials.

When a filling cycle is initiated by push button or contact closure, pallet dispenser forks lower the stack of pallets onto the chain conveyor, withdraw from the bottom pallet, and raise the remaining pallets, al-lowing the conveyor equipped with photo-electric eyes to move the dispensed pallet into position below the filling station.

The bag connection frame of the swing-down fill head lowers and then pivots to a vertical position, allowing an operator at floor level to safely and quickly attach bag straps to automated latches, slide the bag spout over a wide-diameter inflatable spout seal, and press a spout seal inflation button.

The system then automatically piv-ots the bag connection frame back to horizontal, raises the entire fill head, inflates the bag to remove creases, fills the bag at a high rate, finishes filling ac-curately at trickle feed rate, deflates the spout seal, releases the bag loops, raises the fill head to disengage the spout, rolls the bag out of the filling area, and rolls a new pallet into place to begin another cycle, Flexicon described.

An annular gap inside of the fill head spout directs air displaced during the filling operation to a single vent for applications requiring connection to a dust collector.

The system is offered with Flexicon’s own steel-tube flexible screw conveyor in-tegrated with the user’s upstream process equipment or other material source.

Flexicon adds this device to its exist-ing line of bulk bag unloaders, bulk bag conditioners, bag dump stations, drum/

box/container tippers, tubular cable con-veyors, pneumatic conveying systems, weigh batching and blending systems, and other bulk handling machinery.

Flexicon debuts ultra-heavy-duty bulk bag filler

Bulk handling equipment supplier Flexicon has detailed its Ultra-Heavy-Duty Bulk Bag Filling System, designed to fill bulk bags with filter cake, aggregates, metal powders, abrasive minerals, dry chemical additives and other difficult-to-handle bulk materials.

Contacts: www.flexicon.com.au Email: [email protected]

(top) Flexicon says its Ultra-Heavy-Duty Bulk Bag Filling System with pallet dispenser and powered chain conveyor allows safe,

high capacity filling of difficult-to-handle bulk materials.(above) The swing-down fill head with wide-diameter spout

seal is designed to enable safe, rapid connection of wide diameter bag spouts for passage of filter cake, aggregates,

metal powders, abrasive minerals, dry chemical additives and irregular bulk materials.

Oxford, whose background is in ad-ministration, marketing and com-

munications in a range of industries, has her focus set on marketing the Magaldi brand, and on building on the work done by Magaldi in the 10 years it has spent Down Under.

The company’s projects in Australia to date have been primarily in the coal fired

power industry, where it offers its clients after sale support, and works with them to provide solutions in conveying.

Now with increasing developments in the waste to energy sector, Magaldi says it’s well poised to offer its technology and solutions in this industry area.

Magaldi looks within for new director

Anna Oxford is the new director of marketing and administration at bulk materials handling specialist Magaldi Power, after working at the company since 2011.

Anna Oxford at the Australian Bulk Handling Awards in 2013. Contact: www.magaldi.com

NEW PRODUCTS

NEWS


Grain cooling can be used to prolong the safe storage time for grain and other similar agricultural products in silos or bun-

kers. By reducing the temperature of the grain, insects are forced in to diapause (hibernation) and mildew growth is prevented.

“Granifrigor is an appealing alternative to aeration systems, costly CO2 usage and avoids the OH&S risks of chemical fu-migation,” explained Brett Winter of Petkus Australia Pacific. “Once the grain in the silo has been chilled, it will hold its re-duced temperature for around 60 days.”

Granifrigor units are therefore mobile and one unit can be

used to safeguard complete silo installations. In terms of its operation, the Granifrigor unit draws in air

from the atmosphere. The air is cooled by an air conditioner / evaporator to the desired temperature. Before exiting the unit, the cold air is warmed again slightly to create the cor-rect relative humidity. In dry climates such as Australia, this avoids dry air entering the silo and creating moisture losses. Alternatively, for high moisture content grains, it can be used as an aid to drying.

The cooled conditioned air is fed in to the bottom of the silo, where the conventional aeration fans would normally be placed, or through the air distribution channels of a bunker/warehouse type system. The air is forced through the grain and then released to the atmosphere through the standard ex-haust vents. There is no need to use a gas-tight sealed silo.

“A typical silo will take around one day to reach the de-sired temperature for optimum preservation,” said Winter. “The Granifrigor unit can then be disconnected and used elsewhere. Meanwhile the grain will now be safe from insect and mildew attack for around 60 days before any re-chilling is required.”

Petkus Australia Pacific of Tullamarine in Victoria is a unit of Petkus Technologies GmbH of Germany, which is a special-ist in seed and grain technologies.


Petkus introduces Granifrigor mobile grain cooler for silos

Melbourne-based Petkus Australia-Pacific is representing the German company FrigorTec, and its Granifrigor silo cooling systems, in Australia and New Zealand.

Contacts: David Dobney and Brett Winter, email: [email protected]

Granifrigor mobile grain cooler.

Granifrigor in action on a silo.

GRAIN HANDLING

ALLIED GRAIN SYSTEMS

• Project Design & Construction• MFS Commercial Silo Range

• Comprehensive Range of Conveyors including Bucket Elevators, Screws, Drag Chains & Belt Conveyors• Structural Steel Fabrication including Walkways,

Towers, In-Ground Hoppers

FOR GRAIN STORAGE AND CONVEYING ALLIED GRAIN SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN DESIGNING & CONSTRUCTING

WORLD CLASS PROJECTS FOR YEARS

Young NSW Ph: 02 6382 7474 Fax: 02 6382 5149 Email: [email protected]

www.alliedgrainsystems.com.au

Australian Bulk Handling Review 2014

Grain Silos &Conveyor Systems


NEWS

Miners not happy with infrastructure privatisation

Australia’s biggest miners are not happy with the policy and regulation surrounding the continued privatisation of key pieces of infrastructure, Oliver Probert reports.

BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, FMG, Glencore and AngloAmerican have all criticised the trend of infrastructure privatisation

in Australia, with some saying private infrastructure is costing them more than it should, and most agreeing that regulation sur-rounding shared infrastructure is drastically flawed.

The miners, who together represent the vast majority of all bulk minerals exported from Australia, and combine to pro-vide a decent portion of the country’s GDP, made their feelings known in submissions to the federal government’s Competition Policy Review in June.

The Competition Policy Review (also known as the Harper Review) is a ‘root and branch’ review launched by the Abbott Government shortly after it came into power, to fulfil a pre-elec-tion promise it made to help identify ways to build the economy and promote investment, growth and job creation.

While the Harper Review covers all industries and businesses in Australia, mining has been one of the biggest talking points, as all the big players have made sure to have their say.

GlencoreAustralia’s biggest thermal coal exporter, Glencore, says that eve-ry instance of coal infrastructure being sold into private owner-ship in the last 15 years has meant higher costs for miners.

In its submission to the Harper Review, the company ma-ligned the continuing trend of public rail and port infrastructure being sold off to big international firms and consortia.

Glencore operates its coal mining and export program on the east coast.

Its coal is exported in NSW through the Port Waratah Coal Terminal in Newcastle, along rail infrastructure leased by the Australian Rail Track Corporation in the Hunter Valley, and via

the Port Kembla Coal Terminal.In Queensland Glencore exports through the Abbott Point

Coal Terminal, and also through the multi-user Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal near Hay Point, and the RG Tanna Coal Terminal in Gladstone. Below rail infrastructure is provided in Queens-land by Aurizon Network.

Dalrymple Bay was sold to Prime Infrastructure in 2001. Rail haulage in the Hunter Valley was sold to Patrick (now

Asciano) in 2002. The IPO of the coal network in Queensland, as Aurizon in 2010, stood as another turn of privatisation, and the sale of Abbott Point Coal Terminal to Adani in 2011, Port Kembla to NSW Ports in 2013, and Newcastle to Hastings and China Merchants in 2014, mean that much of the infrastruc-ture used by Glencore in its coal export operations is now privately owned.

And Glencore doesn’t like it.“While in principle we support privatisation, Glencore has

experienced the consequences of privatisation across the East Coast of Australia in terms of infrastructure asset sales,” the min-er said in its submission.

“The results are not mixed, they are almost always negative.”In fact, according to Glencore, every instance of monopoly

coal infrastructure being sold into private ownership in the last

Glencore has experienced the consequences of privatisation…..The results are not mixed, they are almost always negative.

MOBILE VEHICLE SAFETY


NEWS

15 years has been associated with a significant increase in the cost of access to use that infrastructure.

That cost, according to the miner, is “arising from both the imposition of higher access charges and/or the reallocation of risk back to the users of that infrastructure.”

Glencore continued: “These problems have arisen as a result of the failures of the regulatory regimes which have been im-posed to fully deal with the problems which arise from natural monopoly infrastructure.”

The miner did say that the issues were not as bad in NSW as they were in Queensland, as much of NSW’s rail track is still user or government-owned.

“However, the [planned] privatisation of ARTC is likely to create similar challenges in New South Wales to those which have already faced Queensland,” the miner warned.

Glencore stressed the importance of the mining sector to the Aus-tralian economy, saying it should be a focus of the federal government to keep Australian mining competitive on an international scale.

“Glencore’s Australian operations compete with coal mines and other producers in other regions throughout the world. It is therefore critical that there is competitive, efficient and reliable port and rail infrastructure to deliver our products, as well as those of other Australian producers, to their global customers, or Australian exports will lose out to those from other countries.”

In light of the amount of privatisation going on in Australia, though, Glencore said it would prefer that if it is to happen, it needs to be supported with appropriate regulation.

“One important element of [competitiveness] is ensuring export infrastructure regulatory settings support the coal in-dustry rather than those that seek to profit in the short term from exploiting the monopolistic position of specific coal infra-structure,” the miner wrote.

to Glencore’s internal research, recent expansions to the rail network or new port developments have seen export coal mines in Queensland’s port and rail charges rise from 10 – 20% of Free on Board (FoB) coal costs to around 30 – 40% FoB.

“Infrastructure charges for greenfield mines reliant on high cost extensions or new port developments are expected to rep-resent more than 50% of FoB costs,” the miner added.

Glencore said the importance of getting the regulatory setting on infrastructure access right in order for Australia to maintain or grow its share of global demand for coal cannot be understated.

Anglo AmericanLondon-based Anglo American argued that it is necessary to en-sure that appropriate regulation is in place prior to the privatisa-tion of key infrastructure assets.

“The Queensland Government has announced that it will consider privatising the Port of Gladstone and the Port of Towns-ville,” Anglo said. “Anglo American ships a significant amount of coal through the Port of Gladstone and therefore has a close interest in its potential privatisation.”

The miner said that proper regulation needs to be in place to avoid an “economic hold-up” – where major infrastructure owners are able to leverage their monopoly status to delay expansions to their capacity, thus meddling with a natural supply/demand mar-ket and driving up the equilibrium price for export capacity.

“This essentially involves a situation where a monopoly ser-vice provider refuses to expand the service to add additional ca-pacity unless users pay rent that is dramatically more than the regulated rate of return,” Anglo wrote.

“This has an extremely negative impact on any industry, as it can have the effect of stunting growth during boom times, or simply making otherwise viable projects unattractive for major companies due to the drastically increased overheads.”

Anglo American therefore supported recommendations by the Productivity Commission in its report on the National Access

Regime that the ACCC (or other relevant regulator) should have a clear power to direct capacity expansions and that the ACCC should provide specific guidelines for the use and control of this power.

“Whilst Anglo American agrees that commercially negotiated agreements are preferable to regulated outcomes, it believes that sometimes it is necessary to impose a prescriptive regime even when the negotiation environment and the issues involved are complex.”

BHP BillitonBHP agreed with both Anglo and Glencore, saying there needs to be more regulation surrounding privately-owned infrastructure, to ensure that appropriate capacity expansions do take place.

“The power to direct expansions of privately developed, single user infrastructure should be distinguished from the ap-plication of a mandatory expansion power in the context of regulated multi-user coal infrastructure in Queensland and NSW,” the miner said as part of its lengthy submission.

BHP said one example of policy done right was the Central Queensland Rail Network, which it says “was privatised in cir-cumstances where the owner and operator of that infrastructure had full knowledge of, and the acquisition through privatisation was subject to, a pre-existing mandatory expansion obligation.

“It is reasonable to expect,” BHP continued, “that similar ar-rangements will be adopted if ARTC is privatised in future.”

BHP also called for reform of the National Access Regime, saying that the regime, which forces owners of ‘nationally sig-nificant infrastructure’ to negotiate for access with potential third party users, with recourse to arbitration of disputes by the ACCC, was unprecedented.

“There is no equivalent statutory declaration regime in com-parable overseas jurisdictions.”

The miner, which has had rather public run-ins with re-gards to Fortescue Metals Group requesting access to BHP’s Pilbara rail infrastructure thanks to this regime, pointed to the recommendations of the 1992 review into competition, which said overuse of the regime could “undermine incentives for in-vestment,” and should be applied “sparingly”.

“The Hilmer Review’s objective of introducing competi-tion into former public monopoly industries has now largely been achieved through the use of State, Territory and industry specific access regimes,” BHP said.

“The Part IIIA declaration regime [the National Access Re-gime] has contributed little towards this objective. BHP Billiton has extensive experience with the application of the Part IIIA declaration regime to nationally significant single user infra-structure, through responding to Fortescue Metals Group Lim-ited’s (FMG’s) applications for declaration of track access on BHP Billiton’s Pilbara iron ore railways.”

BHP’s experience on this matter, it said, “demonstrates that the costs of applying the Part IIIA declaration regime in this con-text can include billions of dollars in lost exports and GDP, aris-ing from: significant capacity losses and operational inefficiencies associated with accommodating an access seeker on a previously single user facility; delays to expansions, innovation and opera-tional improvements, caused by the provider’s need to negotiate with an access seeker about the impact of changes to its opera-tions; and uncertainty about whether and on what terms access must be provided to third parties, which is a key disincentive to private investment in nationally significant infrastructure.”

BHP said one example of policy done right was the (privatisation of the) Central Queensland Rail Network.

Rio TintoRio also noted that it had extensive experience with the National Access Regime, pointing out that in 2007 and 2008, FMG made ap-plications for the declaration of Rio’s facilities in the Pilbara, which in turn would open the door for third party negotiations – applica-tions which were ultimately rejected by the High Court of Australia.

With that in mind, Rio had the following to say about the Na-tional Access Regime in its relatively short submission:

“In order to ensure that the National Access Regime enhanc-es Australia’s economic efficiency and export performance it is, in [Rio’s] submission, essential that: (a) the preconditions to declaration under the National Access Regime, and the crite-ria for declaration, are framed appropriately so that declaration can occur only when access is essential to facilitate competition and enhance efficiency and in the public interest; and (b) the decision making framework in relation to declaration is robust, thorough and objective.”

Fortescue Metals GroupUnsurprisingly, FMG’s submission also addressed the regulatory situation surrounding railways in the Pilbara.

It noted that its own railway there – which it opened after continually struggling for a significant access arrangement with BHP or Rio – is subject to the WA Rail Access Regime, while BHP’s Goldsworthy Railway (the one FMG fought for access to) is under the National Access Regime.

BHP’s Mt. Newman railway and Rio’s Hamersley and Robe rail-ways are unregulated, FMG said, while Roy Hill’s under-construction railway will be subject to the WA Rail Access Regime until an access undertaking for haulage is accepted and regulated by the ACCC.

“The lack of consistency in the regulation of access to rail-ways in WA was one of the main reasons the National Competi-tion Council did not recommend the certification of the WA Rail Access Regime in 2010,” FMG wrote. “We agree with the National Competition Council. However, the minister did not agree and certified the WA Rail Access Regime for a period of five years.”

The other point Fortescue raised in its submission – which was notably shorter than most – was to claim that Port Hedland Port Authority (PHPA) is a monopoly that needs to be better regulated.

“Recent significant price increases and the introduction of port levies at Port Hedland Port suggest that a review of ports is nec-essary to determine whether monopoly prices are being charged and whether constraints should be imposed to ensure ports offer competitive and commercial pricing to port users,” FMG wrote.

“The absence of competition at Port Hedland Port is exacer-bated by the limited or lack of competition in the provision of services within the port precinct.”

An example of this, FMG claimed, is the provision of towage ser-vices at Port Hedland. Towage at Port Hedland has been controlled for some time by BHP, and this has left FMG helpless to act during ongoing labour tensions between the maritime union and Teekay Shipping – the tug company BHP hired for work at the port.

“While the PHPA has now commenced a process for a sec-ond towage licence following a review of towage services by the ACCC, the PHPA has indicated that it will be at least four years before a second licensee will be in operation,” FMG wrote.

“The PHPA has also indicated that if a second licence is grant-ed, under its current licence, BHP will not be under an obligation to continue to offer towage services to non-BHP Billiton vessels,” the miner concluded.

NEWS

Showcase Your Engineering Consultancy! Important annual report on

Engineering, Design & Consultancy October 2014 edition.

This special report is aimed specifically at assisting companies planning bulk handling projects. It will include a directory of bulk handling engineering firms.The informative report will document engineering firms in Australia offering design, consulting, and EPCM services to the bulk handling sector.

It will provide details of:

• key staff and their contact details • services

• areas of specialisation • major or marquee projects

In addition, the report will include a variety of stories and project reports, for which Editor Charlie Macdonald is seeking topical, new material. Contact him on email - [email protected] if you think your project might fit the bill or for inclusion in the directory.The October edition provides a favourable editorial environment for promoting engineering prowess and services to the customers who can benefit from using them. We will consider any editorial submissions you might have – interesting installations, technical breakthrough, etc. But you need to be quick and send your stories and pictures now.

So... if you’d like to be part of this special Engineering feature, call or email now to discuss how to get your story published - and advertising ideas. Australian Bulk Handling Review can arrange some first class marketing for you.

Act Now!Call Peter Delbridge on 02 9080 4478

Download our media kit for 2013 at www.BulkHandling.com.au Booking deadline for advertising – Wednesday 10th September

Editorial copy deadline: Wednesday 15th SeptemberAdvertising copy deadline: Wednesday 15th September

E: [email protected] Ph: 02 9080 4478 M: 0400 700 765

ABHR House ad_JulAug13.indd 1 24/07/14 9:31 AM


OVERHEAD

Con Carpis, managing director, CMC TechnologiesMy company was formed in 1999, and we’re a supplier of industrial explosion protection equipment, which includes components and systems. We provide complete solutions for explosion protection.

Today I just want to introduce some points; I want to put them out there on the table for discussion. And mostly I want to talk about cost optimisation in relation to explosion venting. How do we optimise the cost of explosion protection through explosion venting?

We can do it by controlling the parameters of vent area de-sign. For example, the shape of the vessel, the aspect ratio asso-ciated with that design has an impact on the effective vent area which is required, the KST and the PMAX. You can do a design based on assumptions from literature which is available, or you can actually test your parameters with the product that you’re us-ing, and testing what your process is doing. Instead of assuming a maximum value, you may test and get a benefit from getting the actual value required.

If we’re talking about a bag house, the placement of explo-sion vents in relation to the internal bags has seen a big change in standards over the last six years. You now have to define an explosion pathway when you place an explosion vent in front of

the bags. If you want an existing bag house to conform to the new standards there may need to be modifications made. Cost-wise, if you’re building something new you can look at placing the explo-sion vents under the bags. You can do that by selecting certain bags that are short but provide a certain surface area, or elongate the enclosure so that the vents are under the bags, that gives the benefit that you could actually utilise the dirty volume only.

If the enclosure, say a bag house, is inside and you’re venting outside through ducting, you don’t want it to go to the picnic area, say, where employees are. You might be having a saving on explosion venting cost, but then you might have to pay a lot of extra money in some sort of plating that needs to be three times the size of the vent to make it work.

All of these issues have an effect on the Pred (the reduced explosion pressure; that is the pressure generated after an igni-tion). You have to design your enclosure to resist the pressure shock of an explosion.

Therefore, if you can play around with these parameters, you can get different scenarios, cost-wise. There are different types of explosion vent designs on the market, and choosing the right explosion vent design has cost implications.

It’s not easy, it’s complex; and we specialise in complex solutions.

68

Expert panel discusses dust explosionsOn June 17, at Informa’s Dust Explosions 2013 conference, a panel of experts got together in Penrith, NSW, to discuss their approaches to dust explosion prevention and mitigation. Here is an edited transcript of their discussion.

DUST EXPLOSIONS

The picture shows the sort of event that members of the expert panel work hard to avoid. On February 7, 2008 at about 7:15pm, a series of fatal dust explosions ripped through the Imperial Sugar manufacturing facility in Port Wentworth, Georgia, USA. The firestorm was sparked by an explosion in a covered conveyor, which in turn saturated the air with combustible sugar dust, resulting in a chain of fatal blasts. The explosion killed 14 workers.

Head Office VIC - Tel: (03) 9457 8240

www.kockumsbulk.com.au

ABH1415-1

The Professionals in Powder Handling

QR

cod

e

Pneumatic Conveying SpecialistsMOBILE Systems

Unload of a standard Containers with the Suck-Blow module. Unloading a modified container

Our primary Test Rig

For full scale pneumatic conveying of all materials. This enables a guarantee of the throughput rate.

A typical use forthe Microveyor,attached to a hopper under afiltration system.

Use clean dryinstrument air toeconomically send powder toa remote location.

Other Major Products: Bulk bag filling, and discharging systems; IBC systems; manual and automatic sack emptiers; flexible wall feeders; silo discharge systems; inflatable seat valves; sack filling m/c’s; vacuum assisted lifting;automatic palletisers, robot palletisers; wrappers and hooders.

IN-PLANT Systems


Neil Dennis, engineer with AECOM in AustraliaAt AECOM in Australia we do design and support for a whole range of different industries, but one of the reasons I’m here is more my role with Standards Australia, and the development of standards for hazardous areas. It’s for that reason that we often get involved with clients looking at how they implement stand-ards, and their practices on site.

That’s a very technical space, but the main tip for people is to make that technical space simple. It’s about getting that infor-mation consistently across your working team, and then taking what’s said in the standards and then simplifying it, so you have a common set of practices; all those sorts of issues which I think a lot of you would be up to speed with.

We see a lot of problems with people starting out wrong on how they think, and it’s just about getting that thought process right. Sometimes it’s about making the decision early in a project phase to have a philosophy about how you’re going to go forward, even though it might be slightly conservative. That can produce results at the end of the day. Because even when you change your processes, you don’t have to change your plant, because you’re already there.

So making the right decisions up front; that would be the main tip from me.

Sometimes when you’re looking at the classifications, for ex-ample, for hazardous areas on a plant, it’s really hard to determine where that problem is going to be. It’s so dependable on how the plant performs at the end of the day, and on paper you can’t make that decision. But by being a little bit conservative – saying “we’re not sure it’s going to be a problem, but let’s have the equipment to take care of it.” On paper it may be a few thousand dollars, but if you retrofit it, it’s tens of thousands of dollars. It’s about being sensible.

It’s also about having a consistent policy around the site. Sometimes you might overclassify an area, but it’s consistent with what you’re doing elsewhere on site. That provides benefits to your staff, because they know the policy and they don’t have to read drawings or understand much; it’s just part of the induc-tion process that that’s what’s expected of them.

I’m not saying don’t retrofit! Just always make sure you’ve got the right pathway forward. We see companies that invest wrong, and we see companies do rectification work that’s just not worth it. Get advice, get a second opinion … if they line-up, fine, but get enough opinions.

Terry Jansen, packaging & warehouse manager, Manildra Hardwood SugarsWe’re a sugar refinery that produces approximately 800 tonnes of white sugar per day. I thought I’d share a couple of practical things which we do in our factory.

The sugar industry has been around in Australia for about 140 years; I’m a sugar technologist by trade. In my training, twenty-odd years ago, there was nothing talked about in terms of dust explosions with sugar, primarily because the training was in raw sugar production, which is a little safer than white sugar. On our site is a raw sugar mill and a refinery, and any anecdotal evidence that we’ve got shows that many of our employees didn’t realise that sugar dust was explosive. That was a little alarming.

We had one of our competitors a few years ago have a minor dust explosion in a bucket elevator, and I guess that prompted us to make some changes and gain awareness. A lot of the work-force didn’t know that sugar dust could explode.

What we did was we worked with TAFE NSW and devel-oped a dust explosion awareness training package, accredited with TAFE, and we put our employees through that training, which was very beneficial. We not only trained the operations people, we trained the maintenance people, everybody on site. The course not only went through sources of ignition and ex-plosions, but we also had a little test kit that showed the differ-ences in how sugar dust can explode. That showed people what

it was in a controlled environment, and that opened up many people’s eyes to show the differences in explosions of raw sugar and white sugar … we also have an explosive by-product we call ‘bagasse’ that is the left-over from the sugar cane fibre, which we boil to produce steam and electricity for use by ourselves.

In conjunction with TAFE, we identified the three sources on our site of explosion potential: raw sugar, refined sugar, and ba-gasse. We had that analysed first, and then it was about concentrat-ing on the practical examples from our site, rather than looking at obscure things that our guys wouldn’t be interested in.

From analysing the dust to having the program in place, I think it was probably about three or six months. It was reason-ably quick, as it was in part in response to our competitor’s incident. TAFE were very proactive in helping us.

We’re smoke-free through the whole site now, as well. We used to allow smoking on the raw sugar side of things.

That training is now a core part of our induction process, and it’s also combined with change management documentation. We included dust explosion potential in all our change management documentation, so any new plant we put in, and any changes to plant, we go through this change management document which now includes explosion potential. We’ve also added signage, and have a pretty substantial hot-work permit through the whole re-finery, so we need awareness through the whole plant.

The other thing we did was use our risk-assessment matrix with all our equipment through the whole refinery, and risk-rated the areas. We’ve got a policy of working through those areas to reduce the risk in them. One of our highest-risk areas is where we have several bucket elevators that we use to transport white sugar into different silos; they were identified as high risk, and so we put a proprietary monitoring system on all our bucket elevators. This system is extremely difficult to bypass; it’s quite protected that way. It monitors bearing temperatures, belt alignment, and more.

We changed our stainless steel buckets to plastic buckets, again to minimise that risk.

A lot of things can’t be done easily. It’s a 25 year old refinery and a lot of the work is retrofit. There is a lot of work, and it’s going to be a costly exercise, so we’re looking to grab some of that low-hanging fruit first, for example preventing that source of ignition in the first place.

Dr Rob Lade, vice president Europe, IEP TechnologiesI’m the technical design authority for IEP Technologies, and I’ll give my top tips in this field…

First of all you want to prevent any and every source of igni-tion, if you can. And then if you are going to have an explosion, try to keep it as a small explosion. If you can limit the size of the explosion hazard by limiting the flame transfer from that plant that’s had the ignition and therefore the explosion, you can reduce the ignition transfer to adjacent areas and you’re on your way to making that a small occurrence.

That can even be mechanical isolation, with process equip-ment. Or, if you have to, you can go into active isolation, which would be things like mechanical valves – fast-acting ones – or chemical barriers using explosion suppressant. It’s really about understanding what plant you have in your process that are likely to cause an ignition, and ensuring measures are taken on those pieces of plant over and above other areas.

In terms of being cost-effective: If you can protect the inter-connectivity between your process plants, then that can save you some dollars, instead of protecting the plant itself. For ex-ample, if you can isolate a large silo from an ignition hazard, then you don’t actually have to protect that silo, in itself, if your risk assessment allows you to do that.

It’s about looking at the risk of ignition against the consequence of ignition. And then it’s about looking at reducing that risk, and then

DUST EXPLOSIONS


DUST EXPLOSIONS

looking for ways to reduce the chance of that ignition spreading to other areas. If we take the example of a bucket elevator, where the ignition risk is quite high compared to, say, a silo, it’s about looking at how you can detect that hazard on that elevator, and make sure it doesn’t transfer into flame going into your silo.

With elevators, if you’re looking at an active system that maybe uses pressure monitoring, it’s actually quite difficult to get a working pressure-detection system within a bucket eleva-tor space. It’s quite an open space, so any pressure generated by an explosion would be highly de-rated, but up and down the legs in the inlet and outlet chutes. Soft explosions might not be high-hazard, but they cause the ignition that you’re trying to avoid. Explosion vents might not open if the pressure doesn’t build up, and the flame won’t interrupt the process flow. So you’ve basically got a deflagration event that can be quite hard to detect and mitigate. The simple placement of flame detec-tors, for example, can be very beneficial in this case. Unlike ex-plosion detection, you have the ability to detect the position of the flame as a function of time, so therefore you can take action

to ensure that flame doesn’t propagate into adjacent areas.An active system that is triggered by flame detectors in this

case can then stop that flame from spreading to an area of your plant where there is potentially explosive dust.

Carrie Hartford, senior engineer, Jenike & JohansonIf there’s a way to control your material throughout the process, then you’re actually minimising the dust, and minimising the exposure.

Take transfer chutes – one of the most dusty areas of most plants. One plant I visited had material just coming out uncontrol-lably onto the receiving belt. Their skirts didn’t contain the dust and their seals were leaking, and they spent over $700,000 a year, but it didn’t look like it. But the cost of controlling that material through that transfer could actually be a fraction of that cost, and then would have the added advantage of reducing that dust.

If you can start at the most dusty areas, then the rest will start to follow, especially when you implement changes at the start of development.

Following extensive testing, Camfil APC reports that the Stinger is the

first US-made explosion flap valve to be certified by an independent testing agency to comply with NFPA standards. The company says it may be retrofitted onto most dust collection systems and used with new or existing Farr Gold Se-ries dust collectors where the risk of a combustible dust explosion exists.

According to Camfil, a key fea-ture of the Stinger valve is a light-

weight, patent-pending composite blade that reacts with the highest possible speed in the event of an explosion.

Camfil’s publicity said that: “It closes faster than heavier steel blades typically used for dust collector inlet protection. Because of its light weight, less pressure drop is needed to hold the blade open during normal flow, saving on energy use.

“Also, the composite material has a smooth surface and does not use

stiffeners which can allow dust to build up on the blade to compromise performance.”

During normal operation, the air-flow holds the blade open. If a deflagra-tion occurs in the dust collector, a pres-sure wave will travel through the pipe faster than the flame front and close the flap valve, protecting downstream person-nel and equipment.

When the valve is fully closed, a latching mechanism keeps it shut, says

Camfil. The closed valve prevents the transmission of flame and keeps smoke, dust and burning debris from traveling through the inlet pipe into the factory.

According to Camfil: “The blade is eas-ily replaceable, eliminating the need to replace the entire valve after an explosion event. A wear-resistant liner that also func-tions as a wear indicator will show when the blade needs to be replaced.”

Stinger explosion isolation valveCamfil Air Pollution Control has introduced the Stinger, an explosion isolation valve that isolates dust collector explosions to prevent a deflagration from traveling back through the inlet pipe of the dust collector into the workspace.

Contact: www.camfilapc.com/stinger

The Stinger explosion isolation valve prevents a dust collector explosion from traveling back through the inlet pipe into the workspace.

The Stinger valve has been explosion tested and certified to comply with NFPA standards.


PUBLISH OR PERISH

Publish or Perish

I. Lecreps, O. Orozovic, T. Erden, M.G. Jones, K. Sommer:Physical mechanisms involved in slug transport and pipe blockage during horizontal pneumatic conveyingIn: Powder Technology 262, 82-95, 2014 (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032591014003763) DOI: 10.1016/j.powtec.2014.04.058

Y. He, A.W. Roberts, J.-D. Prigage, M. Jones:Pressures on the support columns buried in iron ore stockpilesIn: Powder Technology 258, 358-269, 2014 (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032591014002447) DOI: 10.1016/j.powtec.2014.03.044

J. Guo, A.W. Roberts, J.-D. Prigge:Experimental investigation of wall pressure and arching behavior under surcharge pressure in mass-flow hoppersIn: Powder Technology 258, 272-284, 2014 (http://www.science-direct.com/science/article/pii/S0032591014002484) DOI: 10.1016/j.powtec.2014.03.048

I. Lecreps, O. Orozovic, M.G. Jones, K. Sommer:Application of the principles of gas permeability and stochastic particle agitation to predict the pressure loss in slug flow pneu-matic conveying systemsIn: Powder Technology 254, 508-516, 2014 ( ht tp ://w w w.sc ienced i rec t .com /sc ience /a r t ic le /pi i /S0032591014000655) DOI: 10.1016/j.powtec.2014.01.056

I. Lecreps, O. Orozovic, M. Eisenmenger, M.G. Jones, K. Sommer:Methods for in-situ porosity determination of moving porous columns and application to horizontal slug flow pneumatic conveyingIn: Powder Technology 253, 710-721, 2014 (http://www.science-direct.com/science/article/pii/S0032591013007882) DOI: 10.1016/j.powtec.2013.12.023

J.I. O'Shea, C.A. Wheeler, P.J. Munzenberger, D.G. Ausling: The influence of viscoelastic property measurements on the pre-dicted rolling resistance of belt conveyorsIn: Journal of Applied Polymer Science 131, 9170-9178, 2014(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/app.40755/abstract;jsessionid=A5EAB558D5C45C55095AB028749DCC5D.f03t02) DOI: 10.1002/app.40755

George Bolliger and Dr Kazimierz GolkaImpingement process of a flowing bulk solid stream in chutes.In: Australian Bulk Handling Review, Jul/Aug 2014

Kazimierz GolkaChute design modelling considerations.In: Australian Bulk Handling Review, May/Jun 2014

Daniel Blanks and Patrick Torok A case study into the fatigue failure of a rotating ship loader componentIn: Australian Bulk Handling Review, May/June 2014

Alan Roberts and Tim Donohue Dynamic analysis and DEM simulation of ROM Ore inclined apron feeders.In: Australian Bulk Handling Review, Mar/Apr 2014

Phung Tu and Vannissorn Vimonsatit, Curtin UniversityStructural design of iron ore train load out binsIn: Australian Bulk Handling Review, Nov/Dec 2013

David Mills Possible causes of pipeline blockage in pneumatic conveying systemIn: Australian Bulk Handling Review, Nov/Dec 2013

Roberts, Krull and Wiche, The influences of surcharge pressure on mass-flow hopper designIn: Australian Bulk Handling Review, Sept/Oct 2013

Jianyong Zhang, Ruixue Cheng, Bin Zhou, Wenping CaoInterpretation of signal variation due to particle degradationIn: Australian Bulk Handling Review, Sept/Oct 2013

Tim Donohue, B Chen and Dr Allan RobertsReducing the wear of a coal reclaimer through DEM analysisIn: Australian Bulk Handling Review, Jul/Aug 2013

Alex HarrisonDigital signal processing removes motor noise from belt monitor-ing sensorsIn: Australian Bulk Handling Review May/Jun 2013

Carrie Hartford and Brian Reel How to overcome fine material discharge rate limitation in mass-flow binsIn: Australian Bulk Handling Review May/Jun 2013

Dr’s Isabelle Lecreps-Prigge and Stephen Wiche,The dangers of multiple outlet binsIn: Australian Bulk Handling Review Mar/Apr 2013

Kazimierz GolkaFlow resistance of a twisted bulk solid streamIn: Australian Bulk Handling Review Jan/Feb 2013

Peter Wypych and Leong Mar Investigations into the dustiness of bulk materialsIn: Australian Bulk Handling Review Jan/Feb 2013

David Hastie, Peter Wypych, Andrew Grima Richard LaRoche, David CurryPrediction of the behaviour of bulk materials in the design and operation of bulk handling and processing plants.In: Australian Bulk Handling Review Sept/Oct 2012

Some recent Australian contributions to the international bulk handling industries knowledge base


Armorite is an extremely hard (700 Bur-nell – 63Rc), laminated bi-metallic,

wear resistant composite. It is constructed of layered white iron, copper braze and mild steel. High-strength joints between the layers are achieved through a vacuumed braze which is liquid nitrogen cooled.

It was applied at a copper mine concen-trator, which had been reporting average life of previous wear plates from two differ-ent manufacturers between six and eight weeks. This was due to the highly abrasive ore properties and the occasional 2” – 3” steel balls from the SAG mills at the mine.

Thus the previously-supplied carbide wear plates were cracking, according to ASGCO, due to the high impact of the ore, “and simply do not provide the wear protection the mine was looking for.”

Armorite was determined as the solu-tion by ASGCO. The composite, which can be welded in place, through-bolted, stud-bolted, drilled, tapped or keyed, has applications in chute lining, rock-box edging, grizzly caps/screens, transfer points, impact plates, arm/hub liners, bin liners, hopper wear plates, divider/split-ter bars and other liner panels and gen-eral wear protection instances.

The Armorite was welded into place at the copper mine concentrator, and af-ter weekly, then monthly monitoring, the customer reported that the new liners will give them approximately one year of life between change-outs.

This, ASGCO says, is due to the com-posite’s mild steel backing, which cushions the top layer of white iron, enabling it to

withstand im-pacts such as those present in this application.

“Based on those results the plant pro-ceeded with a study to look at other high wear and impact applications where the Armorite would prove success-ful,” the manufacturer reports. “ASGCO’s Armorite proved to be both impact and wear resistant, demonstrating ‘one year of wear life’, and proved to be extremely cost effective and a great saving for the mine in both dollars and time.”

Strong showing for ASGCO composite at copper concentrator

Conveyor equipment manufacturer ASGCO says its Armorite composite has worked wonders for an operator who used it in a wear plate application in a copper mine concentrator.

Contact: www.asgco.com

Armorite composite showing layered

white iron, copper braze and mild steel.

WEARX awarded Olympic Dam wear contract

Wear products company WEARX has been awarded a contract by BHP Billiton for protective lining and coating applications at the giant Olympic Dam mine in South Australia.

The wear protection contract, which WEARX says is one of the largest in

Australia, includes audit and inspection, rubber lining removal and application, abrasive blasting and protective coating application of tanks, launders and chutes to site standards.

Olympic Dam produces copper, ura-nium, gold and silver. WEARX will man-age wear protection of assets used to handle these materials for metallurgical processing and metal refinement.

“Over the past twenty four months the WEARX Olympic Dam site services

team has continually delivered outstand-ing results on site. This contract could not have been achieved without this com-mitment to quality and excellence”, said WEARX director, Michael Tyrrell.

“This contract includes the con-tinual improvement of wear protection management at Olympic Dam making this achievement a key asset to long-term business.”

According to WEARX, a significant factor in securing the contract has been the company’s continued commitment to work health and safety with zero lost time

injuries over the past twelve months. “An integral component of our com-

pany culture is our commitment to safety. It is this commitment shown by our team that enables WEARX to continually be chosen for large projects such as Olympic Dam,” Tyrrell said.

Work will commence shortly on the new contract. “We look forward to work-ing closely with BHP Billiton at the Olym-pic Dam site and to finalising arrangements over coming weeks,” Tyrrell added.

Contact: www.wearx.com

WEAR PRODUCTS

WEARX technician at work.


Dowlow Quarry lies in the heart of the Derbyshire Peak dis-trict and is owned and operated by Lafarge Aggregates. It is

one of the international company’s major sites in the UK, produc-ing over 1.5 million tonnes of limestone per annum and with a history stretching back to 1899.

Precia-Molen says its engineers were recently asked to review an underperforming belt weigher on the aggregate blending line and supply a replacement that would ensure

reliability and accuracy of weight measurement.Consequently, Precia-Molen engineers recommended an FX

VA PA 1000 belt weigher. The company says that used in conjunc-tion with the its I400 belt weigher indicator this provides reliable control and an accurate weight of material delivered to a lorry load out point for volumetrically blended materials.

In principle, when a vehicle arrives on site it will visit the weighbridge with the gross weight recorded; the vehicle then proceeds to the load-out point for collection of the material blend to be loaded.

As it is illegal for a vehicle to leave the site over its gross laden weight limit, Precia-Molen says the FX VA PA 1000 belt weigher will prevent the risk of vehicle overloading. It eliminates addi-tional vehicle movement on site to remove excess weight from vehicles which would result in further visits to the weighbridge.

The benefits are clearly defined, says Precia-Molen, as accurate and efficient weighing will not only extend the life of the weigh-bridge, but will reduce the risk of accidents and increase safety.

Precia-Molen’s publicity said: “The FX VA PA 1000 belt weigh-er therefore provides a reliable and good degree of accuracy of weight measurement, processing material ranging in size from 4/6/10/14/20mm to 50mm, providing specific blends of custom blended material for Lafarge Aggregates’ customers.”

Each blend of material is selected from a customer base recipe and each material selected is delivered from a storage bunker, via volumetric extractor and gate on to a conveyor belt. The vehicle to be loaded is then positioned under the outlet of the belt conveyor.

Once in position the control room operator selects the weight and blend of material to be delivered to the vehicle and the filling commences.

The control room operator can observe via a Precia-Molen I400 controller the weight of material being delivered by means of a weight pulse count that measures every tonne of material passing over the scale into the vehicle.

When filling is near completion (signalled by the pulse count and the total weight indication), a pre-set point triggers the system to stop filling and automatically closes the bunker feed gates pre-venting further material being discharged onto the conveyor belt.

During discharge, the I400 Indicator also provides an indi-cation of the average and total weight that has been delivered. This signal provides the final indication of weight delivered to the vehicle. On completion of all the belt discharged material into the vehicle the belt scale provides a total weight indication. The control room, once satisfied the weight is within legal limits,

74

Weighing system for Lafarge Dowlow quarry in UK

French weighing company Precia-Molen has supplied a replacement belt weighing system to the aggregate blending line at the major UK quarry.

WEIGHING AND LEVEL MEASUREMENT

JAC 034

The Ribbon Mixer is manufactured in a ‘U’ shaped casing with hinged lid and quick release clamps.Design features consider ease of access for cleaning, minimum maintenance and safety.The range of the Jacmor Batch Mixer is 100 to 5,000 litre capacity and each unit is designed to meet your application

RibbonMixer

Victoria Head Office20-22 Macquarie Drive Thomastown Vic. 3074 AustraliaTelephone: 61 3 9463 0888 Facsimile: 61 3 9465 8788

E-mail: [email protected]

FreeCall 1800 334 005 Web Site: www.jacmor.com.au

The new modular weighing solution is provided in kit form for customers to assemble themselves.Costing as little as $2,000, it’s a low cost solution aimed at

applications such as quarries or food processing plants where operators want a rough idea of a flow on a smaller conveyor.

It is accurate to plus or minus 2% to 3%. This compares to Precia-Molen’s sophisticated heavy duty systems for ship load-ing and train loading applications. These are accurate to plus or minus 0.25%, although, of course, they are priced accord-ingly from $30,000 to $50,000.

Aurélien Roques, sales and technical engineer, Precia-Mo-len Australia said that “we have solutions for every applica-tion, from the basic to the sophisticated.”

Speaking about the company’s Australian progress in

general, he added “We are gaining new market shares in the Australian weighing industry, in particular with sales of continuous weighing equipment to several quarries and grain facilities.

“We are also supporting the food industry, with our new i20 IP69K indicator. In Australia, we are targeting the mining and quarrying sectors, as well as food, wine and grain.

“Our metrology experts are working with the NMI (Na-tional Measurement Institute of Australia) to approve our sys-tems. The I400 indicator was approved in August 2013 and the ASL load cell in May 2013.”

Precia-Molen has recently opened an office in Malaysia.

then instructs the driver to return to the weighbridge, where he will receive a copy of the tare, gross and net weight.

Precia-Molen says “the installation of the FX VA PA 1000 belt weigher and I400 belt weigher has consistently achieved accura-cies of 0.7%, confirmed by the use of a known weight of material recorded on the Precia-Molen I400 belt scale indicator and the

recorded weighbridge gross weight record.”Richard Scott, quarry manager, commented, “The service from

Precia-Molen has been very comprehensive from initial recom-mendations right through to installation and commissioning.”

WEIGHING AND LEVEL MEASUREMENT

International weighing company Precia-Molen, which opened for business in Australia at the start of 2013 with an office in central Sydney, is emphasising the breadth of its weighing range.

Contact: www.preciamolen.com.au


Precia-Molen’s new low cost, modular solution

IntraBulk Bulk Reception Unit

Sch

enck

Pro

cess

Au

stra

lia P

ty L

imit

edG

rou

nd

Flo

or

65 E

pp

ing

Ro

adN

ort

h R

yde

NS

W 2

113,

Au

stra

liaT

130

0 S

CH

EN

CK

(13

00 7

24 3

62)

T +

61

2 98

86 6

800

sale

s@sc

hen

ckp

roce

ss.c

om

.au

ww

w.s

chen

ckp

roce

ss.c

om

The IntraBulk is an above ground bulk material reception solution providing a user friendly, cost effective alternative to conventional below ground intake pits.

The cost savings achieved by eliminating expensive civil works have seen the IntraBulk

selected across a diverse range of industries.

The IntraBulk is capable of receiving bulk materials from a range of bulk handling vehicles.

The wide Apron Belt design permits a very low loading height, allowing trucks and front

end loaders to discharge directly to the entry section with only a small access ramp.

SK092 IntraBulk Half Page Horizontal Ad July 2014-2.indd 1 21/07/2014 13:45:35

76

Impingement process of a flowing bulk solid stream in chutes

PEER REVIEWED

PE

ER

RE

VIE

WE

D P

EE

R R

EV

IEW

ED

PE

ER

RE

VIE

WE

D P

EE

R R

EV

IEW

ED

PE

ER

RE

VIE

WE

D P

EE

R R

EV

IEW

ED

PE

ER

RE

VIE

WE

D P

EE

R R

EV

IEW

ED

PE

ER

RE

VIE

WE

D P

EE

R R

EV

IEW

ED

PE

ER

RE

VIE

WE

D

by Kazimierz Golka*, George Bolliger*, Australia


Impingement process of a flowing by Kazimierz Golka*, George Bolliger*, Australia 1. Introduction Impingement is a process resulting in a continuous succession of impacts occurring initially between the bulk material trajectory and a solid surface placed in its path [1]. During this process the impact of the bulk material particles results in a change in velocity. As a consequence, successive particles from the bulk material trajectory impact on the preceding surface area coated by the initial impact. This process is of particular importance when the bulk material trajectory comes in contact with an impact plate at the entrance to a chute. Regardless of the material selected for the impact plate, it would quickly become worn out if every particle from the bulk material trajectory were to make contact with it. The impingement area is that section of the impact plate where the bulk material makes contact with the impact plate and changes direction. The characteristics of the bulk material have an effect on the impingement process. Where the material has a high clay and/or moisture content, there is a propensity for it to clump on impact and “build-up” rather than be deflected. There are two different theories related to non-cohesive continuum, available to calculate the velocity changes of the bulk solid over the impact surface. Both theories - see comparison in the next paragraphs - treat the bulk solid as a continuum with the impact theory being a simpler but more conservative model than the mathematical model presented by the impingement theory. 2. Impingement theory Experimental observations by Korzen, [2] lead to the general conclusion that is illustrated in Figure 1. A cohesion-less bulk solids stream is impinging the impact plate and undergoes plastic deformation depending on material characteristics and the impinging material builds up at the surface of the impact plate.

Figure 1. Impingement model (1)

Shear along the contact surfaces at the impact zone was observed and for a hard cohesion-less material impinging the impact plate, the shape of the impact area did not appear to be affected by the build up horn being formed as for other cohesive materials. The shear at the contact surface is negligible and the external resistance resulting from the wall friction on the impact plate is a significant factor. Using the momentum conservation law leads to the following equations: (1) dm(vp −

va ) =Rdt

where:

Rdt - impulse of the principle vector of external force representing change in momentum,

dm dt - mass flow rate in the time interval dt ,

vp - velocity vector before impact,

va - velocity vector immediately after impact.

From this equation it follows that the impulse

Rdt created by the

impinging bulk solid on the impact plate is equal to the external force

R created on the impact plate.

If the vector is projected on a Cartesian coordinate system the following equations can be obtained: (2) Rn = Apρ vp

2 cos2 (α p +β ) (3) Rp = Apρ vp

2 sin2 (α p +β )− Aaρ va2 = Rnµ

(4) Aai =q

ρva(i−1)

where: Ap,a - stream area before/after impingement, m2

Aai - stream area at approximation step (i), m2 ρ - bulk solids density, kg m-3

q - mass flow rate, kg s-1 µ - friction coefficient Indexes: p - before and a - after impingement.

To determine the velocity immediately after impingement va , a multi-step (i) approximation method must be carried out using equations (4) and (5). By combining equations (2), (3) and re-arranging for vai the following equation estimates the exit velocity:

(5) vai = vpAp

Aai

sin2 (α p +β )−µ cos2 (α p +β )"# $%

Note that for a steady state flow to occur and for bulk solid flow not to stall the following condition must be satisfied. (6) α p +β > arctan µ

Figure 1. Impingement model (1)

1. Introduction

2. Impingement theory

bulk solid stream in chutes To meet the practical computational accuracy a number of approximation steps can be selected. The relative deviation in this process can be less or equal to one percent. 3. Impact theory In this method an assumption is made in [3, 4, 5] that the bulk solid does not rebound off the surface of the impact plate upon collision. The impact theory model (2) as shown in Figure 2 also assumes that the velocity loss of the bulk solid is proportional to the wall friction angle and the velocity normal to the impact surface.

Figure 2. Impact model (2) The equation for velocity change, i.e. the exit velocity is: (7) v2 = v1(cosθ − tanφw sinθ ) where: v1 - impact velocity, m s-1

θ - angle through which the bulk solid hits the impact plate, φw - wall friction angle ( µ = tanφw ).

The bulk solid’s flow down velocity in the chute, described by equation (7), is reduced to zero when tanθ = 1/tan φw . Example A non-cohesive bulk solid stream is flowing onto an impact plate and builds up at the surface of the plate. Find the velocity of the material after impingement for the following data: [1] Q = 7694 t/h ρ = 1370 kg m-3 vp = 6.42 m s-1 β = 15° ap = 36° µ = 1 (φw = 45°) Model 1 Using equation (5) (α p +β ) = 36

+15 = 51 and from equation (6)

(α p +β )> arctan µ i.e. (α p +β )> 45 , hence flow takes place.

From equation (4) the area in m2 is as follows:

Aai =7694

3600 ⋅1.37 ⋅ va(i−1)=1.56va(i−1)

Aa1 =1.566.42

= 0.2430

and from equation (5) the bulk solid stream velocity is:

vai = 6.420.2430Aai

06040−1⋅0.3960( )

vai = 6.420.050544

Aai

, m s-1

An approximating method is used to find the material velocity after impingement. As the initial velocity is vp = 6.42 m s-1, and using the above equation for calculation vai the intermittent values are: Step 1: vp = 6.42 Aa1 = 0.2430 va1 = 4.0907 Step 2: va1 = 4.0907 Aa2 = 0.3814 va2 = 2.3373 Step 3: va2 = 2.3373 Aa3 = 0.6674 va3 = 1.7670 Step 4: va3 = 1.7670 Aa4 = 0.8830 va4 = 1.4322 Step 5: va4 = 1.4322 Aa5 = 1.0890 va5 = 1.3830 Step 6: va5 = 1.3830 Aa6 = 1.1280 va6 = 1.3590 Step 7: va6 = 1.3590 Aa7 = 1.1479 va7 = 1.3472 Deviation 0.87 % < 1% Exit velocity va = 1.35 m s-1 Model 2 Using equation (7) For θ = 90− α p +β( )"# $%= 39

the exit velocity is:

v2 = 6.42 ⋅ (cos39 − tan45 ⋅sin39) = 0.949

Exit velocity v2 = 0.95 m s-1 Conclusion. The approximate difference between results obtained using equations (5) and (7) in the above example is 30%. The impact model (2) is a simpler but remarkable conservative model. References

1. Golka, K., Bolliger, G. Vasili, C.: Transfer chutes. Principles for calculation and design. Ligare Pty Ltd Sydney, Australia 2014

2. Korzen Z.: The Dynamics of Bulk Solids Flow on Impact Plates of Belt Conveyor Systems. Bulk Solids Handling Volume 8, No. 6, December 1988 3. Royal, T.A., Craig, D.A.: Effective Chute Design. Jenike & Johanson INC.

4. Snyder, L.H, Roller, W.L., Hall, G.E.: Coefficients of Kinetic Friction of Wheat on Various Metal Surfaces. 1966 Transactions of the ASAE

5. Taylor, H.J.: Guide to the Design of Transfer Chutes and Chute Linings for Bulk Materials. The Mechanical Engineers’ Association, Artillery House, Artillery Row, Westminster London 1989

About the authors* Kazimierz Golka has worked as a design engineer and consultant on numerous materials handling projects for over 40 years in Europe, Asia and Australia. He gained his internationally recognised mechanical engineering qualifications of BE, Master and PhD at the Wrocław University of Technology.

Contact: [email protected] n

George Bolliger holds a BE (mechanical) and Masters degree (Operations Management) from University of Technology, Sydney. He has been involved in the conceptual design, installation and inspection of major conveyor systems in both power and mining industries.

Contact: [email protected] n


PEER REVIEWEDP

EE

R R

EV

IEW

ED

PE

ER

RE

VIE

WE

D P

EE

R R

EV

IEW

ED

PE

ER

RE

VIE

WE

D P

EE

R R

EV

IEW

ED

PE

ER

RE

VIE

WE

D P

EE

R R

EV

IEW

ED

PE

ER

RE

VIE

WE

D P

EE

R R

EV

IEW

ED

PE

ER

RE

VIE

WE

D P

EE

R R

EV

IEW

ED

Impingement process of a flowing bulk solid stream in chutes

Figure 2. Impact model (2)

Example

Model 1 Using equation (5)

Model 2 Using equation (7)

References

About the Authors *


3. Impact theory


IRON ORE

Proud distributor of Conveyor Accessories, Belt and Rollers:

www.convatech.com.au

Conveyor Specialists:> Onsite Service> Product Sales> Condition Monitoring> Design and Engineering> Projects

Your Partner for

High Performing

Conveyors

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

ABHR_Tenova_TAKRAF_04_2011.pdf 1 16.03.2011 07:59:52

Tenova Australia Pty. Ltd.L10, 410 Ann Street, Brisbane QLD 4000PO Box 10163, Brisbane QLD 4000

Phone +61 7 3124 9080 Fax +61 7 3124 9079 Email [email protected]

www.takraf.com www.tenova.com

TENOVA is a worldwide supplier of advanced technologies, products and engineering services for the metalsand mining & minerals industries.

Low grade iron ore price cuts tabbed to stay

The recently-widened price gap between benchmark iron ore and lower-grade products is set to stay, according to an industry expert.

BHP Billiton marketing president Mike Henry – who markets benchmark quality ore – is bearish on the outlook for lower-

grade iron ores, according to Fairfax media outlets.“Without wanting to call the exact differentials, I think the

dynamic of wider spreads than we’ve seen in times when the market was tighter is absolutely here to stay,” Henry was quoted as saying in late July.

“As the steel industry in China moves towards higher produc-tivity and wanting to make use of their more productive, higher volume blast furnaces, they are more than likely to want higher-quality product and be willing to pay a premium for that relative to the lower-quality ores.”

Lower grade products traditionally command between 87% and 93% of the benchmark price but fell further in the June quarter.

Henry’s comments should be taken with a grain of salt – the marketing director of one of the biggest producers of benchmark iron ore saying that demand for lower-grade products will stay down is clearly not an independent assessment – but if he’s right then it’s bad news for other producers, and good news for BHP and Rio, which also produces benchmark-quality ore.

The nearest Australian competitor to the big two, Fortescue Metals Group, produces a large amount of lower-grade ores, while the Pilbara’s most significant junior (volume wise), Atlas Iron, also deals mostly with lower-grade product.

Already dealing with a benchmark price that has dipped be-low US$100 in recent months, those producers of lower-grade ores will likely struggle even more given that widened price gap.

Henry told Fairfax that BHP’s long-term iron ore outlook had not changed, despite the price decline.

“We are not reading too much into the sharp dip that oc-curred or the slight rebound that we are seeing currently,” he said, referring to the bounce back up towards US$100 for the iron ore price in the last fortnight.

“We just see it as part of a long-run trend where you are go-ing to see volatility around the mean but that mean is going to be declining over time.”

Iron ore closed overnight at US$96.60, but peaked around US$98 in the last week.

Iron ore stockpiles. (photo credit BHP Billiton).

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

ABHR_Tenova_TAKRAF_04_2011.pdf 1 16.03.2011 07:59:52

Tenova Australia Pty. Ltd.L10, 410 Ann Street, Brisbane QLD 4000PO Box 10163, Brisbane QLD 4000

Phone +61 7 3124 9080 Fax +61 7 3124 9079 Email [email protected]

www.takraf.com www.tenova.com

TENOVA is a worldwide supplier of advanced technologies, products and engineering services for the metalsand mining & minerals industries.


Times are tough for Australian miners.Commodity prices are down, costs

are up and investors have got cold feet. As a result, miners and the companies that serve them are fixated on paring costs to remain competitive.

However, according to Ian Tribe at SEW-Eurodrive, the challenges faced by the mining industry are more than just market share related; they are related to unplanned downtime as a result of break-downs in equipment. And the condition and availability of machinery has a signif-icant impact on the amount of downtime a business will experience.

“Many mining companies are using old machinery which is usually a ticking time bomb with a history of glitches and failures,” explained Tribe. “Not only is this unsafe, but the breakdowns mean downtime while equipment is getting repaired and time means money, so the result is revenue loss.”

Breakdowns in drives are a regular occurrence on mine sites and can cost individual businesses thousands of dol-lars per incident. For example, hydraulic power and belt drive failures cause up to 47% of downtime at mining operations. Each incident results in up to $3000 per hour of lost production1. That equates to

a significant loss in revenue when con-sidering the frequency of drive failures.

“Old equipment on site also equates to excessive on-site inventory require-ments, particularly due to the necessity of ‘custom made’ spare parts,” said Tribe.

Depending on availability, obtaining the parts can take a long time and cost the oper-ation a lot of money. Unfortunately, the like-lihood of recurring drive failures is also high and in most cases companies find them-selves dealing with costly ongoing mainte-nance repairs within short intervals of time.

“Essentially companies usually end up blowing their budget on spare parts and maintenance, spending more to re-pair the machine than actually just re-placing it altogether,” said Tribe.

“Good maintenance management lowers operating costs and increases profitability, however simply fixing age-ing equipment is not a long term solution.

“There are a number of problems associated with existing, ageing equip-ment including unreliability.”

According to recent studies, 41% of open-pit equipment costs are mainte-nance related and maintenance can rep-resent up to 30% of operating costs for mining companies2.

The high cost and long turnaround time for repairs due to unavailability of spares or replacements results in lost production time.

“With cost reduction a prominent factor in keeping operations afloat,

The problems with ageing drives and some solutions

ABHR spoke to Ian Tribe, product manager for industrial gears at SEW-Eurodrive about the costly mistakes mines make in endlessly repairing old drives and equipment, and some alternative paths they should consider.

COVER STORY

SEW-Eurodrive says it is able to ensure downtime is kept to a minimum at mine sites.

High functioning equipment which is regularly maintained is a large factor in the smooth running of a mining project.

companies need to invest in initiatives around equipment that lowers un-planned maintenance and repair costs, provides quick turnaround for part re-placements, decreases inventory carry-ing costs and reduces the risks of injury and accidents,” said Tribe, who added that drives are at the centre of all ma-chinery at mines and mineral process-ing sites.

“Offering a cost-effective service, we can replace the equipment with a new SEW-Eurodrive drive solution as op-posed to repairing the fault,” said Tribe. “With new engineering and required

adapters as a part of this solution, the cost is usually less than that of repairing the old drive or only slightly more.

“We have had some success with replacing competitors’ aging drives in the mining industry, particularly in gold mines. This is largely due to SEW’s high stock levels and extensive local assembly capabilities for industrial solutions.”

In 2012, SEW Australia opened a heavy industrial solutions division in Melbourne with the goal of providing the mining industry with quick delivery and turnaround times and greater access to spare parts.

References1. Gates Mining Downtime Infographic,

“Unplanned Downtime: Causes & Costs”, 2013, http://www.gates-markets.com/assets/Surface-Mining-Infographic-lp2.pdf

2. Mining Magazine, “Smooth Opera-tions”, 24 July 2013, http://www.m i n i ng m a ga z i ne .com /m a n a ge -ment-in-action/smooth-operations?SQ_DESIGN_NAME=print_friendly

Contact: Ian Tribe, product manager for industrial gears Tel: (03) 9933 1000 Email: [email protected] Web: www.sew-eurodrive.com.au

COVER STORY

SEW-Eurodrive says its spares are available ex-stock Australia at a significantly lower cost than before. SEW Australia’s heavy industrial solutions division opened in Melbourne in 2012.

World Leaders in Bulk Materials Handling with over 35 years of experience in Research and Consulting

We are experienced and offer assistance in everything that is BULK SOLIDS, including:

• Testing of Bulk Materials and Bulk Materials Handling Equipment

• Consulting Services for Storage, Flow and Handling

• Conceptual Design of storage and Handling Systems

Upcoming Industrial Training Course;

18-20 November 2014Storage, Flow, Conveying & Transfer Course Perth, WA

For more information,visit www.bulksolids.com.auor call +61 2 4033 9055

TUNRA_MayJune14.indd 1 27/05/14 2:04 PM


Coal – Iron Ore – Grain – Wood Chips – Cement – Sugar

Leading the Way in Belt Scale TechnologyWeb: www.controlsystems.com.au Email: [email protected] Ph: 02 8708 0200

Laser Scanner(Volume)

Conveyor belt

Belt weigher(mass)

Bulk Density on the Fly!

Control Systems Tech_6.indd 1 5/03/14 9:50 AM

Since 1983, the University of Maine’s Process Development Center (PDC)

has served the paper industry by provid-ing new, collaborative pulp and paper re-search for companies throughout the US.

The process lab, originally part of the university’s forest and paper indus-try program, houses a virtual ‘mini’ pa-per mill with a broad range of process-ing equipment. The PDC, self-sustaining by virtue of its contract work with mul-tiple clients, employs 12 people.

“Most of our work is by word-of-mouth from paper and chemical compa-nies who have a problem and need to address their process,” the PDC’s group leader of engineering, Mark Paradis

said. “Our equipment is flexible and can be adapted in order to provide these companies with a proof of concept.”

The PDC is equipped to work with a range of raw materials including wood, bark, herbaceous crops, and agricultur-al residuals. Available processes include extraction, pulping, bleaching, paper-making, coating, and finishing.

To facilitate its process work, the lab requires efficient size reduction capabilities to downsize materials into uniform particles. At the outset the lab used a hammer mill, a conventional size-reduction method employed for decades, which was inefficient and failed to produce consistently sized

particles due to its crushing and pulverising action.

That’s where Munson Machinery came in, and helped the PDC replace its dated hammer mill with a screen classifying cutter model SCC-10.

“We specified that unit because it efficiently reduc-es materials into uniform particle sizes with a lower energy requirement than the hammer mill,” Paradis said.

The PDC leased the SCC-10 for two years before de-ciding to purchase it, a deci-sion Munson says was made because the unit proved ef-fective at cutting hard, soft, and fibrous materials into controlled particle sizes with minimal fines at high rates for post-usage.

The SCC-10 features a pro-prietary helical rotor design with dozens of cutter tips at-

tached to a helical array of staggered hold-ers, called interconnected parallelograms, to continuously shear oversize materials against twin, stationary bed knives.

“Unlike conventional granulators containing a small number of angled ro-tor blades that slice materials into strips in scissor-like fashion, the SCC cutter is configured with cutter tips along the entire shaft, with no gaps between tips, making total contact with the product,” Munson says, which results in material being cut into uniform particles with minimal fines or imperfections, and with little to no heat generation.

The manufacturer says the rotor de-sign generates six times greater force

Screen classifying cutter replaces hammer mill at US lab

Process machinery manufacturer Munson says its line of screen classifying cutters are well suited to replacing outdated hammer mills in industrial processes. One client, at the University of Maine, is a good example of this.

Screen classifying cutter downsizes raw materials into uniform particles at University of Maine’s Process Development Center. In one alternative energy project, perennial grasses and hay are pelletised to make compressed biofuel pellets.

The cutter reduces material into uniform particles with minimal fines or imperfections, and with little to no heat generation, Munson says.

CASE STUDY


per centimetre with each cut than con-ventional knife-type cutters of equiva-lent power, contributing to uniform size reduction and reduced energy use.

While the lab’s primary work is still focused on the paper industry, new pro-jects target alternative energy and recy-cling involving paper, wood, carpet, plastics, and other materials. Recently, the PDC expanded its scope into bio-plastics, solid and liquid biofuels, nano-materials and other technologies.

Munson’s SCC cutter is also being used in an AU$1.76m alternative energy project, according to the manufactur-er, which says perennial grasses and hay are being pelletised to make com-pressed biofuel pellets.

“Grass pellets are said to have the potential to establish a new bioenergy industry in Maine, creating a valuable crop for Maine farmers and reduced en-ergy costs for residents,” Munson says.

“Several companies have expressed

interest in operating biofuel production facilities and licencing the technology.”

Munson says its SCC cutter plays a key role in the initiative, reportedly funded by the Maine Technology Asset Fund. The cutter takes one-quarter of the hay or grass bale and reduces the material to 3.2mm particles.

“Similar biofuel projects are under-way in the Northeast and Midwest in-volving pelletising of corn stalks and converting of hay bales into fire logs.”

In another project, a University of Maine chemical engineering professor is developing a biodegradable golf ball partial-ly composed of lobster shells. The SCC-10 cutter reduces the shells to powder form.

The PDC is also working to develop cellulose insulation as a replacement for fibreglass in residential construction. The lab has developed unique systems to clean and process recycled newspa-per and cardboard before it is reduced.

Both Munson’s SCC cutters and its At-trition Mills are being considered as size reduction solutions. The Attrition Mill granulates by means of a disk rotating against a circular grinding plate, produc-ing particles within a relatively narrow size spectrum down to 200 mesh (75 microns). It is employed primarily for re-duction of fibrous materials, but is also suitable for friable products.

Paradis said the PDC is leaning toward the Attrition Mill because it can produce a fibrous, fluffy, “cotton candy” type prod-uct with an excellent R-value.

Contacts: Email: [email protected] Web: www.iBulk.com.au

The rotor contains dozens of cutter tips attached to a helical array of staggered holders, to continuously shear oversize materials against twin, stationary bed knives with minimal fines or imperfections, and little to no heat generation.

CASE STUDY

Zero Dust

Fast to Market

Low Capital

RAM UK +44 1695 556 355 Email: [email protected]

www.ramspreaders.com

TRANSHIPMENT

The Australian Maritime College (AMC) says research underway to look into

the use of a floating harbour transhipper could save billions of dollars in port infra-structure, dredging and transhipping costs.

“Transhipping is about transferring large volumes of cargo as quickly and cheaply as possible from remote areas with limited infrastructure in as wide a range of weather conditions as possible,” said PhD candidate Nick Johnson, who is

working with fellow candidate Lauchlane Clarke and industry partner Sea Transport Corporation to refine and test the concept.

The three-year project has received a $420,000 grant from the industry partner, and the Australian Research Council.

“Traditionally, the transfer of bulk ore cargo takes place over a couple of weeks, with the feeder vessels running back and forth between a small port and the moored export vessel,” Johnson continued.

“The difference with what we’re looking at is the FHT will act as an off-shore warehouse, allowing the feeder vessels and export vessel to work on their own continuous schedules.”

Floating warehouse bulk export method under microscope

Transhipment through the use of a floating harbour transhipper, which acts as an ‘offshore warehouse’ for bulk minerals, is being investigated by a specialist institute at the University of Tasmania.

An artist’s render showing the transfer of iron ore from the floating harbour transhipper to the export vessel.

Maritime engineering PhD candidates Lauchlan Clarke and Nick Johnson with the model of the floating harbour

transhipper (photo by Bret Salinger).

Zero Dust

Fast to Market

Low Capital

RAM UK +44 1695 556 355 Email: [email protected]

www.ramspreaders.com

TRANSHIPMENT


Sydney (02) 9765 8118 | Melbourne (03) 9720 4411 | Brisbane (07) 3373 9600 | Perth (08) 9479 4879Email: [email protected] www.teco.com.au

Proudly distributed by Teco Australia

since 1987

ELECTRIC • HYDRAULIC • PNEUMATIC • CONTROLS

Driving the vibration industry for over 50 years

30 years in Australia

TECO TPH+Bleed MJ13_2.indd 1 27/05/13 10:41 AM

This method is different to the two tran-shipment methods in use at what could be called Australia’s flagship transhipping op-eration: at Whyalla, SA, where CSL exports iron ore for Arrium (formerly OneSteel).

At Whyalla, CSL uses a direct barge-to-vessel transfer method, and a method which uses an interim transfer platform, to move product from barge to export vessel. Under each of those methods, both the export vessel and at least one transhipping barge must be together at

the same time for a transfer to take place.The FHT method being investigated at

AMC would not have that logistical problem.“The FHT will be able to carry about

60% of the capacity of a Capesize export vessel,” Johnson said. “So when the export vessel comes in and moors to the FHT, it can immediately start transferring goods. While this is happening, the feeder vessels can be discharged either to the FHT stockpile or di-rectly to the export vessel – it reduces down-time and is a more cost-effective operation.”

The FHT would cost about US$90m and would be around 315m long, the University said.

It would feature an enclosed conveyor system to facilitate the transfer of bulk product from the feeder vessel into its own stockpile, and from this stockpile to the ex-port vessel. An enclosed conveyor system is preferential, the University explained, as it allows for dust-free transhipment.

BHEL, based in New Delhi, is a manufac-turer of mechanical and electrical com-

ponents for power plant and energy tech-nology. Since India’s demand for energy is growing rapidly, coal-fired power plants are constantly being built and expanded.

The Flender gear units from Siemens are deployed in vertical mills with out-puts of 800 and 1000 Kw. These are used for coal grinding in the power plants.

“Due to their rugged design, these pow-erful and reliable drives are ideal for the harsh ambient conditions in power plants and permit smooth operation,” Siemens said in a statement. “The value of the order is in the (Euro) double digit million range.”

The Siemens units consist of a com-bination of a bevel gear stage with a planetary stage. Thanks to a special design it has developed for use in coal grinding, Siemens says a high power density is achieved and at the same time the forces from the grinding operations are transferred to the foundation via the gear casing.

“The operating company thus ben-efits from smooth operation and very fine coal grinding, which is required for effi-cient combustion,” Siemens said.

Dr Bernhard Hoffmann, Siemens’ head of mechanical drives, said: “We see this major order as a convincing vote of

confidence from BHEL in the reliability of the Flender gear units and the commit-ment and cooperation of our employees.”

BHEL is India’s largest engineering and manufacturing company of its kind engaged in the design, engineering, man-ufacture, construction, testing, commis-sioning and servicing of a wide range of products, systems and services for the core sectors of the economy, like power, transmission, industry, transportation, re-newable energy, oil & gas and defence.

The business employs around 49,390 people.

Siemens gear units for Indian coal power

The drive technologies division of German multinational Siemens will supply large gear units and gear components for vertical mills to Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL), to cover the Indian company’s overall demand in the coming three years.

Contact: www.siemens.com

Siemens’ Flender gear units bound for India


RAIL HAULAGE

Roy Hill, 70% owned by Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, will be a high grade iron ore export venture serving

Chinese steelmakers. Other partners in the project include Marubeni with 15%, a 12.5% ownership by POSCO and a 2.5% stake held by China Steel Corp.

An open pit mining project in the Pilbara’s Chichester Range will produce 68mt (wet) of run of mine ore per an-num, which will then be processed into 55mtpa (wet) lump and fines products.

That product will be moved to a dedicated port facility at Port Hedland via five daily train trips. Each train will consist of three locomotives hauling 232 ore cars, with a total payload of 31,450 tonnes of ore per train.

Four passing loops, positioned to optimise cycle times, will be built into the single-line railway, according to Roy Hill Holdings.

A marshalling yard will be located 8km from the port facil-ity’s ore car dumper. The yard, Roy Hill says, has been specifi-cally designed “to facilitate the rapid refuelling of locomotives,

inspection of empty trains prior to their return to the mine and heavy maintenance tasks.”

ASX-listed engineering and project delivery business Cali-bre Group is delivering the detailed design for the majority of the railway, under a $23m contract awarded to it in August 2013 by Roy Hill’s EPC contractor, Samsung C&T.

Work on the detailed design was scheduled for completion by the end of June this year, and includes within its scope the design of most of the heavy haul main-line railway, passing loops and other associated civil infrastructure.

When operational, the rail line will be conducted by what Roy Hill describes as a “state-of-the-art, high technology com-munications based, automatic train protection and in cab, moving block signalling system.”

The signalling system is to be delivered by international transport company Ansaldo STS, under a $151m contract. The system Ansaldo will deliver, according to the company, has been designed in synergy with Roy Hill’s phased require-ments, and sets new benchmarks for operational flexibility

Project update: Roy Hill’s iron ore railway kicks off

A team of companies are signed up to help build the 344km railway needed for Gina Rinehart’s 55mtpa Roy Hill iron ore project near Newman, WA, and construction has started on the line.

John Holland has begun construction on the 344km railway between Roy Hill’s mining site and its dedicated port facility at Port Hedland.


and upgradability for heavy haulage mining railways.“We are very proud of the technology we have provided

to our customer Roy Hill,” Ansaldo STS’s chief executive Ser-gio De Luca said, “and of the innovative solution we have de-veloped which reinforces our company’s position as a world leader in the technology field.”

Another contract relating to the railway belongs to indus-trial group Engenco, which was granted a $4m contract to sup-ply specialist railroad labour, including drivers, throughout the construction process.

The big ticket contract for the railway, though, belongs to John Holland, the fully-owned subsidiary of Australian con-struction firm Leighton.

John Holland holds the $257m contract to actually build the railway, and is building rail, track works and infrastruc-ture through remote terrain from the mine site to the port fa-cility. The contract includes building track works to the main line, the marshalling yard, a mine loading loop, a port loading loop, the passing loops, and a construction yard.

It also involves construction of a logistics yard and ballast yards.

“We are proud to be involved in such a major undertaking for WA,” Leighton Holdings’ chief executive Hamish Tyrwhitt said. “Roy Hill is a critical project for the state, and a strong indication that the nation is moving to close its infrastructure deficit and improve productivity.”

The Roy Hill project’s Port Hedland facility will include an 11,250tph rail car dumper, a conveying system, two 13,000tph rail mounted stackers, stockyards, a 12,000tph bucket wheel reclaimer, a surge bin facility and a screening house.

That will serve a port outload and wharf facility, which will incorporate four loadout conveyors, an 800m, two-berth wharf, and a 14,400tph shiploader.

RAIL HAULAGE

John Holland has begun construction on the 344km railway between Roy Hill’s mining site and its dedicated port facility at Port Hedland.

Ballast being laid on the first sections of Roy Hill’s iron ore railway.

T +61 7 3193 0400 F +61 7 3607 2252Lvl 1, Stockland Bld, 99 Melbourne St, Brisbane Q 4101

[email protected] | aspec.com.auBrisbane • Newcastle • Wollongong • Perth

ASPEC EngineeringProvides high quality technical engineering

support to mines and ports » Experts in Bulk Materials Handling Machinery » Owner’s Engineer / Design Auditor » Technical Studies and Advanced Analysis » Performance Benchmarking » Functional Safety and Risk Assessment » Refurbishment, Upgrade or Replacement Decisions


Contact: ???????????

ADVERTISERS INDEX

Please return to: Natalie Gardner, Subscriptions Co-ordinator, Informa AustraliaPO BOX Q1439, QUEEN VICTORIA BUILDING, NSW 1230 or FAX 02 9299 4622 or CALL our SUBSCRIPTION DEPARTmENT on 02 9080 4447

ABH

R JA13

SUBSCRIBE

(Payable to Informa aUStralIa)

I enclose my cheque for $_______________ BIll my company

Includes six issues of Australian Bulk Handling Review per annum plus our annual Equipment and Services Guide. Additional copies available at $80 +gst ea. Overseas postage $30 extra. GSt does not apply to overseas subscriptions.

TM

A Revolution in Feeder Technology bywww.transmin.com.au

www.BulkHandling.com.auVolume 16 No 7 November/December 2011

Concentrate in containers at Port Adelaide Solving belt tracking issues at NCIG Case study of Zibulo overland conveyor Detailed BULKEX review Dust control feature Intelligent dust management at Carrington Coal Terminal Lawson Lug aids handling of bin liners

SecUrely SUbScrIbe onlIne at subscriptions.informa.com.au

Australia NZ Asia World1 year $170.00 +10% GST = $187.00 $220.00 $280.00 $310.002 years $306.00 +10% GST = $336.00 $396.00 $504.00 $558.003 years $340.00 +10% GST = $374.00 $440.00 $560.00 $620.00

4B Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Aerobelt Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Aerzen Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

AF Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Ahrens Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Allied Grain Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Altra Industrial Motion Australia . . . . . . . . . 59

Aspec Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Atlas Copco Compressors . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Australian Belt Cleaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Australian Society for Bulk Solids Handling . . 30

Belle Banne Conveyor Products . . . . . . . . 23

BEUMER Group Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Brolton Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (IFC, 3, 65)

BulkNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Control Systems Technology . . . . . . . . . . . 82

ConvaTech Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13, 78

DRC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Flexco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Flexicon Corporation Australia . . . . . . .(OBC)

GEA Nu-Con . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Hawk Machinery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Integrated Bulk Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Jacmor Engineering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17, 74

Kerman Contracting Limited . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Kilic Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Kinder & Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Kockums Bulk Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 69

Kotzur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Millsom Materials Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

NSL Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

OLDS Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40, 41

QUBE Bulk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Redispan Conveyors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Sanwest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Schenck Process Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

SEMF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

SEW EURODRIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (OFC)

TECO Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Tenova TAKRAF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Transmin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

TUNRA Bulk Solids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Advertiser Page Advertiser Page Advertiser Page

Advertisers Index


Sandpit, a small company that commercialises technologies for Australia's resources sector, and the giant Lockheed Martin,

developer of the Joint Strike Fighter, are looking to take mining stockpile volume reporting to space.

MineRECON, powered by Lockheed and delivered Down Un-der by Sandpit, sees a satellite take two photos, roughly a minute apart, of a specific area of land at a minesite, port facility, or any other site requiring stockpile monitoring.

From this information, and through its processing capabil-ity, MineRECON can give clients accurate measurements of their stockpiles and, over repeated monitoring programs, can deliver analysis of changes and trends in stockpiles around a site, in an easy-to-access way.

“It's a selective process,” Carter tells ABHR. “We define areas of interest where material needs to be examined or measured, so it's not just stockpiles, it can be anything that needs to be measured.

“We queue up some satellites that can capture some images in that space, and we take what we call stereo pairs; two im-ages about a minute apart. Because the satellites orbit around the earth at a certain speed, we can use the maths and science be-hind that to pair the two images up and extract elevation data.”

This ability to measure the elevation of a stockpile is crucial to un-derstanding the exact volume of material in that pile, Carter explains.

“It's easy to look at something from above and get the x and z measurements, but it's the y measurements that are not so easy. That's why we take stereo imaging, and don't rely on a single image.”

This stereo imaging method can capture an entire minesite within a single scene, according to MineRECON. The time delay of a minute between the two photos, and consistent orbit speed of the satellite, results in an angle of around 30% between the ‘left’ and ‘right’ photos in the stereo pair. Custom-built processing tools allow precise points in both images to extract elevation values.

The elevation accuracy, according to the developers, is en-hanced by factoring in known ground control points and other technical information. And Lockheed's powerful technology, originally designed for the defence sector, gives the MineRECON system a high level of accuracy in its physical measurements.

Specifically, Carter says, massive images covering more than 100km across can come down to a resolution as small as 40 square centimetres per pixel.

“That's highly accurate for something like large stockpiles,” he asserts. “We've also used it for in-pit measurements as well, like look-ing at how much material there is left to mine, and things like that.”

Another differentiator for MineRECON, he says, is its ad-vanced processing techniques, which can provide more accurate final data to clients. “They're very large images and require a lot of processing, and we've had some pretty advanced processing techniques that we've developed specifically for MineRECON.”

Thanks to those advanced processing techniques, Mi-neRECON is able to offer clients some rather advanced analytical tools, Carter says. One of those is in change detection.

“We can take a software like Google Earth and overlay change in elevation data as a colour-coded image, where we can show where elevation has changed over time,” he says. “It's a technique that's used in other applications, and we can see that there's the opportunity to use that technology for monthly and weekly re-ports on material movement.”

Commercialised mid-June, 2014 (but in development for sev-eral years), Carter is hoping MineRECON will be recognised in the industry as a worthwhile, and valuable, alternative to tradi-tional methods of stockpile monitoring.

The most traditional method is doing manual surveys, and that method still occurs on a lot of mines and at port operations. Newer techniques include LIDAR, which is taken through flying over the site with UAVs able to do large earth scale captures. That sees images fused together, creating a mosaic.

But Carter says: ‘A lot of providers are just providing the raw data, just the image, and they're not doing the processing. We've found that there are significant process errors occurring, because miners are using third party processing services. The processing part is where we can keep things consistent and standardised, which means you have a trusted source of reporting.

“People are looking at UAVs as a way to advance that method. But there's regulations issues with UAVs. They can have the po-tential of having incidents, and you need to be qualified to fly them. Satellites are non-intrusive, they do their work within a minute and no-one knows it's occurred.”

The MineRECON method also benefits from the fact that you don't need someone on-site at all to conduct a survey. With man-ual surveys, and with UAVs, you need skilled workers out at the

STOCKPILE MANAGEMENT

American aerospace, defence, security and technology company Lockheed Martin has partnered with Sandpit Innovation to bring MineRECON to the Australian mining market. Aaron Carter, director of Sandpit, speaks with ABHR's Oliver Probert.

Lockheed, Sandpit team up for satellite stockpile monitoring


(right) MineRECON takes two images like this, about a minute apart, and pieces the data together to give miners accurate volume measurements for their on-site stockpiles.

(left) The system is powered by American defence and industrial technologist Lockheed Martin, which specialises in satellites and other aerospace technologies.

STOCKPILE MANAGEMENT

site to work out the volume of a stockpile.“The groundwork on our end is just in replicating things like base-

layer images, and determining the areas of interest. We can capture an image going forward without anyone on site. It's processed, and the client receives the report they wanted in the way they want it.”

MineRECON is powered by Lockheed which has established relationship with satellite providers; it also builds and launches satellites itself.

“And the product is brought to the industry by Sandpit,” Cart-er adds. “So it's a collaborative effort to bring MineRECON to the market. Lockheed is able to use image processing technology originally developed for the defence sector and now we can use it to solve a mining problem.”

Carter says MineRECON is in talks with a number of large mining houses to validate the product compared to current methods, and that testing has so far been well-received.

“Good results coming from there, so we're now talking to people about using the product,” he says.

The key to these good results, he says, comes from the combination of a good technology, good processing methods, and good service to clients. MineRECON's method could also be the clear-cut favourite in terms of cost efficiency, too: by the end of 2015, the number of high-resolution imagery satel-lites sending images to earth is projected to exceed 40, and by

the end of 2017 that number is expected to top 75.For now, though, Sandpit is just focusing on offering clients a

better quality product than the alternatives.“The biggest difference in our service offering is we not only

capture the image and the data, but we process it in a consistent standard. If the mine knows what the product is then we just need a density to turn it into a tonnage weight. If that density is consistent we can deliver our reports in tonnes, and otherwise the standard is to be reporting on volumes and then letting the operation decide what the weight is.

“In terms of an output, we can provide, obviously, the numbers (what there is on site), the digital elevation models (which can be supplanted into mine planning systems and those sorts of things), and we can also produce renders using the satellite image. So you can have a full 3D render of your site produced out of these im-ages, and you can use software to fly through your site virtually, which has a multitude of applications within the industry as well.

“We can apply change detection to different areas, and pro-vide pictures or colour maps of how things around their sites are changing.”

Contact: www.mineRECON.com.au

Hannan, who has worked for Westpac for 25 years, takes over from Graham

Jennings who retired from the role of gen-eral manager, agribusiness, in March. Han-nan has been acting in the post since Jen-nings’ retirement.

A graduate and Fellow of the Austral-ian Rural Leadership Foundation, Hannan brings a wealth of experience to his new role, Westpac said. Hannan previously ran the regional, commercial and agri-business operations in NSW and regional commercial business in Queensland for Westpac’s retail and business banking division.

Prior to his seven year stint in the NSW job and most recently his Queensland

responsibilities which were added to his brief last year, Hannan was head of business banking for Regional NSW and the ACT.

He joined Westpac in January 1989, working across AGC, Commercial Banking, BT & Retail Banking, and has been in senior leadership roles since 1998. He is currently based and lives in Port Macquarie.

Alastair Welsh, Hannan’s new boss, said: “Steve has a detailed knowledge and experience of the agribusiness sector and deep connection with our customers and our bankers which made him the ideal candidate to this absolutely key part of our business. He is also a passionate advocate for vibrant and sustainable communities in regional, rural and remote Australia.”

Westpac appoints new national agri-business leader

In June Westpac announced that Steve Hannan, one of the group’s most senior regional business bankers, had been appointed as its new national general manager responsible for its agribusiness operation.

Steve Hannan.

GRAIN HANDLING

www.efficiencyblowers.com [email protected] 023 469

Latest innovation Energy efficient Class Zero**Zero risk of contamination, damaged or unsafe products, losses from operational downtime

and damaging your company’s hard-won professional reputation

From Vacuum to High Pressure; From 0 to 900kW,Atlas Copco has it covered

* * *

>40 bar<1 mbar

Vacuum Low Pressure Medium Pressure High Pressure

ATM 4 bar 300 bar

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

0414-Atlas Copco-FullPage-Bulk Handling.pdf 1 21/03/2014 11:12:00 AM

FLEXICON® Flexible ScrewConveyors transport free- and non-free-flowing bulk solid materialsfrom large pellets to sub-micronpowders, including products thatpack, cake or smear, with noseparation of blends, dust-free at low cost. No bearings contactmaterial. Easy to clean quickly, thoroughly.

SWING-DOWN®, REAR-POSTand TWIN-CENTREPOST™Bulk Bag Fillers can fill one bulk bag per week or 20 per hour at the lowest cost per bag. Numerousperformance options. Available to industrial or sanitary standards.

BLOCK-BUSTER® Bulk Bag Conditionersloosen bulk materials that have solidifiedduring storage and shipment. Variable heightturntable positions bag for hydraulic rams with contoured conditioning plates to press bag on all sides at all heights.

TIP-TITE® Container Tippersdump bulk material from drums(shown), boxes or other containersinto vessels up to 3 metres high.Dust-tight (shown) or open chutemodels improve efficiency and safety of an age-old task.

The FLEXICON® Lifetime PerformanceGuarantee* assures you of a successfulresult, whether you purchase one piece ofequipment or an engineered, automatedplant-wide system. From initial testing inlarge-scale laboratories, to single-sourceproject management, to after-sale support by a worldwide network of factory experts, you can trust your process—and your reputation—to Flexicon.

PNEUMATI-CON®

Pneumatic ConveyingSystems move a broadrange of bulk materialsover short or longdistances, between singleor multiple inlet anddischarge points in lowto high capacities.Available as dilute-phasevacuum or positivepressure systems, fullyintegrated with yourprocess.

CC-0895

FLEXICON® ManualDumping Stations allowdust-free dumping of bulkmaterial from bags and othercontainers. Automatic reverse-pulse filter cleaning allowscontinuous, efficientoperation. Available with integral bag compactors for total dust containment.

BULK-OUT® BulkBag Dischargersunload free- andnon-free-flowingsolids from bulkbags automatically.Allows untying,discharging, retyingand collapsing ofbulk bags—alldust-free. Availablewith weighbatching controls.

FLEXI-DISC™ Tubular CableConveyors gently slide fragilefoods and non-foods throughsmooth stainless steel tubingrouted horizontally, vertically or at any angle, over short or long distances, dust-free. Single or multiple inlets and outlets.

CONVEY DUMP UNLOAD

CONDITION FILL CONVEY

CONVEY SUCCEEDTIP

©2014 Flexicon Corporation. Flexicon Corporation has registrations and pending applications for the trademark FLEXICON throughout the world.*See complete Guarantee for details.

USAUK

SINGAPORESOUTH AFRICA

CHILE

+1 610 814 2400 +44 (0)1227 374710+65 6778 9225+27 (0)41 453 1871+56 2 2415 1286

[email protected]

1 300 FLEXICON

CC-0895_ConveyDump_Layout 1 7/18/14 9:55 AM Page 1

Documents

Australian Bulk Handling Review