Abstract
Declining ore grade, leading to increased material transport and plant throughout requirements, is one of the major challenges in the current mining environment. This is accompanied by rising energy and labour costs, decreasing plant productivity and the requirement for highest plant availability. Siemens' answer is the latest gearless drive technology for grinding and conveying. Gearless drive solutions are surpassing the mechanical limits of conventional drive systems serving to utilize the principal of economies of scale. By elimination of various components of the drive train the maintenance activities and spare parts inventories are reduced. The advantages are culminating in the incomparable availability of the Siemens gearless drive technology of 99.46 to 99.71% - as confirmed by real operational data from the Antapaccay mine in Peru. It was the first plant worldwide to use gearless drives for both applications.
This paper was first published in the proceedings of the 46th Annual Canadian Mineral Processors Operators Conference in Ottawa, January 21-23, 2014, pp 15-27. The paper may be downloaded in full with the generous permission of the authors.
CMP2014_Increasing Availability through Advanced Gearless (002)