several designs to provide a special
Tertiary DDC-Sizer to process the coal.
This special sizer included outboard
bearings, as well as stud welded
segments and faster rotational
gearboxes.
“One of the biggest things we
realised with McLanahan was when we
first talked to them that they were
happy to change a design to suit our
needs rather than giving us an
off‑the‑shelf product,” noted Rashleigh.
“They actually modified from a couple
different bits of equipment that they
had to come up with a design that was
ours so it was unique to us, and they
worked with us throughout that whole
stage.”
Results
As a result the McLanahan
Tertiary DDC-Sizer has proved to be the
solution that NewAcland needed. In
fact, it proved so successful that after
the first installation, the mine replaced
its existing sizers with McLanahan
units, including two Secondary
DDC-Sizers and two Tertiary
DDC-Sizers.
Additionally, NewAcland found
that the design of the
McLanahan DDC‑Sizers reduced
maintenance costs compared to the
previous sizers.
“One of the biggest problems we
had was the maintenance costs. The
other machines we had were very high
maintenance cost. We were continually
replacing bearings and seals. In the first
year with the initial tertiary sizer from
McLanahan that we put in, we had zero
maintenance cost,” noted Rashleigh.
In addition to eliminating
maintenance costs with the improved
outboard bearing design, McLanahan’s
specially-designed carbide impregnated
teeth on the Secondary DDC-Sizers
have greatly increased the wear life of
the segments, allowing NewAcland to
process 5 million t of product without
replacing the segments.
These improvements and reduced
maintenance requirements have led to
both wash plants being able to run
8000 hr for the year. This was
something the mine had never been
able to do before purchasing
McLanahan DDC-Sizers, because every
6 to 12 weeks it needed to replace
bearings or perform other maintenance
tasks. NewAcland is now able to rely
on its sizers to keep production going.
“One of the biggest issues for us here
is reliability of the wash plant – our
resource is very difficult,” said
Rashleigh. “We average probably 50%
yield for the year. We need to run the
plants for long periods to get the
product tonnes that we need. To have
equipment in there that’s reliable and
that we can count on allows us to get
those production hours.”
Rashleigh also said that it’s not just
the equipment fromMclanahan that he
appreciates, but also the relationship the
company has built with NewAcland.
“The whole team at McLanahan are
really good to deal with. The guys are
often on the phone ringing, seeing how
things are going, but when you really
realise you’ve got a great team is when
Mike McLanahan himself, when he
visits Australia, comes to the mine site
and just sits with us and just talks,” he
said.
“It’s been a really good process
working with McLanahan. I consider it
a partnership now. They’re not just a
supplier to us they’re working with us
to solve these problems. The
equipment’s been really good,” said
Rashleigh. “Into the future, I don’t see
mining getting back to where it used to
be, so it’s really important to have a
partner like McLanahan.”
Figure 7. McLanahan works with customer onsite at New Acland Coal Mine to make
sure its custom‑engineered DDC-Sizer is running smoothly.
Figure 6. Coal handled at New Acland Coal Mine is processed through a
custom‑engineered McLanahan DDC-Sizer.
42
|
World Coal
|
July 2015
