HEAVY ENGINEERING approved for use by the VR Steel design team in their products. Furthermore, innovative use of Q & T would be nowhere without correct and stringent welding controls once the designs are released to the factory floor for fabrication.” Joining methods and procedures are in accordance with international welding codes and test guidelines( AWS, AS, ASME) while quality and systems are driven by the ISO 9001:2008 certification VRS holds.
The VRS Taper Bucket for draglines, the company says“ continues to gain traction in the international strip mining fraternity.” When introduced more than a decade ago, the bucket was the first to eliminate the waste of the lower spreader bar while simultaneously having external hoist trunnions remain on the outside of the basket.“ As one of the dragline bucket leaders in the world, the sales records have shown that the Taper Bucket sales have now exceeded the conventional style sold since its inception. Continuous improvement philosophies and customer feedback loops continue to drive this Q & T design, with newer models featuring fewer parts, less material processing and additional mass savings – up to 3 % in recent instances.”
ESCO Corporation in September 2016 announced the commercial launch of the next Nemisys ® product, the N95 Cast Lip System.“ The N95 offering extends the range of our marketleading Nemisys ® Lip System, and incorporates additional features that improve safety, inventory management and productivity. The development of N95 was influenced by direct customer interaction, a critical element for ESCO to deliver the required value to our end users.”
ESCO’ s SecureLift™ Lifting System is available for Nemisys ® system users, providing mining crews with a more complete, purpose-built solution for handling worn parts with increased safety.“ Integral shroud locks reduce the amount of replacement parts that need to be ordered, lowering inventory effort and costs. The system also offers weight savings over competitive and legacy systems of up to 22 %.”
“ We are proud to be releasing the N95 Cast Lip System. ESCO’ s Nemisys ® System has delivered improved business solutions for our customers since its launch three years ago,” stated Ken Meyer, Director, ESCO Global Marketing.“ Expanding the range to cover 350 t hydraulic excavators enables miners to take advantage of the safety, productivity and maintenance value that the Nemisys ® cast lip system provides on smaller machines.”
MTG Systems recently introduced TwinMet, its new bucket protection system especially designed for hydraulic excavators over 350 t, draglines and some electric rope shovel configurations, with buckets fitted with a cast lip. The new MTG Systems TwinMet system features an innovative tooth-adapter hammerless locking system made up of three parts: the tooth, the intermediate adapter and the nose, which can be fused or welded to the lip.“ In addition, the hammerless locking system tapered pin facilitates assembly and disassembly of the wear parts( GET), and its reinforced nose design offers greater robustness to the system and more resistance in areas of maximum stress. The new TwinMet system also features a range of tips designed specifically to offer a high penetration capacity and self-sharpening. Moreover, it is a reversible system, allowing you to turn the pieces, if deemed necessary.”
MTG has also extended its StarMet, WL and WR ranges of cast corner adapters for heavy mining applications. From now on, these adapters will also be available in the size 180, in addition to existing sizes 240 and 500. The cast corner StarMet adapters in size 180 have been specially designed for welding to bucket lips or wings on mining excavators.“ Plus, their reinforced design reduces stress in critical areas, increasing their resistance, wear life and allowing them to withstand extreme and high-impact working conditions in heavy mining applications.” The cast corner adapters use the MTGTwist hammerless locking system, making these wear parts( GET) more reliable and easier to change.
Steels and plate
The latest offering from SSAB in its steel plate solutions are in fact its Duroxite overlay products, which are abrasion-resistant materials deposited on top of mild steel or Hardox wear plate to create an extremely wear-resistant compound material.“ Duroxite overlay products can add months or even years of trouble-free operations in extreme wear situations.” These products are offered by SSAB’ s Hardox Wearparts Centers.
“ Duroxite overlay works especially well in sliding wear environments, where small and hard materials, such as coal with high quartz content, are processed. Duroxite can withstand different types of wear including abrasion, heat, metal-tometal and erosion.”
“ Duroxite is tough on wear wherever it is applied. It is the natural choice for industries active in mining, energy, quarrying, cement production and other areas where abrasive materials require extremely hard surfaces,” explains Jim Chapple from Hardox Wearparts Center Tuscaloosa.“ The good thing is that no special equipment is needed to install Duroxite. Welding, bolting and stud welding are the common methods for installing Duroxite wear parts or overlay plate onto equipment.”
Duroxite comes with unique guarantees in the overlay market. Duroxite overlay products are delivered with an overlay thickness guaranteed to within + 10 %. When a customer orders a 13.5
mm overlay on a 13.5 mm base plate, they are guaranteed an overlay thickness of 13.5 mm within ± 10 %. This is consistent throughout the plate and from plate to plate.
“ Further, consistent wear properties are guaranteed throughout the plate down to 75 % of the overlay thickness as opposed to just the surface of the overlay. The remaining 25 % of overlay is the transition layer necessary to maintain good bonding to the base plate.”
One of Duroxite’ s key benefits is given as its excellent formability due to a staggered cracking pattern on the overlay surface. This simplifies bending of the plate and ensures a smooth flow of the processed materials.
The product also has applications in shovel buckets.“ For example, buckets used in open cast coal mining and in the quarry segment are exposed to extremely hard wear. In some applications, mechanically attached castings from OEMs will break prematurely, leaving the lip exposed to wear. These premature breakages are caused by the loose fit of the casting to the base edge lip in the bucket. When visiting customers, we have offered to make custom lip and jaw shrouds of Duroxite 211 to fit tightly to the base edge lip and main vertical jaw where our shrouds are welded on,” says Jim Chapple.
“ I think Duroxite 211 is the perfect product for this purpose. Each lip and vertical jaw shroud is first made from Hardox 450 before we apply a solid double pass complex carbide overlay wire by hand. This eliminates breakage and our shrouds provide extended wear life. This also eliminates the chance that the broken shroud can detach from the bucket and destroy expensive crusher parts. Once they have seen the benefits of Duroxite 211 weld-on shrouds, no customer has gone back to mechanically-attached shrouds,” adds Chapple.
A new toughcore ® production line was successfully put into operation in October 2016 by voestalpine Grobblech. toughcore ® heavy plates“ provide outstanding toughness even to the core for very challenging operating conditions. toughcore ® heavy plates create higher safety standards and enhance the potential for the use of heavy plates in the mining industry.” toughcore ® heavy plates are characterised by their“ extremely high toughness even to the core as a result of their remarkably fine microstructure throughout the entire cross-section. The microstructure is refined even in half plate thickness by accelerated cooling and consecutive fast reheating during the rolling process. Our new generation of thermomechanically rolled( TMCP) steel is manufactured in a completely new and patented process that enables unique combinations of properties with respect to thickness, strength, excellent toughness and best weldability.”
JUNE 2017 | International Mining 61