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Mechanical Technology — September 2015
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On the cover
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“
G
lobally, wagon tipplers are
one of our flagship prod‑
ucts, but ThyssenKrupp
is not as well recognised
for this equipment in sub-Saharan Africa
as we are in the rest of the world,” begins
Göing. “There are only two premium
OEMs of wagon tipplers in the world
and we share the global market rela‑
tively evenly. But here, due to historical
reasons, we are not nearly as well-known
as we should be,” he adds.
To transport bulk materials over long
distances in large volumes, typically mil‑
lions of tons per year: “operators need
to load at the mines and transport the
material efficiently, economically and in
an ecologically friendly way to its destina‑
tion, be that a power station or an export
terminal”.
“For distances of up to 50 km, over‑
land conveyors are arguably the better
option, but for the overland transfer of
bulk materials over greater distance, only
trains make sense. And for unloading
material from railway wagons at a des‑
tination, wagon tipplers are, by far, the
most productive and efficient solution,”
explains Göing.
Wagon tipplers are used in South
Africa, in Richards Bay at the end of
the coal line and in Saldanha to unload
iron ore from Sishen. “We
supplied some side wagon
tipplers to Saldanha Steel in
the early 90s and to the cement plants,
but that was some time ago. Our most
current success was the installation of a
state-of-the-art ThyssenKrupp tandem
rotary tippler at the Port of Nacala for
Vale in Mozambique,” continues Göing.
This system unloads trains bringing
coal to the deep-water port from the
Moatise Basin in the Tete Province of
Mozambique, estimated to contain
2.4-billion tons of coal. “We have in‑
stalled and commissioned a tandem
O-type wagon tippler in Nacala with a
throughput capacity of 6 500 t/h,” he
tells
MechTech
Random and side tipplers
Tellier describes the different types of
wagon tipplers available from Thyssen‑
Krupp. “Most commonly used in South
Africa are random tipplers, which require
that the train is broken up into smaller
sections, called rakes, before being un‑
loaded. Typically, a large random tippler
would be able to discharge a 10-wagon
rake, but they are most commonly used
to discharge one or two decoupled
wagons at a time,” he explains. “These
are ideal for smaller plants and power
stations,” he says, adding “the key ad‑
vantage of random tippling is that any
type of wagon can be accommodated,
depending on the ore being transported.”
Side tipplers are the simplest random
option and are generally used to tip a
single uncoupled wagon. “The turning
point of a side tippler is off centre and
side tippling involves lifting the wagon
around in an arc, unloading the mate‑
rial along the side of the track into a bin
at ground level.” These systems have
Following the successful delivery of a tandem rotary wagon tippler to the
port of Nacala in Mozambique, sales manager, Matthias Göing and sales
engineer, Luc Tellier of ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions South Africa,
Resource Technologies, talk about the advantages of their technology
for the sustainability of mining, exports and power stations.
Luc Tellier and Matthias Göing.
Wagon tipplers for more
efficient unloading
of bulk materials
large counter‑
weights to shift the
centre of gravity to the
offset turning point. This means that
wagons have to be decoupled due to the
lateral movement. The key advantage
is that less underground civil work is
required, since the ore can be offloaded
at ground level.
Another solution, currently being used
due to the shortage of bulk ore wagons,
is the container tippler. “Operators are
looking to use strengthened 20-ft con‑
tainers instead of dedicated bulk wagons
to transport ore. Two containers are then
transported on each flat bed wagon in a
train. “At its destination, the container
filled with commodities is then lifted
off the train using a container tippler
hanging off a crane. The tippler allows
the container to be rotated underneath
the crane hook to discharge the material
onto a stockpile. “This is an interim solu‑
tion though, which while flexible, cannot
substitute for a dedicated wagon tippler
solution,” Göing argues.
Rotary tipplers and unit trains
Bigger bulk operations, such as Nacala,
Richards Bay and Saldanha Bay, oper‑
ate unit trains, which are purpose-built
trains designed with rotary wagon tip‑
pling in mind. Unit trains incorporate
rotary couplings so that the wagons do
not need to be decoupled from the loco
or the other wagons before tipping the
materials. “And for higher throughput,
unit trains can also be coupled in pairs