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bauma CHINA, Shanghai, SNIEC,
November 27–30, 2018
MINING TYRES
Johni Francis at Titan told IM: “The reason we started with the larger ACT
sizes was that the cost savings in the mines using the largest trucks were
relatively the greatest. Changing wheels on larger trucks takes longer but
with ACT downtime is still cut in half. The focus on safety in the larger sizes
was also a factor. We have recently added the smaller sizes to bring the
same benefits to smaller trucks, where there is a much larger truck
population which can still benefit from the added safety and downtime
savings.”
Titan’s ACT customers tend to be the mines themselves, working with its
global network of dealers. The most customers using ACT to date are in the
US but there are also users in Canada, Australia, Chile, some African
countries as well as Armenia, Greece and others. And it has been used for
mines across numerous commodities from coal to metals. While there are a
few competing technologies, each has differences and Titan has had a lot of
good feedback so far due to the much lower changeover time, so that at
some mines it has become standard practice. There was some initial
conservatism as mines saw it as a complication to mix ACT wheels and
conventional wheels. But after seeing the savings, most of the mines that
have used ACT on a few trucks have then rolled it out for all their trucks of
one size class.
Freddy Hunt, General Manager, MS&R Equipment at Cedar Lake mine
says of ACT: “We're turning those tyres anywhere from 4,000 to 7,000 hours
depending on condition plus failures or operator error. Every time those
tyres are changed they're saving us money. They've been such a saver to us
in in downtime and tyre changes. They've been well worth the money we've
spent and above and beyond that they're producing income for us now. We
actually retain the wheels, the factory wheels, so we can put them back on
to dispose of the equipment and I retain the quick change wheels. We
actually let a set of trucks get away from us that we had sold. They got to
North Carolina and I sent someone North Carolina to get my quick change
wheels back.”
More advanced large tyre repairs
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Every year, mine sites around the world send thousands of ultra-class tyres
with large injuriesfor scrap. Today, they don’t necessarily need to thanks to
Kal Tire’s Ultra Repair™ technology that can provide like-new performance
in even the most challenging environments, including Australia. Near the
heart of the Hunter Valley coalfields in Muswellbrook, New South Wales, Kal
Tire technicians repair injuries once thought impossible to fix on some of
mining’s biggest tyres. This Kal Tire repair facility, and its counterpart in
Kewdale, Perth, carry out standard repairs using conventional methods. But
they are also leading practitioners of Ultra Repair - an innovation that uses a
proprietary patch to replace damaged cables along with a unique
installation technology to extend the life of mining tyres by potentially
thousands of hours.
Once developed, Ultra Repair quickly made its way to Australia and other
countries where Kal Tire’s Mining Tire Group has a presence. Developing the
game-changing technology, however, took an enormous investment in
resources and time. Nearly 15 years ago, in the centre of the coal mine
industry in BC, Canada, Kal Tire recognised the limitations of traditional
earthmover tyre repairs, and began researching a process that could do
more and solve one of a mine operator’s most expensive tyre problems.
“We wanted to develop the materials and procedure to perform larger
and stronger repairs,” says Kal Tire Mining Tire Group Vice President Tyre
Lifetime Services, Darren Flint. “Today, we have the capability to repair not
only large injuries, but also those in areas that were previously impossible
to repair.”
In 2014, Kal Tire launched Ultra Repair. “Where traditional patches for
ultra-class tyres risked bulging, lasted just a short time and only suited
smaller injuries and certain locations, like the tread, Ultra Repair expanded
possibilities and ticked every box. Kal Tire’s technology and process is