Mining conveyors

Mining conveyor applications

TAKRAF's conveying solutions are employed globally within underground or open-pit operations where they convey crushed material from a primary crushing station to a secondary crushing station or on to a stockyard, material processing plant or spreader for dumping.

Our mining conveyors are also employed extensively across various areas of a mining operation and form an integral part of an In-Pit Crushing & Conveying (IPCC) system efficiently conveying crushed material out of the pit.

Conveyor lengths can vary from short distances up to many kilometers ranging from deep open-pit mine or underground applications and can overcome significant vertical elevation change
too. Belt widths vary according to the material to be conveyed and capacity required together with the manner in which they are constructed. Depending on requirements, our conveyors can also integrate scales, detectors or material analyzers and sampling equipment.

Open-pit mine applications

According to an open-pit mine's development, conveyors are also often required to be relocated or shifted and may include special features for extension requirements including belt storage at the tail end and a crawler-mounted drive station at the head end. Belt storage devices reduce the number of belt cut & splice procedures during conveyor extension operations.

Other typical applications for open-pit conveyors are mobile transfer points like tripper cars, hopper cars and shuttle heads for material feed to several downstream conveyors. Our diverse product range includes tripper cars on rails or on crawlers as a mobile link between dump conveyor and spreader, as well as hopper cars on rails or on crawlers between excavator and bench conveyor. Bench conveyors for mining and dumping are designed as shiftable conveyors, where the conveyor modules are equipped with steel sleepers and rails to allow for an easy shifting procedure. Our product range also covers shifting head fabrication and testing in our specialized fabrication facility.

TAKRAF's Gearless Conveyor Drive (GCD) technology

TAKRAF is one of a very limited number of global mining conveyor system manufacturers boasting an operating reference in the use of advanced gearless drive technology in mining conveyor systems and are proud of our association with our drive technology partner, ABB.

Gearless drives eliminate the need for a gearbox, hereby significantly reducing the number of main wear parts, which results in increased efficiency and reliability, as well as less maintenance being required. Further advantages include a considerable reduction in the drive system’s footprint and emissions. In fact, for a large copper mine in Chile, studies showed that CO₂ emissions were reduced by 66% as compared to diesel truck engines for the same copper production volume.

Underground applications

TAKRAF's mining conveyor systems can also be employed in underground applications, where gearless drive technology is particularly well-suited given the tight constraints of operating underground.

In 2019, TAKRAF delivered equipment for the principal ore transportation system for Chuquicamata, one of the world´s largest copper ore mines, moving ore extracted underground to an above-ground processing plant.

This incredible system is one of the world's most powerful belt conveyor systems. It boasts a total installed drive power of 58 MW, transports crushed copper ore from underground storage bins to the surface along a 7 km underground tunnel that overcomes 1 km of vertical elevation. Once on the surface, the ore then travels along an overland conveyor that transports it the final 6 km to the distribution silo. The under-ground system (comprising two conveyors of about equal length), as well as the overland conveyor, boast advanced gearless drive technology.

Some important parameters of the conveyor system:

• 11,000 t/h crushed copper ore
• 11 x 5 MW gearless belt drives
• 10 MW installed drive power per drive drum
• St 10,000 conveyor belt employed for the first time
• 7,500 tons of steel construction
• 35,000 idlers
• 6 TAKRAF patents