HEAVY ENGINEERING
winter period with operating temperatures down to-40 ° C. Industeel told IM it is now to extend the concept to other mining sites throughout the world. Overall lifetime is expected to be 35,000 + hours.
ME Elecmetal celebrating two centenaries
ME Elecmetal, the major supplier of wear components for the world wide mineral processing industry, is celebrating 100 years of continual operation. In fact it is two 100 year celebrations. The North American and South American manufacturing facilities were both started in 1917. Elecmetal, based in Santiago, Chile and Minneapolis Electric Steel, based in Minneapolis, competed with each other until Elecmetal purchased ME in 2001. The North American operation is based in Minneapolis, with manufacturing facilities in Duluth and Tempe. The South American operation is based in Santiago, Chile with a manufacturing facility in Rancagua and a machining facility in Antofagasta. The company recently opened a green-field liner foundry in Changzhou, China as well as grinding media facilities in Changshu, China. The company has 530,000 t of total capacity for providing wear components to the worldwide mineral processing and aggregate industries.
The two companies were some of the first to utilise electric-arc furnaces for melting iron and steel. Electric-arc furnaces allowed additions to the molten metal while in the furnace. This resulted in tighter control of the chemical makeup of the material.“ Both companies leveraged that technology and subsequent quality improvements to lower their customers’ cost per tonne of ore ground.”
The North American operations were also the first to develop through hardened alloy steels for grinding mill and gyratory crusher liners. This resulted in longer wear component life with less on-going maintenance, significantly reducing comminution costs.
ME Elecmetal is the world’ s largest supplier of metallic grinding mill liners. Other major product lines include rubber and composite mill liners, grinding media, alloy crusher concaves and mantles, and cone crusher bowls and mantles for the mineral processing and aggregate industries.
Buckets and wear parts
XCMG, one of China’ s biggest construction machinery manufacturers, is a long standing customer of SSAB. They recently manufactured the biggest wheel loader bucket in China, with a capacity of 17 m 3. Use of Hardox plate and Strenx performance steel has increased the overall bucket lifetime by 70 %.
The first bucket is being used on one of Joy
Global’ s( now Komatsu Mining) wheel loaders in the Eastern open pit mine in Shuozhou, Shanxi, which is the biggest coal producing area of China. As the strategic partner and bucket supplier to the end-user,“ XCMG knew that to meet the end-user’ s requirement and to have better performance in the coal mine, a bucket must stand up to tough working conditions and have maximum lifetime.”
“ The original bucket had worn out and the end-user needed a reliable replacement. We have been using Hardox wear plate and Strenx high strength steel for years, but it’ s the first time that we worked together with SSAB’ s K1 service centre in Kunshan. After having the design drawings of the bucket, K1 developed the entire solution recommending steel grades, thicknesses and welding procedures. We welded based on all the ready-made components provided by K1,” says After-Market Service Engineer Cai Tuo of the Earthmoving Division of XCMG.
The first bucket with Hardox 450 in the main body, Hardox 400 in the side bars and Strenx 700 in the structural part of the main body has been used in the coal mine for three months( 2,000 working hours). The measuring result showed the wear loss to be 2 mm, when the original thickness of the edge plate was 80 mm. The service life was expected to exceed five years, compared to three years for the previous bucket.
“ The stable quality of Hardox wear plate and Strenx performance steel, together with the great service of SSAB Shape, brought superior wear performance to the product,” continues Cai Tuo.
The customer benefit was an increase of 70 % in overall bucket lifetime using Hardox wear plate and Strenx performance steel, says SSAB. All bucket components were made in SSAB’ s K1 service centre in Kunshan and the components were welded in XCMG’ s own factory. XCMG is one of China’ s biggest construction machinery manufacturers and the world’ s fifth largest.
XCMG, one of China’ s biggest construction machinery manufacturers, is a long standing customer of SSAB and recently manufactured the biggest wheel loader bucket in China, with a capacity of 17 m 3 using Hardox plate and Strenx performance steel
CQMS Razer( CR) and Melco Engineering in April 2017 celebrated the purchase of BMA’ s 100th dragline bucket.“ The 100th dragline bucket joining BMA’ s fleet is a tremendous milestone for two leading organisations and a milestone for the local economy in the Mackay region. CR has been working closely with BMA for many years. The partnership started in 1998, just before the first dragline bucket launch, the EarthEater.” And in 2007 CR launched their innovative Hurricane™ bucket closely with BMA. The 100th bucket, a UDD Hurricane™ is designed especially for BMA’ s unique UDD draglines in Queensland, that run in the Universal Dig-Dump configuration, which reduces rigging mass and allows for more payload on their machines and increased consistency.
“ The Hurricane™ dragline bucket concept is the world’ s leading combination of productivity and lowest cost of ownership, delivering upwards of 12 % productivity gains compared to the‘ Traditional’ style buckets. CR and Melco have collaborated together since 2008 on 30 of BMA’ s dragline bucket fleet and have successfully worked together to build many buckets for leading dragline operations around the country.” VR Steel( VRS) has been involved with the high-quality Quenched and Tempered( Q & T) steel industry for 25 years and related mining products for almost two decades.“ Our paradigm is almost wholly focussed on products created from formed Q & T plate with minimalist inclusion of restrictive cast sections … only the highest quality and best performing materials make the cut – the different steel mills and vendors are subjected to rigorous in-house and in-field testing before being
60 International Mining | JUNE 2017