MINING ENGINES
improvements to enhance TCO. Once common
issues are identified, new product designs can
be created, and existing products given fixes.
“Cummins provides TCO savings. These include
optimised service intervals, reduced equipment
downtime through condition-based maintenance,
better consumable product life use, monitored,
extended and synchronised service events
through predictive analysis, effective inventory
management, and oil life monitoring.”
Supporting documents, which range from
marketing literature to installation instructions,
are all easily accessible from their site. This
allows information to be available worldwide to
consumers.
“Cummins’ filter optimisation program
provides additional availability of the equipment
to miners through extended intervals as
demonstrated around the world,” according to
Gary Johansen.
Cummins field tests took place in Australia,
Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Russia,
South Africa and the US with miners, including
Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Cleveland-Cliffs,
Glencore, Goldcorp, Rio Tinto, Suncor, Teck
Resources, Vale and others.
The first task in one of their Australia coal
mine case studies was to move the miner to the
newly released NanoForce air filtration products.
Once in place, the NanoForce air filters delivered
up to three times more protection, enabling the
site to extend service intervals and increase
operation of the equipment. The availability of
the product, though, means nothing if it does
not work well.
Traditional filter media use a blend of coarse
(15-30 micron) cellulose fibres and varying
amounts of sub-micron synthetic, glass and
polyester fibres. This method for developing
filter media results in inconsistency with
filtering out different sized particles and
enables those trapped particles to pass through
the filter through vibrations consistent with
equipment operations. With the advanced
emissions regulations being adopted globally,
operating tolerances on equipment are much
tighter, thus making them less tolerant to
debris.
Typically, improvements in traditional media
filters focus on either filter efficiency or capacity.
By improving efficiency, the filter will need to
capture more of the smaller particles. Flow
restrictions increase because the filter becomes
full faster, which decreases the life of the filter.
In addition to the laboratory tests, as dated
Cummins NanoForce ® and NanoNet ® filters have
been extensively subjected to real-world trials
around the globe in a broad range of mining
equipment. Even in the most severe
environments in coal, copper, iron ore and
platinum mines, with temperatures ranging from
-45°C to +50°C, these filters have proven able to
reduce maintenance intervals and reduce overall
cost for the miners.
“For example, if 100,000 four micron sized
particles enter the filter and 1,333 make it
through, then the filter’s efficiency is 98.7% with
a Beta ratio of 75. The best traditional media
filters available today would offer this type of
performance. However, nanofibre media can
remove the same four micron sized particles
99.9% of the time. While that’s only a 1.2%
improvement, in reality it means that of the same
100,000 particles flowing into the filter, only 100
particles are able to get through the media. A 1.2%
improvement in efficiency is actually a thirteen
times improvement over traditional filtration.”
A customer at a Peruvian copper mine wanted
increased productivity from a fleet of Hitachi
shovels while increasing the protection to its
installed dual Cummins QSK50 engines.
Cummins worked with the customer to identify
suitable upgrades that deliver savings while
minimising the costs involved.
In these extensive field tests, Cummins
identified a number of critical factors and
control criteria to achieve improved
performance. The different systems on the
equipment, including air, fuel, lube, coolant and
hydraulics, were taken into consideration
together. This holistic approach to smarter
maintenance management, coupled with
Cummins innovative filtration technology,
realised increased productivity with minimal
investment.
Practices that drive productivity
Similar to its approach to driving innovation in
filter media, Cummins says it has established
key factors that help mines realise maintenance
cost savings that extend beyond filter changes.
Since filters help remove contaminants from air
and fluids, additional cost savings can be
achieved by reducing those contaminants even
before they reach the filters.
Fuel contamination is a common occurrence
on a mine site. I njectors, pumps and just about
every other surface is susceptible to the
damage caused by dirty fuel. Not only do
contaminants enter the fuel during refuelling
procedures, they also enter during bulk oil
refining and transportation. Global fuel analyses
demonstrate that fuel contamination levels have
doubled over the past several years. In a single
gallon (3.8 litres) of fuel, the average
contamination level is over 18 million particles
greater than four microns.
“The fuel supply, which includes the
processing, transportation and long-term
storage of diesel fuel, is a critical stage that can
lead to contamination and degradation of the
fuel. Onsite storage tanks can harbour thick,
viscous fuel components which can pose
expensive problems. Customers that apply
nanofibre filtration technologies on their onsite
storage ensure that the fuel delivered to the
equipment is both water-free and does not
contain any contaminants. The downstream
impact is the avoidance of sludge and slime
build-up that can accumulate on fuel filters
leading to premature plugging and reduced
performance.”
Finally, in this digital age, some miners are
finding even larger savings by turning to
electronic solutions to make smarter
maintenance choices. Recently released
Cummins FleetguardFIT™ — Filtration
Intelligence Technology — revolutionises
conventional maintenance by enabling the key
decision makers to better predict downtime,
synchronise service events and optimise
maintenance spend.
FleetguardFIT is a real-time filtration
monitoring system that provides full visibility to
filter (fuel, lube and air) and oil life enabling
proactive problem detection through the use of
intelligent sensing and advanced data analytics.
MTU: Tier 4 engines are clean and
profitable
MTU argues that clean engines are good for the
environment – but also for profits in the mining
industry. And as well as being cleaner, the Tier 4
engine generation for mine vehicles uses far
less fuel than older engines. There is a common
belief that whilst ecologically sound engines
may be good for the environment, higher fuel
consumption makes them uneconomical. That is
simply wrong, says MTU. “Modern MTU Tier 4
mining engines are significantly more efficient
than their predecessors and that makes them
more cost-effective,” explained Ran Archer,
Sales Manager, Mining, at MTU. “Some Tier 4
engines even use just as little fuel as MTU’s
extremely frugal Tier 1 units,” he added. In the
USA, mining engines over 550 kW have been
subject to Tier 4 exhaust emissions regulations
since January 1, 2015. However, during a
transitional period extending to January 1, 2018,
the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is
permitting the use of Tier 2 or Tier 4 Interim
engines in mining vehicles. Despite this, many
mine operators have decided to skip this option
and move directly to MTU’s clean Tier 4 engines.
With annual fuel costs for a single large 400 ton
haul truck running at $1.5 million, that means
considerable cost savings. Fuel costs can make
up 80% or even 90% of a mine’s operating costs.
Reducing that bill has a major influence on
profits.
In many mines, production levels also depend
on emissions performance because permits to
extract raw materials are often coupled with
JULY 2018 | International Mining 25