Spotlight Feature Articles WEAR PARTS & GET | Page 2

WEAR PARTS & GET
Race for relining
Double tier concaves
can offer quick gains in
primary gyratory
relining, says Metso
Wear parts in mining get ever more advanced as alloys
improve but also as products become more application
specific, while new tech like 3D printing has much future
potential, reports Paul Moore
very part of the mining industry is being
taken into the future at a rapid pace, and
wear parts are no exception. 3D printing is
one area that is being looked at seriously, which
could transform the way high volume wear parts
are produced and supplied. IM spoke to 
Metso’s Sami Takaluoma, Head of Consumables,
who had this to say: “Metso uses large-scale 3D
printing to make for the foundry castings of
wear parts allowing customer specific wear part
production. A similar process is also applied in
Metso’s screening media manufacturing process
for specific customer needs – speeding up the
entire end-to-end process considerably. For the
customer, this means significant improvement in
delivery times and can have a value of millions,
for example if the missing part is causing a total
process standstill.”
But he adds that there is still work to be done:
“This is an indirect method of using 3D printing in
the manufacturing of consumables. Directly
printing consumables is still today unfeasible due
to the very high cost of 3D printing per
kilogramme. Only very small and highly mission
critical consumables could in special cases be
directly 3D printed using eg laser power bed fusion
– but generally there are not so many of such
consumables in the minerals processing plants.”
E
solutions, Hitachi-owned Bradken has
announced a new Innovation Centre that is now
officially open at its head office in Newcastle,
Australia. Chief Executive Officer Simon Linge
said the establishment of the Innovation Centre
was an important part of Bradken achieving its
vision to be a global leader in wear parts,
services and solutions for the resources sector.
“Our aim is to be a leader in this space and our
use of technology to develop future focused
solutions is what will set us apart,” Linge said.
“Right now we’re investing in ourselves with a
strong focus on Research and Development. Our
team is investigating ways our products can
best use technology and data capture (internet
of things – IoT) to give our customers safer and
more productive products, and with the opening
of the Innovation Centre, we now have a
dedicated space for this exploration to happen.”
Research and Development Manager Reece
Attwood was heavily involved in the planning
and preparation of the Innovation Centre. He
said the space incorporated a number of
different hands-on capabilities that would help
his team support the broader business with
their innovation goals.
“We know our customers are looking for
smarter more intelligent ways of running their
Bradken’s innovation centre
Designed as a space for collaboration,
exploration and the creation of future focused
International Mining | SEPTEMBER 2019
Bradken FS bucket on African Cat 6060 hydraulic excavator