Mining

The mining industry operates 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. Until recently, reactive maintenance was the predominant strategy in mining. However, in consequence of equipment failures and catastrophic breakdowns causing large production losses and rising maintenance costs, the industry has modernized its maintenance practices.

Tough 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

New unique solution to optimize grinding

The solution monitors the charge toe position at the inlet and discharge ends of the mill drum and 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

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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.

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Case studies

Electric rope shovel loading a dump truck in an open pit mine

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.

Ball mill at the Asarel Medet copper mine.

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.

Ball Mill Rana Gruber

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.

Autogenous Mill, Aurubis Bulgaria

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.

Case study: Autogenous mill

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...

Boliden Jaw Crusher

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.

Low-speed autogenous mill at Boliden mine

On an autogenous mill in Garpenberg, Sweden the Intellinova online system monitors the condition of the motors and gearboxes using vibration measurement in combination with SPM HD.

News

Two tumbling mills in industrial environment

08.06.2022

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...

The concentration plant at Boliden Garpenberg. Photo: Boliden/Stefan Berg

12.02.2020

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...

The flotation cells in Garpenberg. Photo: Boliden

04.12.2015

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...

Renström, Boliden area. Photo: Boliden AB.

18.12.2014

Boliden Renström mine to monitor process-critical fans online

Swedish mining company Boliden now moves on to introduce online condition monitoring equipment from SPM on two major exhaust fans manufactured by Akron, located above...

Boliden Jaw Crusher

02.12.2014

Case study: Jaw crusher bearing 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 equi...