FUELS & LUBRICANTS
any change under consideration.
“Upon completion of the trial, the mine’s
supply chain team has third party, statistically
significant data upon which to base its
procurement decision. The supplier, if successful
upsells a customer and gains a powerful
reference and marketing tool. As a whole, the
industry benefits with access to the tools needed
to differentiate premium petrochemicals from
snake oil.”
Fuel tank maintenance
Blutip fuel meters on a Caterpillar haul truck. Its
SmartRView platform enables operators of high
horsepower diesel equipment to precisely
quantify the production and efficiency impacts
attributable to specific changes under
consideration
Blutip Technologies Corp points out that the
relentless pursuit of improved fuel efficiency and
lower operating costs has spurred rapid growth
in the marketing of ‘enhanced’ fuels and
lubricants. These formulations, additised with
detergents, stabilisers and corrosion inhibitors
are offered by most if not all leading
petrochemical suppliers and many lesser known
distributors.
“Efficiency impact claims vary tremendously
by product from the absurdly outlandish to the
undetectably conservative, while mining supply
chain professionals are left to sort it all out. Test
results supporting efficiency claims attributable
to these novel formulations are often presented
during the sales process, but most commonly
derive from laboratory testing or over-the-road
trucking trials. The decision to move forward with
an increased fuel or lube expenditure based on
the promise of reduced consumption is therefore
hampered by the risk that mining equipment will
not yield a similar benefit. The marketplace has
suffered with purchasers lacking trust, and real
innovation being undermined by bad actors.”
To combat the scepticism on the part of the
mines, large petrochemical companies have
begun offering in-service petrochemical trials to
large and strategic customers that demonstrate
the incremental value of their products. Blutip
Technologies specialises in high accuracy diesel
consumption measurement for the mining sector
and has seen steadily increasing interest in these
engagements.
“We have heard time and again from mining
companies that they are unwilling to base
procurement decisions on vendor supplied
laboratory results…suppliers have begun to step
up by funding in-service trials with the mines
facilitating the execution and allowing
International Mining | JULY 2019
publication of the findings,” Kevin Dagenais –
CEO Blutip Technologies, told IM.
Mining petrochemical trials are typically
executed in three phases. In the first phase, the
entire population is equipped with high accuracy
fuel measurement instrumentation. Blutip
Technologies uses proprietary ruggedised
positive displacement fuel meters and builds
models predicting fuel consumption in terms of
payload, ramp grade, vertical travel, distance
over ground, operator ID and other relevant
parameters. Once these models have converged,
half the population is reconfigured with the fuel,
lubricant or additive under examination. The
second phase, if necessary, is observed to ensure
that the full impact of the petrochemical
enhancement has been realised.
In the third and final phase, the fuel efficiency
modelling is repeated with the unchanged
population serving as a control for the
reconfigured assets. A co-efficient proportional
to the impact of the new petrochemical is
established along with error bands and
confidence levels in the result. Interestingly,Nthe
same approach can be applied to evaluate nearly
AXI International says it is disrupting the fuel
maintenance industry with a slew of new
technologies that simulate, improve, and
measure tank cleaning effectiveness. Through
the use of powerful software, the company says
it can now simulate the cleaning efficiencies of
their fuel polishing systems on different fuel tank
designs.
With these simulations, AXI says it has
solidified claims that its patent pending
technology, Multi-Point Flow Path, dramatically
increases flow velocity and tank cleaning
coverage in base/belly tanks compared to
traditional fuel polishing configurations.
To take things a step further, the company has
also begun integrating particle counters on their
systems to provide real-time data regarding fuel
cleanliness to international cleanliness standards
(ISO 4406).
“Combined, these technologies bring AXI to
forefront of the fuel maintenance industry by
inspiring data driven design and producing data
backed results” says Jeff Poirier, COO.
Traditional fuel polishing configurations
feature a single point of pick-up to pull fuel into
the polisher and a point of return to transport the
newly clean fuel back to the tank. The mining
industry has considered this best practice for
maintaining fuel cleanliness.
AXI International hypothesised and later
AXI International’s Multi-Point upgrade adds multiple pickup and return points to increase the number
of flow paths, average flow velocity, and total cleaning coverage in any given fuel storage tank