MINERAL PORTS
In terms of maintenance he adds:
“Maintenance is important, but the beauty of
our chutes is that they are designed in such a
way and constructed so robustly that
maintenance needs are minimal, even clean
down requirements are not extensive due the
Cascade chute ‘running cleanly’ on the inside
due to its control of material.”
Dust suppression is a big driver in technology
at mineral ports. “Terminals around the world
are now much more focused on their emissions
from loading activities with bulk minerals. Air
permits are required and in many places, there
are set emissions levels for general dust release
into the atmosphere. This is an ongoing thing
and likely in another three to five years what we
will see is every country and every terminal will
be required to operate within a set air permit
describing acceptable emissions levels.
Typically, this is around 20-30 milligrams of
dust per cubic metre of air at present on the
strictest terminals. Without any extraction
systems or suppression our Cascade chute has
been tested to achieve between 3 and 4
milligrams of dust per cubic meter of air, and
this was during loading of fine dry phosphate
and alumina powder, arguably two of the most
difficult, and most dusty bulk materials.”
As bulk mineral carriers have gotten larger,
this has also required Cleveland Cascades as a
company to offer higher throughput options.
“Ten years ago the
chute enquires we
received were for
handling 500 to 2,000
t/h typically. Now its
more common for
1,500-4,000 t/h to be
seen on enquiries. As
the requests for
larger/higher rates of
loading have arrived,
we have grown our
range of chute sizes
and now we are able to
handle up to 7,000 m 3 per hour of any given
bulk material. In the future, if the demand
increases, our next chute size up would be rated
to 10,000 m 3 per hour.”
In 2016, a custom-built pair of Cleveland
Cascade chutes began loading vessels in
Colombia as part of a large FAM project for two
ship loaders at the Port of Mamonal on the
country’s northern coast. The chutes will
eventually load both coal and met coke at rates
of up to 2,800 t/h. This project adds to the long
working history between CCL and FAM, which
began with the supply of a Cascade chute in
1999. Since then the two companies have
worked together on 15 different projects in
various locations around the world, handling a
variety of different bulk materials.
A Cleveland Cascades free fall chute loading
titanium slag
These chutes are special, in that they had a
requirement for extra-long trimmer spouts,
which can rotate through 360 degrees, and
deliver material with an outreach of 5 to 7 m
from the chutes’ centreline. The Cascade chutes
are working to effectively prevent dust
emissions during loading, and also minimise
material degradation as it transfers from the
ship loader into vessels.
Barnard told IM: “The trimmer spouts we
make can be tailored to suit the given
application; if the ship loader does not allow
effective coverage of all vessel sizes, we can
supply long outreach trimmer spouts to