IN-PIT CRUSHING AND CONVEYING
New IPCC ideas
Break it in the pit and save haulage costs. John Chadwick
looks at some of the latest thinking and applications making
mining more efficient and sustainable
L
et us start with a miner’s view of in-pit
crushing and conveying (IPCC), and in this
case one of the world’s most
technologically advanced mining companies,
Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto Coal Australia’s first use of
this technology is Clermont mine's in-pit
crusher/conveyor system that was put to work
late in 2009. The mine said last August “this
innovative system will make mining at
Clermont more efficient and sustainable.”
General Manager Construction, Dave Lamb
said then: “When we were investigating the
feasibility of the Clermont mine we knew that
we had a great coal reserve, however this was
buried under a large amount of overburden.
This is where the in-pit crusher/conveyor
system works best, as it provides a cost
effective solution for mines with deeper coal
seams. We are able to mine in areas that
previously would have been too cost-
prohibitive if we had based our mining solely
on a traditional truck and shovel method.
“Not only does this system make Clermont
mine more feasible to mine from a cost
perspective, but we can also reduce our
carbon footprint as we will be using less diesel
fuel due to the reductions in truck hours
required.” He said installing the system would
save Clermont more than 35% of its haul
truck running costs, and will remove, crush
and convey almost 50% of the mine's
overburden per year.
Scot Szalanski, Product Manager for the
P&H IPCC notes “the IPCC ‘concept’ has been
around for at least 40 years. One of the main
problems with the ‘concept’ was that not only
did it have a high initial capital cost but just as
significant, the hydraulic excavator or electric
shovel operated independently with the IPCC
System. As a result, it was nearly impossible for
any supplier to be positioned with sufficient
control over an integrated system in order to
deliver sustained production volume. With
small tonnage IPCC systems, such as 2,000-
4,000 t/h, the equipment for the system was
generally oversized enough so that production
was not a factor.
“However, considering today's need to
supply plus 8,000 t/h IPCC systems it can be a
lot harder to make production requirements
when the equipment is operating near its
maximum-rated limits. At these high
production levels there is no longer any margin
for error. Suppliers cannot consider any type of
No ancillary equipment required: the MMD Mobile
Sizer and shovel combination can efficiently mine the
entire length of the face, and then turn around for a
second pass
production ‘guarantee’ unless they can
synchronise the performance of the shovel
with the IPCC System.”
P&H feels that as a shovel supplier it is in a
unique position to optimise the performance
of the shovel-IPCC system. “P&H has
developed a new process called 4D
Visualisation of an IPCC System Analysis. We
can now take 3D models of our shovel and
IPCC system and incorporate them into a
customer’s 3D topography of the mine site. In
addition, as a supplier of the complete shovel-
IPCC system we have developed new
technology which can add ‘movement’ to the
individual IPCC components in ‘real time’. As a
shovel manufacturer we have been able to
develop ‘digging algorithms’ to simulate
material removal by our shovel. Just as
important we have developed ‘spreading
algorithms’ to simulate how the material will
be spread in the waste area of the mine. A 4D
visualisation of both the loading and spreading
are critical in optimising a mine plan.
“In effect what we can do is create a
‘virtual’ mine plan analysis that can cover any
time period, from one day to 10 years or more.
This visualisation clearly shows the proper
JUNE 2010 International Mining 33
 IN-PIT CRUSHING AND CONVEYING
position of the shovel-IPCC system and the
material moved over a specific time period.”
Tom Armesy of ThyssenKrupp Robins says
“increasing overburden ratios, longer transport
distances, higher fleet operating costs, and the
potential to reduce these costs are leading a
number of mining companies to consider an
IPCC system as a way to gain a cost advantage
for future operations.
“In today’s world, with the advances in
equipment and control technologies, the key
to successful implementation of an IPCC
concept is a comprehensive project evaluation
approach integrating mine planning needs,
operational requirements, environmental
requirements, and the equipment required to
deliver a crushed product from the mine face
to the next destination.
“Semi-mobile IPCC systems”, he explains,
“are designed to provide a relatively low cost
solution for mines that require relocating the
equipment periodically, or for a plan involving
satellite pit locations that cannot be
economically mined if each pit needed a
separate stationary primary crushing system.
“Due to substantial savings in civil work,
such plants have an overall lower installed cost
than stationary primary crushers, and provide
the flexibility to alter the primary crushing
location and conveying scheme as the mine
develops, or when the mining plan changes.
The frequency of relocating a semi-mobile
system is an economic decision based on mine
An operation with competent pit rock can reduce the
cost of the civil work required to support the crushing
plant to the point where a semi-mobile IPCC system
design, such as shown here, can be installed with a
minimum of retaining wall or concrete structures.
Normally the crushing plant is placed on base rock or
an engineered materials base, unless the geotechnical
characteristics of the crushing plant site requires it to
sit on a concrete pad
34 International Mining JUNE 2010
economics. Periods between relocations of five
to 10 years are common. The mine plan must
be designed to accommodate future primary
crusher relocations.”
The main elements to be considered when
designing a semi-mobile IPCC system are pit
location of the crushing plant, the plant itself
and the conveying system. The location must
provide easy access for haul trucks, and take
into account the service requirements for the
large pieces of equipment in the system.
When using a direct feed plant
configuration, the volume of the crusher
discharge hopper and take away capacity of
the discharge conveyor must be designed to
sufficiently accommodate the surge loading
that can occur when the haul truck dumps in a
load of very fine material that passes straight
through to the discharge hopper.
This issue can be minimised by a
configuration that uses an inclined or
horizontal apron feeder to feed the crusher
(see last month’s feeder article). Apron feeders
modulate the rate and allow the operator to
P&H feels that as a shovel supplier it is in a unique
position to optimise the performance of the shovel-
IPCC system
control feed rates when fines are present or
when top-size boulders are fed into the
crusher. The choice between using a horizontal
apron feeder or an inclined apron feeder is
influenced by available space and economic
issues.
The conveying system route is primarily
determined by the mining plan, and must
accommodate normal mine traffic patterns,
while achieving conveying grades that are
compatible with mobile service equipment. A
conveyor design with minimum transfer points
reduces the number of dust collection points in
the system.
The fully mobile IPCC systems available
today employ multiple pieces of track mounted
equipment with modern control systems that
enable operation at the face in overburden,
hard rock, or coal. Armesy points out that
“during the past several years modern high
capacity fully mobile IPCC systems, with design
capacities ranging from 3,000 to 12,000 t/h,
have been implemented for overburden, coal,
and oil sands mining operations. These systems
are designed to operate at the face, and to
take advantage of the capacity and flexibility
of the largest shovels commercially available
today.
“Designing a system that operates at these
production levels, and that meet the numerous
site and geologic constraints, requires a
completely integrated approach and solution.
“The process of implementing an IPCC
system, particularly a fully mobile system, starts
by blending the mine’s conceptual vision with
the mine planning functions required to mould
that vision into a working model that will
 IN-PIT CRUSHING AND CONVEYING
realise the enormous economic and
environmental benefits available with an IPCC
system.
“The basic requirements for successfully
implementing an IPCC system are:
■ Knowledge of mine requirements
■ Mine planning analysis capabilities
■ Analysis of the IPCC interfaces
■ Flexibility in crusher selection
■ Expertise in designing IPCC systems.”
Dual truck systems
Dennis Medina, Manager of Sales and
Marketing at FLSmidth RAHCO notes that in
“large-scale open-pit mining, the majority of a
mine’s operating cost is frequently tied to the
removal and transportation of the overburden
waste material via truck fleets, an extremely
costly operation when operators, road
construction and maintenance, vehicle
maintenance and facilities, fuel, tyres and
spare parts – that are the costs of the truck
F= mr
2
See
us at…
HILLHEAD
Stand B31
36 International Mining JUNE 2010
FLSmidth RAHCO's Dual Truck
Mobile Sizer (DTMS) offers an
innovative technical solution
to the civil cost and operating
drawbacks associated with a
traditional crushing system
fleet operation – are
taken into account.”
Like other IPCC
manufacturers the focus is
on reducing these costs,
with mining companies
installing mobile and
semi-mobile crushing
stations to reduce haulage
distances. Though
companies realise
operational savings
through these systems,
they lead to other hurdles,
i.e., significant
geotechnical preparation for the semi-mobile
stations and expensive retaining walls to allow
trucks to drive to an elevation sufficient to
dump material into the receiving hopper. “The
associated costs can truly be staggering.
Retaining wall structures and site preparation
of this magnitude end up costing millions of
dollars as well as a significant amount of
invested time required for their construction.
These considerations can lead to less than
optimum station relocation, and therefore,
longer haul distances,” he says.
FLSmidth’s RAHCO Technology Centre in
Spokane, approached this challenge and
engineered a unique and innovative machine,
the Dual Truck Mobile Sizer. The DTMS offers
an innovative technical solution to the civil cost
and operating drawbacks associated with a
traditional crushing system. The company
claims the DTMS “is the only fully mobile
crushing station that interfaces directly with
rear dump haul trucks. When used in
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conjunction with a shiftable face conveyor, the
entire system provides complete mobility.”
Its operation is very similar to some of the
large shovel fed mobile sizing stations currently
on the market, such as FLS’s RAHCO Triple
Truck Mobile Sizer, but with added flexibility
since they include trucks in the equation. This
opens up access areas on the bench that are
often needed for maintenance and operation
purposes. Additionally, the use of the smallest
possible haul truck fleet eliminates the need
for large and expensive belt wagon machines
that are commonly used to feed a centralised
mobile crushing station where multiple
benches are involved.
When multiple DTMSs are used in
conjunction with an FLSmidth designed movable
passover – bridge, trucks can seamlessly access
face shovels located at upper and lower benches
to feed each DTMS station improving overall
production and adding the needed
manoeuvrability to service multiple dig locations.
Looking at the system operation from an
individual bench level, once the face
excavation has reached a mine-determined
point, the shiftable face conveyor is moved
using a common track shifting head closer to
the face and the DTMS is relocated to the
conveyor’s new location. The DTMS can be
placed at any point along the shiftable conveyor
to reduce and optimise truck haulage distances.
With the addition of an out-of-pit conveyor,
truck haulage distance, as well as the truck
fleet numbers, can be reduced even more.
In short, the introduction of a single DTMS
or a DTMS system into a mine site offers the
operational cost advantages of a conveyor
system with the operational flexibility of truck
haulage.
CO2 reduction is becoming an important
factor and the use of IPCC systems offers
potential to substantially reduce a mine’s
overall emissions, as discussed in last year’s
article (IM, June 2009, pp8-14).
The blending of a traditional truck and
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 IN-PIT CRUSHING AND CONVEYING
shovel plan with an IPCC plan requires special
sensitivities to where the two operations
interface, or where there are shared corridors
of operation. Other factors that affect both
mine planning and IPCC equipment selection
include:
■ Upstream mine operational availability
requirements (drill and blast, shovel
operations, etc.)
■ Projected mine life
■ Selective mining requirements
■ IPCC availability targets
■ Power distribution requirements
■ Accurate overburden, coal, or ore interface
measurements at depth
■ Geotechnical data (rock types, strata
conformities – or nonconformities, etc.)
■ Overburden dump location requirements
(inside or outside the pit)
■ Operating mine face lengths
■ Conveying distances to the next process
facility or overburden dump area
■ Bench configurations (initially, in five years,
10 years, etc.)
■ Number of cuts per bench.
Mine planning
Armesy notes the crucial mine planning step
“to establishing the basis for cost effective
design of the IPCC system [is] understanding
the geological situation, bench layouts, mine
access needs, the related mining methods,
material handling requirements, and the
mining infrastructure to support an IPCC
operation.
“The IPCC system supplier should be
working with the mine planning department
Operation on a lower bench; due to the capability of
the TMCS to quickly move into a new position the
shovel may advance into the next cut having its
crawlers always parallel to the face conveyor. Relative
to the TMCS it maintains the same position. As a
different operational scheme the shovel may also
rotate around the hopper in order to increase the
block width
38 International Mining JUNE 2010
so that critical mine operating data is
developed which allows the vendor to create a
3D IPCC mining plan. There are a number of
surface mine software packages that can be
used for this purpose including Surpac™ Vision
by Gemcom, MineSight® products by Mintec,
Vulcan by Maptek, and others.
“Software modules within these programs
that can be used include:
■ Pit design (volume calculations, production
plans and mine development)
■ Block modelling (grade or tonnage reports,
based on bench data)
■ Solid modelling (geological, equipment
models)
■ Drill hole database
■ Mine scheduling.”
When choosing equipment, a shovel will be
more effective when working with a crushing
plant at the face because the shovel can load
into the hopper in a more or less continuous
motion without the wait time that occurs
while trucks are positioning or travelling to the
shovel location. This gives increased shovel
capacity and greater availability of the
complete mining system. Achieving the best
production efficiency depends on the shovel
control system software employed and the
interface with the crushing plant operation.
The shovel bucket size determines the
impact loads experienced by the crusher
hopper. Large capacity buckets can deliver a
load exceeding 100 t into the crusher hopper,
This Tenova TAKRAF 12,000 t/h mobile crushing plant
in Australia has a slewable superstructure and
slewable discharge boom conveyor. Both may be
positioned at different angles to the mining face and
provide high flexibility. It is fed by a rope-shovel with
a capacity of 110 t. The shovel pivots and travels
around the receiving hopper. Concurrent relocation of
both the mobile crusher and the shovel occurs about
every eight hours in this application. During the
loading operation the hopper rests on the ground in
order to avoid propagation of shock loads through
the crushing station
with single pieces weighing many tonnes.
Armesy says that with the crusher dump
hopper “located some distance from the
crawler structure support point(s), the shovel
load weight can result in substantial dynamic
loads for the carrying structure. If proper care
is taken during the development of the
structural model and during the FEA
calculations, the hopper does not need to be
ground supported.
“It is important to choose an appropriate
sized shovel for system operating efficiency.
The shovel must be able to dig the proposed
block dimensions with the required capacity.
The shovel bucket capacity should not exceed
the receiving hopper capacity.
“Selection of a track mounted crushing
plant begins with a fundamental look at the
style of plant that matches the flexibility of the
shovel, and meets the production requirements
of the mining plan. Several basic questions to
be addressed when considering the design for
a fully mobile crushing plant are:
■ Whether a rigid superstructure or a slewing
structure should be selected?
■ If a rigid structure is selected, should it be
mounted parallel or perpendicular to the
crawler tracks?
■ Should the discharge boom be designed to
rotate?
“These questions are critical to
understanding how the crushing plant will
perform in terms of matching shovel

To be able to feed a belt wagon, the TMCS requires
the additional installation of a slewable discharge
boom. This is because a belt wagon cannot be
designed with a reach and a convex shape similar to
a mobile bridge. The belt wagon has only one central
undercarriage and can therefore be moved and turned
around fairly easily. This flexibility demands a 5 to 8%
higher investment cost for the belt wagon option
capabilities, bench width requirements,
discharge conveyor boom configuration, ability
to work multiple benches, and the
downstream conveying system.”
The crusher is the heart of the IPCC system,
and the potential bottleneck. If it struggles
handling one type of material, or bogs down
with wet sticky material, design capacities will
not be achieved. Addressing the following
factors will help evaluate the appropriate
crusher type:
■ Can the crusher accept the largest expected
feed size?
■ Can the crusher readily crush the feed
material based on its compressive strength?
■ Can the crusher produce suitable product
for conveying at the desired capacity?
■ Do the crusher and downstream conveyors
have sufficient capacity to handle peak
shovel loads?
■ Does the crusher minimise the chance of
IN-PIT CRUSHING AND CONVEYING
plugging based on the material
characteristics?
■ Can the crusher be installed without
requiring excessive structural costs?
■ Can the crusher safely pass un-crushable
materials without damaging itself?
■ Can the crusher process the material(s) with
minimal abrasive wear costs?
■ Can the crusher operate economically
without excessive maintenance costs?
■ Can the crusher provide dependable and
prolonged service life given the nature of the
feed material?
New generation systems
Walter Kueng and Dr. Frank Hubrich of Tenova
TAKRAF note that “latest technical
developments of mobile crushing plants have
mainly been motivated by large scale open-pit
projects, predominantly in Australia, Asia and
North America. Especially for coal mines,
where seams can be extracted along straight
and extended benches, shiftable face
conveyors may be used and truck haulage
ultimately becomes replaced also on the
individual benches. Results of recent feasibility
studies conducted for overburden removal
systems show an overall life cycle cost which
clearly favours IPCCs employing mobile
crushing plants, conveyors and mechanised
spreading equipment over other solutions such
as haul trucks.”
Starting from the concept used in Australia
the company embarked on the development of
a more simplified plant without the need for
the entire superstructure to slew. The result is
JUINE 2010 International Mining 39
 IN-PIT CRUSHING AND CONVEYING
the TAKRAF Mobile Crushing System (TMCS)
which is now offered as a modular system for
a capacity range of about 4,000 to 12,000 t/h.
It may be combined with a belt wagon or a
mobile conveyor bridge which is capable of
spanning up to three benches of 15 m height
or more, from one face conveyor. If only one
bench is to be operated the TMCS can even work
without any additional mobile link conveyor.
The TMCS can be assembled in at least
three configurations, depending on the type of
link conveyor to be fed; a separate mobile
conveyor, a belt wagon or a connected
conveyor bridge.
Having eliminated the main slewing and
slew gear function of the upper structure, the
TMCS concept now allows travel crawlers close
to the head and tail extremities of the rigid
superstructure. This is most important and
advantageous for the support of the receiving
hopper, which is located right above a pair of
equalised crawlers. During loading of the
receiving hopper and apron feeder by the
shovel, the high impact loads are transferred
directly into the ground via the two crawlers
which form a two point support at this plant
location. Also full mobility is possible, which is
advantageous when cutting ramps or working
away from a mining face.
The opposing crawlers underneath the
conveyor are designed as a slewable two-
crawler undercarriage, which supports the
equipment. In conjunction with the two
crawlers underneath the receiving hopper this
arrangement provides a clearly defined and
strong three-point support, i.e. the crawlers are
able to adjust themselves to the prevailing
ground conditions. Even and equal load
distribution is imperative in order to reduce
vibrations and fatigue on the plant, particularly
on uneven ground. This concept has also been
pursued within the crawlers by using a system
of bogies and equalisers such that all the track
support rollers are equally loaded.
Kueng and Hubrich continue: “The provision
of a ball point atop the two-crawler
undercarriage allows rotation around the
vertical axis for steering purposes. Each of the
steering crawlers can operate in opposite
directions or at different speeds. There is no
need for a hydraulic steering cylinder because
the crawlers are sufficiently spaced apart from
one another. Slew angles up to 90° can be
achieved, which allows a minimum curve
radius in the range of the distance between
the two crawler pairs. Since all the crawlers
have been arranged in longitudinal direction,
narrower than traditional ramps can be
negotiated between the individual benches. It
also provides maximum safety distances
40 International Mining JUNE 2010
between the crawlers and the crest or toe of
the side slopes.”
No auxiliary hydraulic supports are needed
so ability to instantly move the loaded TMCS
to a new position is really the main
improvement from this generation of mobile
plants. It saves valuable operating time and
improves the availability and utilisation of the
entire conveying/spreading system.
A rigid crusher discharge conveyor provides
the following advantages:
■ The actual crushing machine can be
relatively low, which provides for better
control of vibration generated by handling
large ROM boulders within the crusher
■ Uneven material flow from the crushing
process is more equalised (controlled
downstream material flow and spillage)
The TMCS can be equipped with either a
double roll crusher or with a sizer. For
maintenance purposes there is enough space
provided ahead of the crushing unit itself, to
roll it out towards the head of the crusher
discharge conveyor.
For both applications of the TMCS a series
of machines has been developed. The design
rate and other parameters such as hopper
volume etc. have been modified in line with
the various available shovel sizes. Below table
provides an overview of the main parameters.
Shovel capacity t 45 60 82.5
Rated capacity t/h 4,500 6,000 8,250
Hopper capacity t 125 165 225
Wide experience
MMD provides its view of the development of
IPCC, noting that continuous mining systems,
epitomised by bucketwheel excavators (BWEs),
using conveyors to transport material out of
the mine, “have long been acknowledged as
the optimum method of handling large
volumes of material. However, their application
is limited to soft materials and their high
maintenance requirements are a major
drawback. IPCC systems, which had been
successful in quarrying therefore came to be
seen as the dream solution for the mining
industry in the 1980s, but became a nightmare
instead as it became obvious that for these
systems to be viable more than simply making
a standard crusher mobile was required, and
truck and shovels operations became the norm
in spite of their environmental impact.”
Now it has become obvious that the root
cause of the problems encountered previously
was not the IPCC concept but rather the
shortcomings of the core technology i.e.,
reducing the material to a conveyable size as
crushers do not lend themselves to being
made mobile. This, says MMD, “has resulted in
all potential manufacturers/suppliers now
offering variations of the Sizer, a technology
originally developed and patented by MMD.
Realising Sizing is the only comminution
system specifically designed for mobile
operations; it held the key to IPCC and MMD
has proven its ability to handle high volumes of
a wide range of material.”
MMD over the intervening years has
continued to develop and supply mobile units
around the world and says it “is now in the
unique position of being able to offer proven
mobile units for a wide range of materials
including iron ore, copper, gold and even granite.”
MMD’s position is that while mining
consultants and manufacturers around the
world extol the virtues of IPCC, “much of what
has been claimed has yet to be accomplished,
and proof of the capability to fulfil said claims
is imperative if the industry is to avoid a repeat
of the overt optimism followed by re-
evaluation which characterised its previous
introduction. It is therefore essential that the
industry review the history/credentials of
potential suppliers prior to committing the
future of an operation, to what could be no
more than an optimistic vision.
“Here MMD has a distinct advantage as its
involvement with IPCC has been
105 virtually synonymous with MMD
10,500 itself, with the company, shortly
290 after patenting the Sizer, actively
addressing demand for mobile
units, supplying them to a range
of users.”
MMD’s first major break in the mining
industry came in the late 1980s when Lignitos
de Meirama, which was using a semi mobile
gyratory rig and was aware of the advantages
and issues surrounding IPCC, approached
MMD for a sizing station to complement its
existing unit. The existing operation’s capacity
was limited by the crusher and the time taken
to reposition the unit. The conveyors, by
contrast, having been based on BWEs, were
quick and simple to move.
MMD designed and supplied a semi mobile
unit using a MMD 1250 series Sizer and MMD
D7 series plate feeder and this, the company
says, “was an immediate success. Not only due
to the Sizer’s ability to handle high throughput
and its ground breaking in-ground hopper,
which allowed it to be moved as a single unit,
but also its ease of installation.” This allowed
the mine to install the unit in the pit bottom
with all truck haulage being either horizontal
or downgrade thereby allowing operations to
expand to up to 4,000 t/h, resulting in the

FAM ZWB2025 crushing plant on crawlers with
double roll crusher - overburden: 4,000 t/h.
Maximum material size at inlet: 1,100 mm, and 300
mm at outlet
original gyratory unit being phased out of the
system. “Having proved its ability to handle
the throughput, this MMD unit then went on
to establish its reputation for reliability,
remaining in continuous service for almost 20
years sizing a mixture of shales, sticky clay and
granite until the mine finally closed in 2008
(IM, June 2009, pp12-14).
Around the same time MMD supplied a
similar fully mobile unit capable of handling
3,000 t/h to a Canadian customer. Here again
the unit proved capable of providing
consistent, high capacity and reliable service
for over a decade until it was irreparably
damaged in a workshop fire.
These successes were followed by a major
overburden operation in Thailand, which saw
three semi mobile MMD 1300 Sizer stations
(moved by a single transporter) each capable
of handling 4,500 t/h installed at Mae Moh
mine. This proved so successful that similar
units were later installed in a number of other
operations; notably in China and a second set
of four units using the MMD 1150 Series Sizer
(each capable of 5,500 t/h) were sold to Mae
Moh. During this period, a number of high
capacity (2,000+ t/h) fully mobile units were
delivered to sites around the world.
This acceptance of MMD technology both in
sizing and mobility led BMA (BHP-Mitsui Alliance)
to approach MMD in 1999 for a fully mobile unit
capable of in excess of 10,000 t/h (IM, June
2009, pp12-14) – the MMD MS1 mobile Sizer.
After the success of the MS1 mobile sizer, a
Canadian oil sands operator also came up with
a mine plan that would eliminate trucks. An
MMD fully Mobile Sizer Station was
fundamental to this. MMD engineered a
IN-PIT CRUSHING AND CONVEYING
bespoke version for the very particular
requirements of the oil sands environment. The
MMD OS1 Mobile Sizer developed to handle
6,500 t/h, a limitation imposed by the loading
capacity, was commissioned in 2006.
MMD says that “as yet no one has matched
[its] record of performance and reliability and
the first operational unit featuring its new
LPMS (Low Profile Mobile Sizer) production
model, as seen at China Coal in 2009, is
eagerly anticipated.”
FAM Förderanlagen Magdeburg notes its
use of heavy-duty apron feeders to feed the
crushers. Besides conventional heavy-duty jaw
crushers, FAM is increasingly deploying
“hammer crushers and heavy-duty double
roller crushers to crush the materials. Belt
wagons, mobile conveyor bridges or shiftable
conveyor systems are then used to transport
the crushed materials to storage or further
processing. Most equipment is crawler-
mounted. The machinery is fitted with an
appropriately rated independent power supply
depending on its intended purpose and size in
order to increase its availability and range.”
Three crawler-mounted crushing plants from
FAM’s current production program include the
FPB 1314 mobile crushing plant. Designed for
crushing 1,800 t/h overburden in a chalk pit,
this plant is equipped with a PB 1314 impact
crusher. A feeder hopper and an apron feeder
are provided to feed the chalk. The system is
moved at a speed of approximately 6 m/min by
two single crawlers.
The FZWB 2025 is a fully-mobile heavy-duty
crushing plant for overburden. At the heart of
the system is a ZWB 2025 double-roller crusher
with a maximum capacity of 4,000 t/h. The
equipment is suitable for crushing rocks with an
edge length of 1,100 mm down to below 300
mm. The entire crushing plant is shiftable on
four manoeuvrable single crawlers if required.
The FPHB 2022 is another type of machine,
deployed to crush limestone with a capacity of
1,000 t/h. A roller sizer is arranged upstream of
the hammer crusher to filter any undersize material.
FAM concludes that “using the combination
of equipment described above allows the
extraction, pre-crushing and transfer of the
materials directly in the pit. The crawler-
mounted design of all system elements
facilitates flexible and, above all, speedy
adaptation to changing mining conditions.
Optimised ramp driving provides practically
unlimited possibilities for shifting the machines
on the various levels of a mine. IM
JUNE 2010 International Mining 41