Held in early September in the central Finnish city of Tampere, the 2013 EuroMining exhibition provided a platform for a cross-section of Nordic suppliers to showcase their products and services. E&MJ visited the venue; these were just some of the companies participating there.
Allu Offers a Crushing Alternative
The Finnish company, Allu, focused on its innovative crushing system for soft rock that allows excavators and wheel loaders to act as their own crushing and screening plants while handling materials and loading trucks. The bucket itself contains a screen and crusher that rejects hard oversize while reducing softer materials in size.
Allu’s system allows wheel loaders and excavators to crush “in the bucket.”
The company’s managing director, Kauko Pylväs, told E&MJ that the system has been proving very successful in handling oil shale in Estonia, where the operation benefits financially from not having to transport harder limestone waste from the mine to the power plants. By rejecting a significant portion of the run-of-mine ore before it is loaded, the operator is able to save on taxes levied on mineral production, with the shale being delivered in a primary-crushed state, he said.
Hydraulically operated, Allu’s M Series processing buckets are designed to be mounted onto 50- to 130-mt class mining loaders and 60- to 200-mt mining excavators. Units are capable of handling up to 650 mt/h, the company said, with different processing drums available depending on the reduction size wanted.
Metso Features Filter Fabrics
One of the products featured on Metso’s stand, which was dominated by a Lokotrack mobile crushing unit, was the company’s range of filter fabrics. Metso claims to offer the most extensive range on the market, including fabrics for vertical plate pressure filters, tower press filters, horizontal belt filters, drum filters and vacuum disc filters.
The largest item on Metso’s stand, the Lokotrack LT120 mobile jaw crusher. (Photo by Simon Walker)
“All our filter fabrics are tailor-made for each filter type and designed for optimum productivity,” said Jani Hämäläinen, director of the company’s filtration technology unit. “We supply fabrics that match our customers’ requirements to the smallest detail, and provide the best filtration results, both technically and economically.”
For example, its VPA cloths, designed for use on vertical plate pressure filters, have a slippery surface that provides good cake release as well as an open structure that helps overcome blinding challenges. They are available in needled, monofilament or multifilament versions.
Meanwhile, Metso’s Intelligent Fabric Control system helps users to optimize fabric stock handling and to enhance preventive fabric maintenance by providing all the fabric information needed using a fabric recording system. This provides accurate up-to-date information on filter cloths’ performance, the number of cycles and the reason for removal.
Paakkola’s New High-angle Conveyors
“The Nordic mining sector is a good platform from which to grow,” Tommi Juntikka, CEO of Paakkola Conveyors, told E&MJ. While the company’s main market is here, it is currently building a new high-angle (36°) conveyor system for installation at the Russian steelmaker Severstal’s Olenegorsk iron-ore mine near Murmansk. “Using high-angle conveyors in an open pit helps to cut truck haulage costs and is better for the environment,” Juntikka said, adding that the equipment is scheduled for commissioning at the end of this year.
Other recent major contracts for the company have included the turn-key supply of 6 km of overland conveyors and the bridge stackers for the Talvivaara nickel mine in Finland, and equipment for a covered, 46,000-mt capacity ore-homogenization unit at Outokumpu’s Kemi chromite mine in the country. This is the first installation of its kind for ore rather than industrial minerals, Juntikka said, and allows Outokumpu to blend the feed for its chromite smelter so as to give better operational stability.
Doofor Introduces New Rock Drills
Specializing in supplying hydraulic rock drills to OEMs and retrofit markets, Doofor exhibited two new drills on its stand at EuroMining. The company’s managing director, Kalle Kuusento, explained that the new 20-kW (27.2 hp) DF560L drill has a bigger piston than the previous model, so is either more powerful or can do the same work with lower oil flow.
One of two new Doofor drills, the DF560L, shown here, is more powerful than its predecessor. (Photo by Simon Walker)
The DF560L is designed for underground production drilling and tunneling, and can handle hole diameters of up to 89 mm (3½ in.) with T45 or T38 shank adaptors. Both air and water flushing can be used. A key feature of its design is that it is only 188-mm high, so it can be used on close-fitting guides.
The other new product, the DF530S, is a 13-kW (17.4-hp) drill designed for holes up to 57 mm (2¼ in.) in diameter. The two machines weigh 152 kg and 77 kg (335 lb and 170 lb), respectively.
Abloy Offers Enhanced Security at Mines
Controlling access to equipment and plant areas can be a major headache for mines, especially when high-value systems or commodities are involved. Assa Abloy’s Protec2 Cliq helps to solve some of these issues by combining mechanical and electronic locking that can only provide access to authorized key-holders.
The company said although it is sophisticated, it is both easy to use and flexible, since keys can be programmed electronically—and remotely—from a central control unit. In this way, access can be allowed for specific periods of time, or to lock-out equipment to prevent it from being operated, for example. A single key can be programmed to operate different locks, so there is less chance of keys being lost or mixed up, while temporary access can be granted to contractors without compromising security in other parts of the plant.
Keys can be personalized for each user, and each use can be tracked, even in complex operations. In addition, Abloy padlocks are designed for use in severe conditions, and since the key is self-powered, they can be activated by encrypted coding—meaning that users do not have to go back to the office to get their keys authorized for a particular lock.
Fighting Machine Fires with Fog
Fogmaker International’s fire-suppression concept for mobile equipment offers a real alternative to traditional powder-based systems, company Managing Director Andréas Svensson told E&MJ. By using pressurized water that is discharged through fine nozzles if a fire is detected, the system creates a water-based fog that both cools the source of the ignition and displaces oxygen, starving the fire of two of its basic needs. In addition, the water contains low concentrations of a film-forming foam, which coats the fuel source and prevents it from gaining access to oxygen.
Since 1995, the company has installed more than 65,000 extinguisher systems on public transport, forestry, construction and mining vehicles. Its units can be found on mining machines made by Caterpillar, Atlas Copco, Terex, Liebherr, Paus and Normet, amongst others, as well as being specified by major mining companies such as LKAB and Boliden.
During trials with burning diesel fuel, the system reduced the burnt gas temperature from 870°C to 136°C in just 10 seconds, Fogmaker said, with major benefits including a lower risk of re-ignition and less damage to a vehicle’s engine compartment, cabling and pipework.
Sandvik Exhibits New Products
Having had its international customer day immediately beforehand, at which it launched new drills, underground trucks, and rock tools, and demonstrated the capabilities of its AutoMine automation systems, Sandvik took the opportunity provided by EuroMining to showcase some of these products on the largest stand at the show.
Sandvik’s DB120 is a self-contained secondary breaking unit for oversize rock. (Photo by Simon Walker)
Key equipment on display included one of the new TH551 mine trucks, first introduced at last year’s MINExpo in Las Vegas and now beginning customer deliveries. Surface drilling equipment was represented by one of the new Pantera D16400 DTH rigs, used for hole diameters of 115 mm to 203 mm (4½ to 8 in.) with a 45-m (150-ft) maximum hole depth.
Along with one of the company’s small development jumbos, the stand also showcased a DB120 self-contained secondary breaking unit, which uses drilling and splitting technology to break oversized rocks without blasting. Customers were also able to see firsthand the new RH460 DTH hammer, as well as the Alpha 330 range of rock-drilling tools, which, the company stated, can give longer rod, shank and coupling life as well as cutting drill-tool costs by 20%.
Workshop and Plant Doors
With trucks and other heavy equipment needing ever-larger maintenance workshops, the challenge of finding suitable doors to keep the weather out and fitters warm can be very real. And, with doorways getting bigger, there is always the question of just how heavy a set of doors can be before they begin to place unwanted loads on the whole building structure.
With its home in Nivala, Finland, Champion Door offers a range of folding doors to meet these requirements. Its NK2 Double is a two-ply, fold-up door that can be made in sizes of up to 28-m wide by 25-m high (92-ft × 82-ft), while its NK4 Warm adds a further two insulation layers to the basic structure to provide additional defenses against external cold. The standard maximum opening size in this case is 16-m × 20-m (52-ft × 66-ft), although wider doors can be installed by using elevating support posts that give extra strength. All its doors are designed to withstand violent wind, the company stated.
Water Treatment Solutions
The Finnish chemicals company, Kemira, manufactures flocculant and coagulant products used in a wide range of mineral-processing applications. The company states that it focuses on four “core ores”: copper, iron ore, gold and nickel.
It has products for in-process applications such as aggregate dewatering, coal-press dewatering, filtration, leach-process and pregnant liquor clarification, concentrate thickening, flotation depressants, gland-water clarification, and slimes handling, while its wastewater-treatment products are designed for use on applications such as tailing thickening and filtration, and paste thickening.
Weldmesh for Roof Support
Finland’s Tammet has worked with Swedish steelmaker Stena Stål to produce a range of welded steel mesh for use with rockbolts and shotcrete in mine roof and sidewall support applications. The mesh is made from a special grade of wire that is rigid but still flexible, allowing the sheets to follow the tunnel profile closely while installation is under way.
Sheets can be supplied with wire diameters of 5.5-mm to 8-mm, with mesh apertures of 50-mm to 250-mm. In addition, the company can supply sheets from 800-mm to 3,800-mm wide, and in lengths ranging from 800-mm to 12-m, as required by individual applications.
Maintaining Sumps and Ponds
Process-water and tailings ponds need regular maintenance, which usually involves silt removal to restore holding capacities and help keep water for recycling free from fines. Handling silt can be very challenging, while using tracked equipment in these situations can be hazardous. The Watermaster suction- and backhoe-dredger from the Finnish company, Aquamec, offers a self-contained solution to these problems, and is aimed at both contractors and mining companies.
Transportable in one piece on a flat-bed truck, the Watermaster is amphibious and can “walk” itself into the pond or sump to be cleaned. It can handle both cutter-pump and bucket-type silt removal, as well as having a boom-mounted rake for clearing vegetation and rubbish, and a piling hammer attachment for installing wooden piles for pond-edge stability. Propellor-driven in the water, it weighs around 18.5 mt and is equipped with a fill FOPS-compliant cab.
Aquamec noted that five Watermaster units were used recently at the Talvivaara nickel mine in Finland during the major project to restore the operation’s surface-water balance following unusually high rainfall.
