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Innovative Conveyor Belt Changes Minimize

Production Downtime at Los Pelambres
By Torsten Lemm
Conveyor belts can do more than just transport unit loads or bulk cargo from point A to
point B. They form the backbone of efficient
production processes, particularly when
faced with current economic challenges
such as raw material shortages and synchronized global value-add chains. Conveyor
belts and conveying equipment are thus a
central influencing factor for companies'
competitiveness. To maintain their peak
performance over the long term, regular
maintenance is a must. Timely replacement
of worn components can effectively prevent
a sudden failure of the conveyor belt, but a
project at Chile's Los Pelambres copper ore
mine, however, demonstrates how an economic loss due to such failure can be avoided. There, two of the heaviest-duty conveyor
belts in the worldwith a total length of 23
km (14.3 miles)were replaced without
production disruption.
Conveyor belt systems nowadays form
an integral part of both raw material extraction and modern production. They optimize
transport routes, make complex logistics
processes more efficient and bridge short
or medium distances for transportation of
material. The demands on conveyor belts
can be many and high; in addition to high
expectations and requirements for conveying performance and load-carrying capacity, factors such as low wear and mainte-

nance costs and a high degree of production safety play an important role. From an
operator's standpoint, a major goal is to
have conveyor belts run as efficiently as
possible over a long service life and avoid
downtime to the greatest possible extent.
Each industrial sector assesses the
characteristics of conveyor systems differently. Conveyor belts in the raw materials
industry, for example, need extremely high
levels of tensile strength and operational
safety as well as extreme resistance to wear
to be able to cope with the load caused by
the transported materials over long distances. To meet differing operator requirements, custom-made and flexible system
solutions are required, matched to the particular location, type of use and range of
tasks involved, and to the repair or maintenance of these systems.
For conveyor systems used in raw material extraction applications, the belt and
other components must be changed after a
certain operating time. Conveyor systems
used in opencast mining are exposed to
particularly difficult conditions that affect
the structure of the belt and limit its life
expectancybut extraction of natural
resources, often in areas that are geographically exposed, is currently very lucrative. High demand from economically
emerging nations and the resulting scarci-

ty of certain resources and associated price

increases are transforming conveyor-system projects that only a few years ago were
classed as unprofitable, again attractive.
In many of these instances, the materials and equipment used are often exposed
to extreme temperatures, higher levels of
insolation (solar radiation exposure) or high
humidity levels. With the help of specialists who have the necessary know-how and
knowledge, professional maintenance and
trouble-free exchange of worn components
such as conveyor belts, drive and redirector
drums and carrier rollers can be guaranteed. Even large conveyor belts that run
round-the-clock, are kilometers long, or
carry particularly heavy materials can be
successfully exchanged using proven techniques and innovative approaches.
An example of this is the recent
replacement of two conveyor belts at
Antofagasta PLC's Los Pelambres copper
ore mine, located in Chile's Coquimbo
Region, 240 km northeast of Santiago.
This opencast mine lies in the Andes at an
altitude of 3,300 m (10,800 ft). More
than 8,000 mt/h of copper ore are transported by steel-cord conveyor belts to a
site at 1,800 m altitude for further processing. This arrangement involves downhill transport gradients of up to 10% for
the conveyors.
Together with the mine operator, REMA
TIP TOP developed an approach that would
enable replacement of both conveyor belts
without extended downtime, the goal being
to keep production losses to a minimum
during the maintenance work.
"The normal method of changing a belt,
making a splice and pulling it in roll by roll
would have meant downtime of over nine
weeks," said Jan Severing, reliability engineer at REMA TIP TOP. "Taking into
account the copper price then of at least
$6,000 per mt, an immense production loss
of around $250,000 an hour threatened."

To keep production loss as low as possible, a REMA TIP TOP team created a
technical solution that permitted both
belts to be simultaneously exchanged in
parallel with the running operation.
Both old belts were replaced by new
Shown here is the ptiysical setup devised tor fabrication and exchange ot large conveyor belts at the Los Pelambres
copper mine. Visible are the replacement belt loops and the vulcanization table mounted on steel scaffolding.
ones directly on site. In the first phase.

128 E&MJ DECEMBER 2011

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World
Mining Eqmipment
PROCESSING

SOiLUTIONS

proved procurement processes, increased

efficiency of the construction schedule and
operational readiness.
"We have been working elosely with
Intergraph over the past four years to develop SmartPlant 3D Materials Handling,
whieh automates the design of eonveyor
systems and transfer chutes to enable bulk
materials industries to rapidly and easily
create or expand faeilities," said Denis
Hamel, global engineering manager at
SKM. "We deeided to expand our use of
Intergraph solutions beeause we can leverage the advanced, next-generation technology of the integrated SmartPlant Enterprise
suite for mining and metals projects, and
optimize project delivery."
SmartPlant Enterprise offers a portfolio
of design and data management solutions,
enabling companies to capture integrated
engineering knowledge at the enterprise
Thirteen-worker crews were assigned to each conveyor belt exchange. A crew is shown here positioning and fixing
level. According to Intergraph, SmartPlant
the belt loops for vulcanization and installation.
Enterprise's integrated solutions allows
proven productivity gains, improving engimachines, but here, the fitters were actuhalf of the belt length was vulcanized
neering efficiency by up to 30%.
together for each belt. The kilometer-long ally even faster than using a crane."
belt loops made in this way were positioned in pits made for this purpose and
later attached to the existing belt. This
process was then repeated for eaeh second belt half.
A smoothly progressing sequence of
steps is necessary in critical projects such
as this that directly affect production operation; accordingly, and taking into account
the weight of around 44 mt per belt length
and the length of the splice, 13 people
were permanently assigned to each belt.
By having trained personnel operate in two
shifts, and through the high degree of work
efficiency and the use of state-of-the-art
materials and tools, both conveyor belts
were simultaneously and successfully
exchanged. The specialist team worked on
the Los Pelambres project from October
2010 to March 2 0 1 1 .
"In addition to the requirements
regarding quality and work proteetion, the
effieieney of the work processes was also
right at the top of the priority list for this
project," said Michael Labb, REMA TIP
TOP Latin America Spa.
"This meant that we had to find and
use tools and machines that were state-ofthe-art for time-consuming work such as
rubbing down of cover plates, stripping and
brushing off the steel cord or filling of
steel-cord interstices. The assembly/
vulcanization process, howeverwith 10
heating plates and 48 beamscould not
be accelerated through the use of

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The Los Pelambres projeet illustrates

that, for the maintenanee of eonveyor systems, flexible approaehes tailored to the
area of use are required. A relatively high
work and materials effort in situations such
as this can quickly provide a good return,
because the produetion proeess is subjeeted to only short conveyor system downtime
periods that are carefully planned.

Metso to Supply Filtration

Equipment to TISCO

Metso said it will supply filtration equipment to Taigang Group Lanxian Mining Co.
Ltd. (TISCO), the largest stainless steel
manufacturer in China, with delivery
scheduled for the first quarter of 2012. The
value of the contract was not disclosed.
The order comprises seven units of verTorsten Lemm is sales and product line man- tical plate pressure filters, wear and spare
parts, as well as services related to instalager-industrial, for REMA TIP TOP GmbH.
lation, start-up, commissioning and technical supervision. The pressure filters,
SKM Chooses Intergraph
Metso's model VPA2050, are medium
SmartPlant Software
pressure-type units operating in the range
Engineering and project-delivery company
of 6-10 bar. These filters are based on the
Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) has selected
"air through-blow" dewatering concept,
Intergraph's SmartPlant Enterprise solutions to configure integrated engineering whereby water is displaced by air as it
passes through a filter cake. Typieally, they
and project delivery capability for its cusare used to filter metallic minerals, industomers in the mining and metals industries.
trial minerals, coal and tailings.
SKM selected the integrated suite of
SmartPlant Enterprise solutions, including
The equipment is for concentrate filtering
SmartPlant 3D Materials Handling Edition,
for TISCO's Yuanjiacun iron ore processing
SmartPlant Foundation, SmartPlant Instruplant in Lan county, Shanxi province. The
mentation, SmartPlant Materials, Smartplant is expected to start operation in May
Plant Electrical and SmartPlant P&ID.
2012 with a daily processing capacity of
22,000-23,000 tons of iron ore concentrate.
Intergraph said it is working closely
with SKM to build additional functionality
The Yuanjiacun plant is designed to
into the solution suite specifically for minprocess 22 million tons of raw iron ore per
ing and metals and project delivery in genyear. When completed, Yuanjiacun will be
eral. This is intended to provide an intethe largest iron ore processing plant in
grated project delivery capability for the
China. TISCO is among the world's largest
sector, which will enable SKM's clients to
producers of stainless steel. In 2010, the
achieve enhanced quality of design, imcompany's net sales were 11.7 billion.

DECEMBER 2011 E&MJ 129

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