Mechanical Technology February 2015

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Mechanical Technology — February 2015 37
⎪ Innovative engineering ⎪
enhancement can improve stockyard
productivity by between 5.0 and 10%.
“Following the installation of indurad
technology at Vale’s iron ore port in
Brazil, we are achieving 10 % better pro-
ductivity, while in Australia, at the Pilbara
iron ore mine, we were able to increase
productivity by 5.0 %,” he claims, adding
that the pay back period for both of these
installations was within months.
“For collision avoidance, we take a
‘virtual-fence’ approach, which involves,
for example, warning the driver of ava-
lanches or potential obstacles long before
a typical tilt switch can. At an iron ore
mine in the Northern Cape, an operator
has estimated that the cost-to-company
for a reclaimer breakdown was in the or-
der of R1.5-million per hour. Considering
this alone, spending R150 000 on a
system to protect a R200-R400-million
machine makes a lot of sense,” he
concludes.
Successfully installed on numerous
machines such as stackers, reclaimers,
car dumpers and shiploaders, indurad´s
sensor technology has already been
adopted by OEMs such as Sandvik,
Tenova, FAM, Metso and, most notably
A bucket wheel reclaimer radar productivity solution with three iDRR radar sensors on each side of the
bucket wheel. Collisions and avalanches can be prevented and the cutting speeds and depths can be
automated to optimise throughput
in South Africa, ThyssenKrupp. Realising
the safety and productivity advantages
of indurad technology for the South
African materials handling industry,
ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions is
now offering integrated indurad sensor
solutions for all of its new and retrofit
product and service offerings. q
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