Employing a Surge Feeder working in tandem with a Mobile Sizing Station, open-pit miners could soon realize the continuous mining benefits of in-pit crushing, while using the existing truck fleet for haulage
Professionals in mineral processing know the MMD name and associate it with the sizer technology it introduced almost 40 years ago. More recently, the company has been finding more uses for its large sizers in the pit. They have recently launched two new pieces of equipment that could revolutionize truck-shovel mining, the Mobile Sizing Station and the Surge Feeder.
About 12 years ago, MMD built an apron feeder for a Colombian coal operation that accepted loads directly from a dragline. It proved too robust enough to process the overburden and load the haul trucks. More recently, MMD installed a semimobile in-pit sizer and conveyor (IPSC) at a Chinese mine. Now they have combined the experience from both of those operations to build a system that lets the shovel dig continuously.
