Roller changeouts are a major challenge in the mining conveyor space. PROK shares its newest PROK HDPE roller featuring a wear indicator layer to simplify maintenance requirements.
A lot of time, money and manpower is invested to keep a conveyor system running efficiently. A big part of this is dedicated to monitoring and changing out conveyor rollers.
Mining companies are faced with the task of changing out dozens of rollers on any given day, and sometimes this is done without knowing whether the roller has reached the point of potential failure.
What if there was a solution that provided maintenance teams with a better of understanding of how much wear the roller has experienced?
Understanding wear
Currently it is very difficult to know how much, and the type of wear that a roller has experienced.
Excessive wear can be an indicator of up-stream conveyor issues such as excessive carry-back or burden overflow.
In particular, return rollers are exposed to high levels of carry-back (dirty side of the belt) resulting in excessive wear, which is the second most common failure mode for return rollers after poor sealing.
Predictive maintenance to reduce costs
Adopting effective predictive maintenance strategies allows teams to anticipate impending failures and plan accordingly, in turn reducing costs.
Predictive maintenance when applied to roller changeouts reduces the need for unscheduled shutdowns. Knowing the appropriate time to schedule in a shutdown or roller changeout has huge benefits for mining companies.
Another benefit is reduced damage to the belt, as maintenance teams can execute maintenance tactics prior to failure.
World first wear indicator technology
PROK has introduced new visual wear indicator technology to the market which assists mining companies to improve their maintenance planning.
The original PROK yellow tube combines with a green inner layer to act as a visual wear indicator for maintenance teams so they can better plan their roller changeouts.
This innovative feature will help mining companies to simplify idler maintenance and reduce costs.
The co-extruded HDPE tube changes colour after five millimetres of wear, allowing maintenance and scheduling teams the ability to identify worn rollers, localised wear and in turn upstream conveyor issues such as excessive carry-back or burden overflow contacting the roller.
The visual indicator enables the implementation of intelligent scheduling strategies. It provides indications of potential problematic areas should a roller wear quickly and show the wear indicator.
Lightweight and belt friendly
Incorporating a lightweight roller is important for ease of changeouts, significantly reducing health and safety risks associated with manual handling heavy steel rollers.
PROK HDPE on average is 40 per cent lighter than steel alternatives, meaning maintenance personnel can quickly and safely execute roller change outs.
The non-metallic HDPE tube also significantly reduces the likelihood of excessive damage to the belt when a failure does occur, meaning less interruptions to production and unscheduled downtime.
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