mining equipment

When people talk about mining equipment, many people immediately imagine giant excavators or conveyor belts. But in reality, especially at the enrichment stage, the key often becomes what is not so noticeable - separators, crushers, mills. And this is where the real difficulties begin. For example, for a long time it seemed to me that the main thing was productivity, tons per hour. Until, at one of the plants in Kuzbass, I encountered a situation where a new, seemingly perfect crusher produced the wrong granulometric composition, which is why the entire subsequent flotation chain worked at half capacity. I had to return to an old, proven, but less powerful unit. This gap between passport characteristics and real conditions is perhaps the most important thing that is rarely written about in catalogs.

Where theory diverges from practice

Let's take magnetic separators, for example. In theory, everything is simple: the ore moves, the magnetic field traps the ferromagnets. But in practice, not only the power of the field becomes critical, but also the design of the drum, resistance to abrasive wear, and the ability to quickly replace elements without stopping the entire line. I once observed how a line at a processing plant was idle for a week due to the fact that the bearing unit on the separator failed, and the design did not allow it to be replaced quickly. The designers apparently thought only about the separation process, forgetting about maintainability.

Or feeders. It would seem like the simplest unit. But the operation of the entire crushing and screening plant depends on its uniform supply. I saw options with vibrating feeders, which, due to constant load, lost the synchronization of vibrations after just a few months, and the raw materials began to arrive in spurts. This led to overloading of the crushers and frequent shutdowns. You always have to look at the margin of safety and ease of adjustment.

Here, by the way, it is worth mentioning the approach of some manufacturers. Here, for example,LONGI Corporation(website - https://www.ljmagnet.ru), which has been working in this field since 1993. Their description clearly states that they focus on the development and production of mining equipment. What’s interesting is that their history shows an evolution: from individual units to complex solutions. When a company is located in Fushun, has an area of ​​140,000 m2 and produces about 4,000 units per year, it leaves its mark. They cannot afford purely theoretical developments - the equipment must work in real mines and quarries. And judging by the fact that more than 60% of their employees are people with higher professional education, the emphasis is on engineering, and not just assembly.

Crushing business: not to break, but to grind optimally

Crushers are a different story. Jaw, cone, rotary - the choice is huge. But the key point that is often missed when purchasing is not the maximum size of the piece at the input, but the stability of the fraction at the output. I have seen many times how a cone crusher, which works ideally on granite, begins to produce over-grinded material on wetter iron ore. The reason is the adjustment of the eccentric and hydraulic system. This is not a defect, it is a feature that needs to be known and taken into account.

Another nuance is the wear of the armor. In some projects, resources are allocated based on calendar time, but this is fundamentally wrong. The resource depends on the abrasiveness, and sometimes the armor needs to be changed twice as often as written in the instructions. It’s good if the design allows you to do this in a shift, and not in three days with complete dismantling of the upper frame.

Here again I return to the issue of complexity. A manufacturer who only makes crushers may make them brilliantly, but he doesn't always have a deep understanding of what happens to the material before and after his unit. Therefore, the presence in the portfolio of a company of the sameLONGI Corporation, the entire range of equipment - from feeders and crushers to separators and enrichment complexes - this is not marketing, but often a necessity. Their engineers, when working on the separator, must understand what product the crushing section is delivering to them. This gives synergy.

Magnetic separation: the power is in the details

This is my favorite topic. The magnetic separator is the heart of many processing plants. And here the progress is obvious: from simple electromagnets to systems with permanent neodymium magnets. But again, the main problem is not to create a strong field, but to make it stable under conditions of vibration, temperature changes and constant exposure to abrasive dust.

I remember an incident at a factory for processing iron ore concentrate. We installed separators of a new design with high field strength. The first months are delightful, the extraction has increased. And then gradually it began to fall. It turned out that vibration from a nearby ball mill was slowly demagnetizing some sections of the permanent magnets. It was necessary to develop damping mounts and introduce regular field strength monitoring not once a quarter, but once a week. This is a typical situation where laboratory tests cannot simulate all factors on the shop floor.

It is in such highly specialized areas as the creation of magnetic systems that the accumulated experience is important. When you read that the company is the sameLONGI, began its journey with a scientific electromagnetic company, this explains a lot. The basis in electromagnetism apparently allowed them to develop in depth precisely magnetic separators, which are, apparently, their key product. Production of 4,000 units of equipment per year is a scale that allows us to work out and correct such “childhood diseases?” in the early stages.

Logistics and installation: what eats up the budget

Often when choosingmining equipmentthe main focus is on the price of the unit itself. And the cost of delivery, installation and commissioning can be another 30-50%. And there are subtleties here. For example, dimensions. Sometimes a more productive crusher is of such a size that in order to deliver it it is necessary to strengthen roads or dismantle part of the workshop wall. And an alternative, slightly less powerful model fits into a standard railway gauge and is installed faster. As a result, the overall economic efficiency may be higher for the second option.

Editing is a different matter. It’s good when the manufacturer not only supplies “hardware,” but also sends its specialists to supervise the installation. Or, at a minimum, it provides comprehensive 3D models and instructions that cover all the connections, from power cables to dust suppression systems. Lack of this information can result in weeks of downtime while local installers figure out how to get water to the shaft seal.

Large manufacturers that work for the international market usually work on this issue. If we take as an exampleLONGI Corporation, then their scale (1,200 employees, large production) suggests that they should have a design and project support department that deals with these issues - packaging, transportation, installation diagrams. For the buyer, this is no less important than the efficiency of the unit.

A look into the future: digital and reliability

Now everyone is talking about digitalization and “smart” factories. Yes, this is a trend. Vibration, temperature, wear sensors, predictive analytics systems - all this is gradually coming to the mining industry. But there is a huge risk here in relying on “smart filling?” at the expense of basic mechanical reliability. It is useless to have a state-of-the-art bearing condition monitoring system if the bearing itself and its seat are designed so that it fails once every six months. The number should not replace, but complement a competent engineering design.

Another point is unification. At some enterprises, the equipment fleet is a zoo of equipment from ten different manufacturers. This is a nightmare for the chief mechanic's service. Therefore, manufacturers are valued who can offer, if not the entire technological chain, then at least a line of units with standardized components - hydraulics, control systems, bearing units. This radically reduces the range of spare parts in stock and simplifies the training of repair personnel.

I think this is exactly what serious market players are heading towards. Not to make the cheapest piece of equipment, but to create a reliable, maintainable and, if possible, unified system. Experience like experienceLONGI, which is measured over decades (since 1993), allows us to accumulate a knowledge base about what breaks, how and why, and to incorporate this knowledge into new designs. Ultimately, it is this, and not advertising slogans, that determines whether the equipment will work for years in the harsh conditions of a quarry or mine, or become a source of constant problems.