Energy saving ideas for open pit mining
- Krupp Industrie-Und Stahlbau, Duisberg, Germany
The increasing cost of diesel fuel is making truck haulage in open pit mines less economic. Belt conveyor systems have much lower operating costs but are not as flexible in their application and require more detailed pit planning. The possibility of combining the flexibility of trucks with the low cost of conveyors is offered by the application of semi-mobile crushing plants followed by belt conveyors for the main haul out of the pit. In the first part of this article. Dr.-Ing W. Rixen describes some of the semi-mobile plants already in operation, while in the second section. Dr.-Ing K.J. Benecke discusses a theoretical case study involving trucks, crushers, and conveyors. Since a belt conveyor cannot transport rocks of a size often produced when blasting hard strata, a crusher must be installed before the belt conveyor to reduce the material to a transportable size. This also serves as a primary crusher. The crushing plant is positioned centrally in the mine and trucks haul overburden and ore from the individual faces to the crusher without having to climb long gradients. Therefore, truck haul distances and operating costs are significantly reduced. The resulting savings in operating costs greatly exceeds the additional capital costs for the crushing plant. The use of fully mobile crushers directly fed by the face shovel is well established. Whereas the partial elimination of truck haulage by semi-mobile in-pit crushers is a more recent development. This latter method restricts truck haulage to in-pit operation only, saving costly haulage of material up-grade out of the pit to the crusher or overburden dump. It is particularly applicable to operations where blending is required. In such cases, the flexibility and adaptability of trucks to frequently changing faces is essential, while the semi-mobile crusher reduces haul distances to a minimum.
- OSTI ID:
- 6182783
- Journal Information:
- World Coal; (United States), Vol. 7:4
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
BELT CONVEYORS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
SURFACE MINING
MINE HAULAGE
MINING EQUIPMENT
TRUCKS
COAL MINING
COAL PREPARATION PLANTS
CRUSHING
ECONOMICS
GRINDING MACHINES
NUMERICAL DATA
PLANNING
COMMINUTION
CONVEYORS
DATA
EQUIPMENT
HAULAGE EQUIPMENT
INDUSTRIAL PLANTS
INFORMATION
MACHINE TOOLS
MATERIALS HANDLING
MATERIALS HANDLING EQUIPMENT
MINING
TOOLS
VEHICLES
012000* - Coal
Lignite
& Peat- Mining
013000 - Coal
Lignite
& Peat- Transport
Handling
& Storage