Steve Davis discusses Australia’s bulk handling sector, highlighting the advancements the industry has made and the organisations that are providing local innovations and expertise.
I have been based in Australia for more than 25 years and involved in materials handling for many projects in many countries in this time. I am a supporter of local buying and pleased to see that Australia has some of the best bulk handling products and systems available in the global marketplace.
We have the best safety standards and protocols available in mining and bulk handling. These standards are seen in most Australian operations, and around the world where Australian developed and managed operations exist. We have many products and processes that have been developed to improve operations and maintenance and to protect the environment.
Australian Standard 1755 first developed in 1975, upgraded in 1986 and 2000 and now part of the 4024.3600 Safety of Machinery series gives excellent guidance on the safe conveyor design. Current Worksafe and OHS Regulations ensure the application of the Standard by ensuring ownership of liability rests with everyone involved. If you are involved in conveyor design, you must understand and apply this Standard. Many Australian developments offer a safety benefit from the manual handling aspect, and others provide more general operation and maintenance safety benefits. These might be the solution to the mandate to reduce risk to the lowest reasonably practical level as required in the OH&S regulations.
Australian Standard 4324.1 provides the best structural design guidance for the larger toys in the bulk handling arsenal; rail mounted stackers, reclaimers, shiploaders and unloaders. The Standard requires sensible input to design parameters, and critically, demands an independent structural audit of the design before construction. We have excellent engineers to complete the audits, including Aspec, SIE and Logan Engineering. Notably, we do not have machines in Australia that fail structurally if the Standard is applied correctly.
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Many of our other Standards, some of which are also mandatory, cover specifics in design of most bulk handling systems, and if used well will lead to safer and easier to maintain equipment.
Australia has been at the forefront of the bulk handling world for over fifty years. We have many suppliers that provide solutions and innovations to improve bulk handling systems. We have suppliers that improve performance, that provide an expectation of much longer life, better manual handling, and access for maintainers.
Why install painted steel fabricated guard systems, many of which are heavy, don’t retain shape and are difficult to remove and install when we have Australian manufacturers of self-coloured and purpose designed HDPE guard systems that meet Standards. H&B mining, Dyna and Diacon are showing the way. These guards are lightweight and have design features to assist removal and replacement.
Why use basic fabricated access doors when purpose designed doors are available from suppliers such as Bendtech? These doors have good hinges and latches that don’t bend, seize or fail and include secondary safety mesh to protect personnel from fly-rock.
Are you still using old school heavy steel idlers with basic bearing and seal arrangement, poor balance and high noise? These can fail in many ways and most are too heavy for one man to lift. Talk to PROK, CPS or RMK to see the range of plastic, composite and hybrid rolls that are available. These are much lighter, better balanced and have much better seal arrangement and fabrication methods than the older styles.
When it comes to conveyor design provision for idler change look to Techmine for their lightweight load rated systems that are adapted to the conveyor design.
There are several types of retractable idler frame available, but H&B mining have developed this into a fully integrated system including guards, skirts and skirt boxes with ability to adjust skirt liners externally. In addition, they have a range of single side slide out frames for general application for any conveyor. Using Mobile Elevating Work Platforms or scaffolding for conveyors with single walkway access could become unnecessary with a significant safety benefit.
High quality conveyor belting is manufactured locally to Australian Standards by Conti-Tech and Fenner Conveyors. Both manufacturers have in depth support nationwide, with global access to their other facilities for a wider range of belting for unusual or special duty.
We have some interesting condition monitoring technologies developed in Australia. Vayeron provide full wireless monitoring of individual idler roll condition. DXTA wirelessly monitors individual idler frames and hence idler roll condition. Mining3 has developed a system that uses a fibre optic cable to monitor the idlers and pulleys on a conveyor. Beltscan has systems that continuously monitor the conditions of the belt on a conveyor.
Australia has expertise in wear liners and three local manufacturers, Alloy Steel arcoplate, Bisalloy and Bradken, provide a wide range of well proven wear liners. Bradken provides a full service of wear liner design, fabrication and installation. Bradken also have wear liner remote monitoring. Both Davies Wear Plate Systems and Bradken have single sided wear liner fixing systems which allow installation from outside of chutes and other lined equipment.
I must give kudos to our bulk material testing gurus at TUNRA and BMEA. The services provided in assessing bulk flow and other properties should be mandatory for any bulk storage or bulk flow system. There are many examples where lack of this information has led to chutes, bins and hoppers that don’t work as well as expected or at all from guesswork.
Both TUNRA and BMEA offer guidance and assessment of designs. TUNRA provides regular courses and workshops to further knowledge in our industry.
TUNRA has developed a novel troughed conveyor system, the Rail Running System, that is worth considering as an option for new installations. The belt is supported on frames that run along rails, and energy consumption is lower than idler supported belts. ThyssenKrupp will build the first of these in 2023.
Transmin developed the Low-Profile Feeder, which provides a robust and flexible low height minimum spillage option compared to apron and belt feeders and does this in a smaller space with the benefit of being able to change from horizontal to incline in profile. Transmin also manufacture large horizontal isolation gates for bin and hopper outlets. These devices mean that spile bars, rod gates and similar cumbersome and often ineffective manual isolation can be avoided.
Gulf Conveyor Systems are at the forefront of transfer chute design, amongst other things. Having developed the concept for hood and spoon style chutes almost 40 years ago they have moved on to a more effective StallFlow methodology and provide fully integrated chutes designed for ease of access and maintenance
Control Systems Technology are synonymous with the biggest and best in belt weighing. If accurate weighing is a requirement, from a system that is robust, there is no better guidance for this poorly understood aspect of bulk handling than CST. If ultimate accuracy is not required, the new Intelliroll self-powered wireless weigher in an idler roll offers a new approach in a simple installation that can be read on a mobile device.
Two Australian companies, Rotainer and Doric, have developed different systems for containerised bulk handling. These machines allow mine or plant to ship transport in covered containers, which is ideal for rail or road transport of dusty or hazardous bulk materials and where the container can be unloaded in the depth of the ship’s hold.
A-Ward, based in New Zealand provides a range of container tilting machines that allow stuffing and emptying of end loading containers with bulk materials.
Kinder Australia has been supplying various conveyor components for over 30 years and offers a wide range of wear, chute sealing and belt cleaning products and a wide range of accessories for conveyors.
Mideco, with its Burnley baffle devices provide excellent dust control over rail and road discharge hoppers.
DSH manufacture dust reducing free fall hoppers for dry bulk materials. These can replace telescopic chutes and have lighter weight and no moving parts.
I have focused on Australian organisations, and doubtless missed many who are worthy of mention.
There are other suppliers of innovative and beneficial methods and systems many of which are available in Australia. I encourage Australian designers and operators to look to the innovators in Australia for better and safer systems rather than continuing with dated concepts and poor safety considerations.