MINING TRUCKS
The price of payload
From hybrids to
all electric
trucks and the
latest
maintenance
analytics
technology, Paul
Moore takes his
annual look at
the mining dump
truck market
or now the main news in mining trucks
remains ongoing retrofits to autonomy, the
most recent announcement of which saw
Fortescue update the market that conversion to
autonomous haulage continues to progress with
55 trucks converted at Christmas Creek,
bringing the total autonomous fleet to 112, with
the conversion at Cloudbreak to commence
shortly. Once completed, Fortescue says it will
be the first iron ore operation globally to have a
fully autonomous haulage fleet.
Experience in autonomy is also spreading. As
I write this article I am in China on the last leg of
my tour of Chinese OEMs. Market leader here
Inner Mongolia North Hauler (NHL) in Baotou
has already built an autonomous electric drive
truck of 110 t class (by the way the most popular
truck class in China), the NTE120AT, which it
exclusively told IM will be starting trials at an
iron ore operation this year. Competitor and
number two in the domestic market XEMC says
it too is working on an autonomous mining
truck, which it expects to complete over the next
two years.
In Russia, VIST Group (a subsidiary of ZYFRA
Group) has successfully tested its new autonomous
truck in operations under extreme temperatures
from -50°C to +50°C. The autonomous truck,
based on the BELAZ-7513R, has demonstrated
that it can operate normally in extreme temperatures
and was trialled in Khakassia at the Abakanskiy
coal mine of SUEK. A commissioning ceremony
is expected in August 2019.
During a test drive, the truck operated for 24
hours and completed 468 working cycles,
F
International Mining | MAY 2019
The autonomous world is getting
bigger in terms of number of
machines but also the size, this
shows the first autonomous 980E
to be deployed in mining, in this
case by dealer SMS Equipment in
the oil sands
covering a distance of 153 km without human
intervention. The main purpose of the test drive
was to check whether the autonomous system
could overcome the problems caused by snow
interfering with its radar and LiDAR systems.
The test drive demonstrated that all systems
can operate error-free. VIST says the updated
BELAZ-7513R robotic dump truck compares
favourably with earlier models thanks to the
introduction of a new generation of intelligent
control systems.
But autonomy is not the only party in town.
At the hugely successful IM conference The
Electric Mine in Toronto recently, both Siemens
and GE Transportation said they were in
development of both hybrid diesel/battery
electric trucks, with additional programs for all
electric battery trolley and off trolley trucks.
Detailed research and studies have been done
on both.
In China, NHL has already built a 35 t hybrid
truck with diesel engine and battery, seen by
IM, to save on fuel costs while XEMC says it is
building a hybrid 110 t truck which will trial in
2019 or 2020 at Zhungeer, China’s giant open pit
coal mine in Inner Mongolia, where most
Chinese trucks have their day in the sun.
Back to Siemens and GE. In the Siemens
version, the power is collected from a DC
overhead line by means of two pantographs as
usual to a trolley control box, but additional
control devices apply the correct power to the
AC drive motorised wheels and battery. Siemens
says it has carried out detailed simulations from
real mine profiles and proven the readiness of
the LTO battery for mining applications as well
as investigating various all electric drives across
its mobile mining product platforms. For the
hybrid option, keeping the engine but adding a
battery, Siemens has found a 10% higher capital
cost but 1.5 year ROI due to 10% productivity
increase and decrease in overall fleet size plus a
13% reduction in lifetime costs and a 19%
reduction in fossil fuels. For the all electric
trolley option, there is a +58% capital cost and
three year ROI plus addition of trolley
infrastructure...but a 16% productivity increase,
and much reduced fleet size plus a 32% decrease
in lifetime costs and 100% diesel fuel elimination.
Dr Bappa Banerjee, General Manager Mining
Equipment at GE Transportation, a Wabtec
Company, told The Electric Mine that “There are
a number of ways electrication can be
implemented on a truck. A simple application
can be the addition of batteries to supplement
the diesel engine. The battery would capture
retarding energy and would also act as a battery
boost during propel. The larger implementation
would be to eliminate the engine altogether.
This would require a larger battery and also a
charging mechanism. This off board charging
system could either be trolley, which would
allow charging while the truck is moving along
the haul road. Or, it could be stationary, with the
truck parked.” A study was completed for a 240
t truck to evaluate the performance of the full
electric vehicle compared to the baseline diesel
only truck and a diesel truck with a small 200
kWh hybrid system. Two versions of fully
electric systems were considered, the first