IM 2021 July 21 | Page 76

MINING ENGINES
GHH Group claims to be one of the few OEMs in the mining space providing all its trucks , scalers and most of its loader offering with Tier 3 , Tier 4 Final and optional Stage V engine packages . At the same time , its drills , bolters and long hole production drills have electronically controlled Stage IIIA and Stage V engine packages available across the offering .
GHH Dump trucks and scalers currently meet the most stringent exhaust emission standards and have long been part of the product range . This includes the MK-A20 Stage V-equipped dump truck , delivered in early 2020 ; the MK-A35 , fitted with a Mercedes OM 470 ( with 320 kW output and DPF ) Stage V engine package that has been operating in the field since April 2019 ; and the MK-42 Stage V , operating since mid-2020 . A large fleet of LF-7.6HB Stage V scalers have also been successfully running at a mine in Europe since June 2019 .
GHH presented the LF-14 ( with Stage IIIA and IV engines ) as early as 2018 . Various technology developments have been realised in the new edition , including the Volvo TAD1381VE Stage V engine option since mid- 2020 . This 285 kW engine comes with SCR and DPF exhaust aftertreatment systems .
More GHH loaders are also available with Stage V engines , including the SLP-3H , SLP-14H , LF-8 and LF-12H ; with the SLP-8 and new LF-7 planned for Stage V engine implementation soon .
Additionally , all loaders and trucks with Stage V engine packages have the standard aftertreatment packages and built-in fire prevention solutions to reduce the risks of fire on the machines . The Stage V engine range delivers improved productivity , uptime and total cost of ownership due to extended service intervals , GHH says . This can result in fuel
GHH ’ s LF-14 LHD can be equipped with a 285 kW Stage V Volvo TAD1381VE engine using SCR and DPF exhaust aftertreatment systems
consumption reductions of , on average , 3-5 % compared with lower-stage engines .
As far as the GHH Group-owned Mine Master drill rig offering goes , the entire range is available with Stage III and optional Stage V engine packages . The FM2.3 is also currently being fitted with a Stage IIIB engine to suit specific customer requirements in Russia .
In addition to offering battery-electric options for Mine Master drills and bolters ( the FM1.7LE and RM1.8KE ), as well as the GHH LF-19EB loader , GHH Group is looking at using alternative energy sources like hydrogen through sister companies like FEST and Maximator .
DGB works by blending lower cost liquefied natural gas ( LNG ) with diesel fuel , bringing about a 30 % cut in emissions compared with diesel-only operation along with the associated cost benefits , according to Cat . It vaporises liquid fuel into natural gas , then replaces diesel fuel with LNG when possible . The solution is available on Cat 785C and 793D haul trucks .
Operations to have recently confirmed DGB trials include Centamin ’ s Sukari gold mine in Egypt and Gold Field ’ s Tarkwa gold mine in Ghana . The former will trial the technology on three or four its haul trucks this year , with the latter looking to trial DGB on four of the mine ’ s Cat 785C 146 t payload dump trucks . Cat has also joined forces with researchers at
Cat ’ s DGB technology works by blending lower cost liquefied natural gas with diesel fuel , bringing about a 30 % cut in emissions compared with diesel-only operation along with the associated cost benefits the US Department of Energy ’ s ( DOE ) Argonne National Laboratory to improve the fuel efficiency of heavy-duty diesel engines while minimising pollution to reduce energy consumption and ensure the sustainability of industries such as mining .
Taking advantage of Argonne ’ s highperformance computing resources , researchers have developed a potential piston design for Cat engines that could improve fuel efficiency while reducing harmful emissions , Argonne said .
The research was funded by DOE ’ s Advanced Manufacturing Office and Vehicle Technologies Office in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy , under the High Performance Computing for Manufacturing Program umbrella .
The team first created a framework to optimise combustion system design using a 3D computational fluid dynamics tool called CONVERGE , developed by Convergent Science Inc . Merging heat transfer and combustion data derived from CONVERGE models with environmental data on soot and nitrogen oxide production , the team then ran hundreds of highfidelity simulations to develop designs for piston bowls – the combustion chambers in diesel engines .
Using this method , they were able to identify several designs that had the potential to improve fuel efficiency while reducing emissions . Caterpillar created prototypes of the topperforming designs using additive manufacturing techniques to validate the model results .
“ By leveraging the supercomputing resources available at Argonne , we ran very detailed simulations and also got the results much more quickly , reducing the simulation time from months to weeks ,” Chao Xu , an Argonne Postdoctoral Appointee leading the simulation efforts , said .
One particularly promising piston bowl design improved the mixing process between fuel and air , with researchers finding it could reduce fuel consumption by nearly 1 %, a measurable improvement , while reducing soot by up to 20 %, Argonne reported .
“ The workflow we developed will benefit everyone ,” Sibendu Som , Manager of the
70 International Mining | JULY 2021