Mining

Mining companies operate in an increasingly competitive and capital-intensive industry, where profit margins are slim. As technology advances and more productive equipment is brought in, a solid maintenance program is required to improve reliability and secure a maximized return on investments.

Maintenance costs are generally higher in the mining industry than in many other industries. Traditionally, the mining industry relied heavily on reactive maintenance. However, due to equipment failures, catastrophic breakdowns, and the resultant production losses and increased maintenance expenses, the industry has since upgraded its maintenance practices.

Challenging terrain and difficult operating conditions are trademarks of the mining industry. Mining machinery faces challenges like heavy loads, debris, wide variances in rotational speeds and severe misalignment. The mere size of the equipment and factors like spare part delivery time has made condition monitoring increasingly important to predict breakdowns.

Typical applications in open pit mining are excavator gearboxes, conveyors and crushers, where very slow rotational speed and load variations make condition monitoring complicated.

In underground mining, applications like elevators and lifting devices typically benefit from condition monitoring. Fans that are critical for ventilation and pumps keeping control of water levels and support for drilling are other areas of application.

"The online system enables long-term planning of our maintenance work. Ultimately, our goal is to have online monitoring installed on all significant operational equipment, and we are almost there. We have chosen to further develop our SPM systems since we have good cooperation; it is easy to get in contact with the service technicians and they always provide prompt assistance"

Mats Johansson, Maintenance Manager, Boliden Renström

Solution to optimize tumbling mill grinding processes

The process optimization solution monitors the charge toe position at the inlet and discharge ends of the mill drum. It is an effective tool for operators to determine the ideal feed rate for optimal grinding efficiency and particle size distribution.

In addition to avoiding mill overload, underload, and freewheeling, further benefits include monitoring:

  • Wear-and-tear on the liner and lifters
  • Outlet blockage
  • Density
  • Big rock occurrence

Technical Solution: Tumbling mill

Vibrating screen performance monitoring

For optimal screening performance, uniform movement of the screen corners is crucial. Our screen performance monitoring solution is a process optimization tool for visualizing screen motion.

The solution detects unfavorable screening conditions that can cause various problems, including

  • plugging and blinding
  • mechanical stress
  • overload
  • screen media wear
  • excessive energy consumption
  • process capacity losses.

SPM’s screen performance monitoring solution helps determine if the screen performs at full capacity and is an excellent aid to maintenance and production.

Technical Solution: Vibrating screen

Optimization – the key to higher profits

Optimizing both processes and equipment provides substantial benefits to the mining sector, including cost savings through higher equipment availability, improved worker safety, increased production speed, and higher raw material yields. Find out how we can help optimize processes and machine performance throughout the entire operation!

  Process optimization and reliability for smart mines

Heavy-duty equipment for the mining industry

The mining industry is a heavy industry where condition monitoring equipment must survive mechanical and environmental forces. The SPM product range includes portable instruments, online systems and accessories specifically suited for shock pulse monitoring of rotating machinery and vibration monitoring equipment for detecting misalignment, gear problems, balancing problems etc. On slowly rotating machinery, the SPM HD® measuring technique can be used with benefit. SPM HD uses RPM based sampling frequency and algorithmic correlation techniques to ensure the highest possible signal quality and razor sharp spectrums for analysis.

Portable instrumentation

Our range of handheld instrumentation includes equipment for shock pulse measurement, vibration severity measurement, and vibration spectrum analysis.

Intellinova online systems

With Intellinova, our unique HD condition-monitoring technologies can be fully utilized to successfully provide earlier warning of mechanical problems than any other monitoring technology.

Condition monitoring in explosive environments

Our high-performance portable and online equipment are also available for potentially explosive environments.

Transducers and transmitters

Selecting the right transducer for your application is vital to measurement accuracy. We offer a wide range of high-quality transducers and transmitters.

Case studies

Gear damage in low-RPM pinion drive detected with Airius wireless sensors

Prominent non-ferrous metals company Aurubis Bulgaria AD utilized Airius wireless vibration sensors to detect damage in a ball mill's pinion drive gear.

Early-stage bearing damage in crowd drive

In this case study, a Chilean mining maintenance contractor used HD condition monitoring technology to measure the mechanical condition of crowd drive bearings and gears in an electric rope shovel and discovered early-stage damage on the outer ring and rolling elements of a brand new bearing.

Pinion bearing damage in ball mill

Using HD measurement technologies, Bulgarian copper producer Asarel Medet AD monitors the mechanical condition of critical equipment in the open-pit mine and flotation plant. This case study deals with the successful detection of outer race damage on a ball mill pinion bearing.

Condition monitoring on ball mill

Using the handheld instrument Leonova Emerald and DuoTech accelerometers, Norwegian mining company Rana Gruber monitors the mechanical condition of the production-critical ball mill in this case study.

Online monitoring on rotary calciner

This materials processing plant replaced its previous vibration monitoring system on the low-speed calciner drum with the online system Intellinova Compact after a test installation involving SPM HD measurements had proven successful.

Online monitoring of autogenous mill

In this case study from Bulgarian copper producer Aurubis, the SPM HD shock pulse technology is used to monitor the pinion shaft bearings of a production-critical autogenous mill in the flotation plant.

Ultra-long forewarning on drying drum

An international chemical company in Finland has monitored the condition of low-speed drying drums since 2012 using HD technology. This case study describes the detection of a bearing damage whose development was monitored over the course of three years.

HD technologies on ball mill at Orcem

Dutch cement producer Orcem implements HD Technologies to monitor the mechanical condition of a ball mill, which is a critical part of the milling process in cement manufacturing. In many cases, the entire process can be severely limited or completely stopped if the ball mill ceases to operate. C...

Jaw crusher monitoring with SPM HD

Mining operations include a number of critical applications that may cause severe disruptions in the production process in case of malfunctions. One such piece of equipment is the jaw crusher.

Online condition monitoring on Boliden mine hoist

At the Renström mine in northern Sweden, Boliden monitors the mechanical condition of the multi-rope friction hoist using a combination of vibration and high definition shock pulse measurement.

News

Rana Gruber boosts reliability with online condition monitoring expansion

Norwegian mining company Rana Gruber now expands their condition monitoring by investing in the high-performance online system Intellinova Parallel EN and DuoTech acce...

SPM Instrument launches process optimization for vibrating screens

In 2022, SPM introduced process optimization using HD measurement technology. Grinding mills in the mining and mineral processing industry were the first to benefit fr...

SPM Instrument introduces process optimization for tumbling mills

With over fifty years of innovation and development of high-performance solutions for condition monitoring, SPM Instrument has gained solid experience of the various n...

Boliden Garpenberg monitors conveyor belts with Intellinova Parallel EN

Sweden's most modern mine is located in Garpenberg in southern Dalarna. Here, Swedish mining company Boliden mines complex ore at a depth of 500 to just over 1200 mete...

Boliden Garpenberg to monitor flotation cells with DuoTech accelerometers

Sweden's most modern mine is located in Garpenberg in southern Dalecarlia. In connection with the recent expansion of the mine a new concentrator was built, in which t...