Energy efficient drives for the mining industry
Fourth Quarter 2020
Electrical switching & drive systems & components
The mining and minerals industry presents some of the most challenging environments for production. Mine sites, mineral processing facilities, associated stockyards, and ports facilities are large-scale and often in remote locations. The industry is a major consumer of energy and is responsible for more than 40% of total industrial energy use in this country. In sub-Saharan Africa almost 50% of energy-intensive users in South Africa are the mines.
The fundamentals of AC variable frequency speed drive technology remain, but many elements are rapidly changing towards a more sustainable and environmentally friendly mining future. Increasingly, software is embedded in today’s mine processing components, offering new functionalities and enabling the AC drive to play a larger role in the processing plant.
“Conventionally, motors run at a fixed speed, regardless of actual output requirement, wasting a tremendous amount of energy. Energy output use can be reduced by 60% by controlling motors with electrical variable speed drives,” says Stephen Brown, mining accounts and business development manager, Turkey, Middle East and Africa, for Danfoss Drives.
New motor types are appearing, placing additional demands on motor-drive control. This in turn means that the AC drive needs to be able to control an expanding variety of motor types, without burdening the end user with more complexity. In addition, new energy efficiency requirements lead to more variable speed applications.
There are AC drives designed for the needs of mining and mineral processing plants, coping with extreme conditions, heavy loads and controlling equipment installed a long distance away. No matter how well the plant design has been optimised, there is always a way to drive down costs even further. AC drives are used extensively for this purpose, extending equipment lifetime, optimising processes, reducing maintenance and saving energy costs.
All Danfoss drives greater than 90 kW incorporate a back-channel cooling design, with separate cooling paths between these two paths or the power components, control electronics and an IP54 seal. This back-channel cooling removes approximately 85-90% of the power loss directly through the heatsink, leaving only 10-15% of the total loss dissipated in the switch room.
Consideration has to be given to the outside air quality. If it is suitable, the heatsink cooling fans with appropriate mounting and ducting, and filtered external air at temperatures of up to 50°C, can be used to exhaust approximately 85-90% of the heat loss from these variable speed drives (VSD) directly outside the switch room, without affecting the switch room pressurisation. The switch room air conditioning system only needs to be sized for the remaining 10-15% of losses. Utilising this feature can dramatically reduce the air conditioning requirements of the switch rooms and provide significant project cost savings compared to VSDs without such a design feature.
In response to this need for energy efficient technology, Danfoss South Africa presented a series of informative webinars in October, geared towards mining engineers, specifiers, buyers, mining houses and investors. These interactive webinars enabled mining experts and learners to think differently about their current energy usage and how the right drives can enable energy cost savings.
Further reading:
Understanding standby, prime and continuous gensets
WEG Africa
Electrical switching & drive systems & components
The increasing reliance of South African businesses on generator sets to mitigate power disruptions highlights a crucial need for proper selection based on specific operational demands. Despite their growing usage, there is still widespread confusion about how to choose the appropriate genset, often leading to inefficient and costly decisions.
Read more...
PC-based control for advanced hydrogen storage technology
Beckhoff Automation
Editor's Choice Electrical switching & drive systems & components
The proportion of renewable energies from solar, wind and water is rising continuously. However, sufficient storage options are of the essence to use these energies as efficiently as possible. GKN Hydrogen offers a particularly compact and safe option, low-pressure metal hydride hydrogen storage systems with PC-based control from Beckhoff.
Read more...
Axiom reaches new heights
Axiom Hydraulics
Editor's Choice Electrical switching & drive systems & components
When Rula Bulk Handling could not source a cable tensioner large enough for a new cableway, the engineers knew they had to come up with an inventive solution. After discovering that no such tensioner was immediately available, Rula approached Axiom Hydraulics and ifm to assist with building their own.
Read more...
Local range of planetary units
SEW-EURODRIVE
Electrical switching & drive systems & components
s SEW-EURODRIVE South Africa actively extends its offerings to customers, the SEW PPK and SEW P2.e industrial gearbox ranges are good examples of solutions that are well suited to the local business environment.
Read more...
At least 60 million strokes
Horne Technologies
Editor's Choice Electrical switching & drive systems & components
Designing and constructing compact automation systems is one of the core activities of the Austrian machine manufacturer, STIWA. Its modular LTM-CI system has been optimised for small parts assembly. Linear and rotating micromotors from Faulhaber perform key tasks in these systems.
Read more...
Innovative five-axis laser precession scanner
Electrical switching & drive systems & components
Motion control specialist, Aerotech has launched the AGV5D, an innovative five-axis laser precession scanner specially developed for laser micromachining. This makes it possible to create high-precision bores, contoured slots and other complex geometries with dimensional tolerances in the sub-micrometre range.
Read more...
A leap forward in electrohydrostatic pump technology
Customized Motion Controls
Electrical switching & drive systems & components
Moog has launched the EPU-G, the latest addition to its Electrohydrostatic Pump Unit portfolio.
Read more...
Minetruck with electric drivetrain combines power and innovation
Electrical switching & drive systems & components
The new Minetruck MT66 S eDrive is the first of Epiroc’s large-capacity mine trucks to feature the latest generation electric drivetrain. Along with an upgraded and powerful diesel engine, the hauler combines the cost-effectiveness of a traditional mine truck with the productivity of an electric one, without requiring changes to a mine’s infrastructure.
Read more...
Modular hydraulic control blocks for brake actuation
Electrical switching & drive systems & components
Electrohydraulic brake release valves are exposed to extreme loads, and can become uncontrollable in the event of a power failure. The experts at WEBER-HYDRAULIK GMBH have developed a practical, modular solution that ensures the safety of construction machinery, and is also suitable for a wide range of other vehicles with hydrostatic drive systems.
Read more...
Modular assembly platform for clean manufacturing
Beckhoff Automation
Electrical switching & drive systems & components
JR Automation delivers custom automated solutions for numerous industries. It has done this through its scalable, modular automation platform, FlexChassis, which speeds up time to market while cutting costs. The company chose the XTS linear transport system from Beckhoff because of its speed, and modular design that allows for multiple configurations.
Read more...
printer friendly version