Published: March 19, 2019 |

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The mining equipment manufacturer reported Kumba Iron Ore’s Kolomela mine in South Africa has reduced crusher liner replacement downtime and improved safety using a concave carousel and removal trays system provided by Metso. Located in the Northern Cape Province, Kolomela contacted Metso for assistance in reducing its primary gyratory crusher concave liners replacement time. The mine produces over 13 Mt/y of iron ore and is one of Kumba’s (majority-owned by Anglo American) largest operations in the country.

In mineral processing, crusher efficiency can be compromised over time, affecting production time and, most importantly, the safety of employees, Metso said. A major factor affecting crusher efficiency is the amount of downtime. The longer it takes to replace the wear parts inside the chamber of a primary gyratory crusher during a maintenance shutdown, the less uptime and, thus, less production. By reducing the number of lifts, the replacement can be done much faster and safer, according to Metso.

Kolomela approached Metso’s expert team to help it reduce the average downtime the operation encounters when replacing concave liners of their Superior SG60-110 primary gyratory crusher.

Mr. Andrew Stones, Metso’s regional and technical support manager Crusher Wears, said that “When the mine approached us with a request to help them speed up the process of changing the concave liners on the primary gyratory on site, they asked us to replicate the methodology that we once used at one of Anglo American’s major copper mines in South America, Los Bronces, which included the use of special tooling such as carousels and removal trays to remove the liners.”

Mr. Stones said that “Following the review of the Los Bronces system, we identified that we used different parts and installation methods not suitable for Kolomela’s operating model.”

Source: International Mining

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