Project
It is one of the biggest single build refrigeration system projects in the South
African mining industry – at least for the last 10 years . here is on longevity . “ It is a brand-new shaft system on the mine , so a good life-of-mine with plant to last 50 years or so was the prerequisite . Another main challenge was the mine ’ s service water chemistry . The available service water supply comes from underground with all its dissolved salts and such . If you put that through chiller heat exchangers , the risk is of corrosion , so the heat exchanger tube material was a concern . We settled on using a copper nickel heat exchanger material , which is the de facto standard in the mining industry . Other exotic materials are available ; however these come with a price tag that must be considered .
“ The existing plant on the mine has that same spec and has had corrosion issues due to the aggressive service water – and a fair amount of maintenance has had to be done on the old machines over the years . We recognised this and so looked at other materials , in particular titanium to see if it ' s worth the additional capital and
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RACA Journal I May 2023 www . refrigerationandaircon . co . za