Conveying a full resurrection

Resurrecting a disused mine brings up a raft of challenges.
Excavating coal from the mine’s walls is only part of the difficulties faced in modern underground mining.
Logistical constraints associated with transporting the material from the coal face to the surface –via an array of tunnels and shafts of various
sizes – dramatically impacts upon a mine’s overall production capacity.
In particular, the effectiveness of a conveyor system has a major impact on a project’s material handling capability.
On top of this, these bulk materials handling facilities need to be rugged enough to continuously operate in harsh underground conditions.
Gujarat NRE Coking Coal faced these problems when it was attempting to revive a closed down coal mine in New South Wales.
When Gujarat acquired the disused mine at Russell Vale, near Wollongong, it looked to leverage the latest advances in longwall mining technology to change what was previously an uneconomically viable coal mine into a profitable one.
It found that it had to engineer a completely new conveyor system to handle the mine’s forecast production levels.
For this it approached Ellton Conveyors.
The technology company was brought in to design, supply and install four conveyor systems for the mine.
To ensure the conveyors had the power to transport the materials, Ellton turned to SEW-Eurodrive for the drive unit assemblies.
According to Ellton Group’s managing director Mark Elliot the coal mine needed four new conveyor systems, each of which had to be powered
by two drive units.
To “get the mine back into production, we found it was necessary to install a comprehensive set of modern material handling and transfer equipment,” Elliot said.
“The four conveyor systems will carry all of the mined coal from the face right through to the mine portal access at ground level.”
Undertaking the task, SEW delivered eight identical drive units comprising of a motor, gear unit, fluid coupling and a drive base.
A Toshiba 700kW motor and a Voith scoop controlled TPKL-R fluid coupling were free-issued by Ellton for each drive unit.
SEW-Eurodrive also supplied its X-series foot-mounted bevel-helical gear units, rated
at 156kNm, as well as purpose designing the drive bases on which to mount each completed drive assembly.
Kris Jaryn, SEW’s industrial gears NSW product manager, said that it was necessary to closely match the gear unit to the motor and fluid coupling, and to customise this to meet Gujarat’s Russell Vale application demands.
“This project was unique due to the size of the equipment that is being used, and these are some of the largest gearboxes that SEW has supplied to the mining industry in Australia,” Jaryn said.
Each gear unit was supplied with steel axial fans and rigid couplings, and was then custom fitted with a Hydrac oil-level sight-glass as well as an oil
resistance temperature detector (RTD).
“The RTD allows the temperature inside the gearbox to be continually monitored,” Jaryn explained.
“This then enables a pre-programmed PLC to provide a warning signal if the gear units exceed a set temperature, which helps to ensure that they are always operating under optimal conditions.”
The drive bases for the complete drive assembly were designed in Melbourne and manufactured just north of the mine, in Sydney.
The drive units themselves, which weigh in at close to 14 tonnes each, were also assembled and laser aligned at the Sydney facility.
The first two drive units have already been completed and delivered to the Gujarat NRE Number One Mine at the Russell Vale site, where
Ellton proceeded to install them into the first of the site’s new conveyor systems.
“This conveyor was installed and commissioned without a hitch, and has now been running smoothly for a while now,” Jaryn said.
An additional two complete drive assemblies have also been delivered in preparation for the next phase of infrastructure installation.
The remaining drive units and conveyors will be brought to the site over the coming months as the conveyor systems need to be installed in line
with the development of the coal mine.
Elliot explained that they chose SEW as it provided a complete drive package solution, regardless of the size of the gear units required.
“For this project we needed a solutions provider that could supply suitably sized drive units to operate the large conveyors needed to meet Gujarat’s
requirements.
“These are seriously large drives for an underground application; there can’t be too many 700kW drive modules operating underground in Australia today,” he added.
The commissioning of the first new conveyor paves the way for installation of the remaining systems, as the mine finalises its preparations for full production.