GERMAN TECHNOLOGY
the USA, taking about 10 % of exports. Sales are based mainly on processing technology and excavating machinery. Schulte Strathaus expressed doubts as to whether mines will continue to close and coal mining will continuously be reduced under the new President Donald Trump. Trump has not only promised to preserve jobs in this sector, but to even create new ones. As a result, the mechanical engineering companies hope that their share of exports to the USA will expand for the year 2017.
Finally, Schulte Strathaus considers the increasing diversification in companies to be positive. New products are increasingly brought onto the market and new export regions are also being established. Meanwhile, virtually all the renowned manufacturers are offering machinery for hard rock mining. This is resonating positively among purchasers on the whole. Schulte Strathaus also announced a Europe-wide networking of companies. Thus, the VDMA believes that it should become possible amongst other things to bring new products onto the market together, with greater impact.
Premium mining tyre chains
Following the introduction of versatile, pneumatic-tyred loaders in the early 1940s, RUD- Erlau built on its snow chain technology to develop and evolve the earthmover Tyre Protection Chain( TPC) into the sophisticated product on the market today. From that early innovation, Erlau has grown, it says, to command some 65 % of the world market with a range of TPCs to suit every application.
“ In an environment where tyres are vulnerable to both wear and sidewall damage, Erlau recommends that the only guarantee of longterm availability is to protect the tyre from the outset with an all-embracing, close-meshed chain. Erlau has worked hard at perfecting a range of tyre protection and traction chains to overcome these problems, and ensure productivity at a measurable cost per tonne. Each set of chains leaves Erlau’ s state-of-the-art production facilities fully-tested, embossed with a unique reference and is fully documented. Fitting and tensioning is restricted to Erlau’ s time-served engineers who, thereafter, provide life-of-product support.”
The FELS GRANIT PLUS X 23 and FELS CROWN X 22 are Erlau’ s brand names for its strong, hardwearing, long-lasting steel alloy links developed to absorb abrasion, improve traction and double, sometimes it says treble, tyre life on giant and large mining equipment such as wheel loaders.
“ In the narrow galleries of underground mines, low profile loaders and haulers can face any combination of abrasion, sidewall damage and poor traction.” Erlau’ s advanced alloys and a proprietary hardening technology have produced the lightweight, FELS TORO X19 – a TPC that resists abrasion so effectively that Erlau confidently claims a 30 % longer service life. The X19 rings wrap around the tyres of low-profile loaders and haulers preventing skidding, protecting against slamming into tunnel walls and surviving attrition from mine-water and mineral dust-derived abrasive pastes. Where conditions are such that traction is an issue, one safe solution Erlau suggests for loader and dumper control and maintaining loading cycles lies in a simple, wider mesh ring link tyre chain such as Erlau’ s GARANT TERRA PLUS with its superior‘ bite.’
GARANT TERRAPLUS is from a range of traction chains with applications in mining and other industries.“ The superior grip provided by this recent addition to the RUD-Erlau portfolio makes TERRAPLUS ideal for soft ground and icy haul roads. Even with the 22 mm option, the open-meshed, six pointed, star configuration of the TERRAPLUS forms a lightweight, energysaving chain with deep-toothed ground engaging links which give mining trucks that essential bite. It is not fun trying to control a haul truck with a mind of its own and most of us have seen alarming images of trucks standing on their tail or hanging over a precipice.”
Finally, Erlau has extended the principle by developing RFID technology to provide the first Chain Monitoring System( CMS) and, with it the company says, a whole new dimension to its product support. Embedded in a link sited within the sidewall of each set of chains, Erlau CMS records and shares, with a hand-held CMSreader, a life-of-TPC, accurate, on-demand, paper-free maintenance history from the date it leaves the factory to the end of its productive life. The hand-held CMS-reader can collect and up-date data from several sets of chains. This data then becomes available for computer
BASF’ s Mining Solutions team offers customers telemetry operating systems as a technical engineering solution to maintain optimal plant performance
download and interpretation giving the plant manager access to valuable performance statistics.
“ While some manufacturers might be reluctant to give access to such data, Erlau is so confident in its TPCs that the company is happy to provide CMS free-of-charge.”
Telemetry – technology for remote site monitoring
BASF’ s Mining Solutions business in the Asia Pacific region services numerous locations across Australia and the company says it is proud to be offering first-class technical support to all of its customers, no matter where they are.“ With BASF, site location is never an issue to ensuring we can monitor product performance and system requirements in real time.”
BASF’ s Mining Solutions team offers customers telemetry operating systems as a technical engineering solution to maintain optimal plant performance. Telemetry operating systems enable remote monitoring of data that is accessible from anywhere, at any time.
Telemetry unit hardware is installed at the customer site, permanently or temporarily, and can be adapted to all Mining Solutions-supplied equipment from BASF, such as powder and liquid product storage tanks, dosing pump skids and BASF’ s Alcotech™ units.
The hardware uses the existing equipment power supply and links to digital or analogue instrument signals that feed measured data to a web-based monitoring facility. The web interface is compatible with both personal computers and mobile devices, facilitating ease of access for management. The web-based dashboard can be configured to show as little or as much
44 International Mining | MARCH 2017