Risk aversion slows uptake of novel conveyor technology
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The Australian Journal of Mining
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Jun 10, 2011 04:30 PM
Innovative Conveying Systems (ICS) has supplied four of its ingenious conveying systems to a fertiliser plant, and has two on trial with major mining companies. Industry conservatism seems to be the only bar to a faster uptake of the technology, ICS’ managing director Mike Hamer tells Mike Foley of AJM.
The ICS can be installed to fit around a plant’s existing infrastructure
The Innovative Conveying System (ICS) is a flexible enclosed belt conveyor capable of tight vertical and horizontal radius bends.
Distinctive to the ICS, its belt edge section and the body of the belt form a closed shape in the cross section. The belt is corrugated, which allows it to make sharp turns. As a result, the ICS can fit around a plant’s existing infrastructure.
Modular in design, the belt can be constructed in lengths that are joined to form a continuous loop. The belt is made in lengths of 6 to 30 metres meaning the ICS can be transported by a standard truck.
With its enclosed belt, the system mitigates unwanted ingress and egress of dust and contaminants, making it suitable for materials including ores, grains, powders, chemicals and crushed rock.
Managing director of Innovative Conveying Mike Hamer said the ICS was invented about10 years ago by company founder Michael Pietsch. “He was a drilling contractor, working underground. He started looking at ways of moving the blasted material out from under-ground that didn’t involve trucks. Realising that existing conveying technology had a number of limitations, he started to think about how he could overcome those problems.”
Traditional conveyors cannot go around tight draws, declines and inclines, Hamer said. He explained that Pietsch “thought about how he could overcome these problems. That led to him developing the ICS, with its conveyor belt that is formed through a tube and the corrugated construction of the belt which gives it flexibility and allows it to make not only tight radius bends, but also horizontal and vertical.”
Hamer said the “early years of the business were spent in research and design. We have only just emerged from that phase. It took the first eight years of its life to develop the product idea and the last couple of years have been spent on proof of concept work.
“We have developed two models to bring to market - a small system capacity that carries up to 200t an hour that we call our 150 series and there is the 400 series, that has capacities up to about 1,500t an hour.”
So far, Innovative Conveying has secured a contract with Baileys Fertiliser in West Australia, supplying it four 150 series systems. Hamer said that, in these early stages of the business, overcoming conservative thinking has been the biggest hurdle.
“That is certainly the brick wall that we are hitting. We are finding it is definitely the conservatism,” Hamer said. “Engineers will say, ‘yeah we like the idea, but where can we see one working?’ So there is that risk aversion. People don’t want to be the innovator, they want to be the fast follower.
“Once it is a proven product there will be a lot of people quite happy to accept it, but what we are seeing is the basic design of the system has a lot of attraction for the engineers that see it. They leave very excited by the product and quite intrigued by it. But when it comes to the clients’ actually putting money down for the operating system, it is too new for them.”
Hamer said “to overcome that we try to take some of the risk, by offering a couple of systems without cost for installation to give people an opportunity to see them working. Then if they perform as agreed, after a period of free operation, it will convert through to a commercial contract; either they pay for them outright, or it goes on to a lease or cost per tonne contract.”
Innovative Conveying’s biggest market is with mining, Hamer explained, claiming that the ICS could take over the role of trucks on haul roads in removing ore from mine sites, especially in open pit mines.
Hamer went on to promote the benefits of using the ICS.
“The belt is made out of elastomeric polyurethane. Because it is a corrugated belt, we don’t use conventional belt scrapers and we don’t need as much effort to be put into preventing carryback. With most conventional conveyor belts it is the belt scrapers that wear them out.
“If there is a little bit of spillage at the discharge point, we manage it with brushes. But as soon as the belt is closed up again, which takes place about four metres from the discharge drop, there is no spillage all along the system.
“It is an easy system to maintain. The belt is not under tension and we use inline Caterpillar drives and we don’t have high tension along the length of the belt.
“If our belt suffers a breakage, it doesn’t shoot off. It essentially hangs, so from a maintenance and emergency situation it is much quicker to change the belt.”
Hamer said while key markets were a focus, “we are also finding applications in areas we didn’t expect. We will develop where the market shows the opportunities.”
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