Client Profile
West Australian Gold Mine
Located in the Northern Goldfields of Western Australia, this underground gold mine has a hard rock processing capacity of approximately 2.2 million tonnes per year.
The conventional CIL plant has a two-stage crushing circuit consisting of a single toggle overhead eccentric swing jaw crusher, HP6 secondary crusher and Metso double deck screen, followed by a SAG and Ball milling circuit.
Overview
In 2019, this gold mine was seeking to increase its processing capacity and wanted wear plates that could help deliver longer production periods and minimise unplanned maintenance.
With the assistance of Cutting Edges, they implemented and evaluated a trial of chromium carbide wear plates in one crusher chute, resulting in a tripling of service life.
Wear plate solutions were then implemented throughout the entire crushing circuit with equivalent results, leading to significant financial, safety and productivity benefits.
The gold mine has now further engaged Cutting Edges to deliver other wear parts solutions such as apron feeder pans.
“The trial proved to be a great success with our feeder wear plate life increasing from three to nine months.”
– Maintenance Superintendent, West Australian Gold Mine
Problem
With plans to increase the mine’s throughput of hard rock, the gold mine’s Maintenance Superintendent knew he needed to increase the wear life of material handling chutes.
“Using traditional wear plates that primarily consisted of 300 to 350 grade Bisalloy was not giving me the wear life I would need in the crushing chutes to maintain sustained and prolonged shutdown-free periods,” the Maintenance Superintendent said.
Cutting Edge’s Manager of Mining Solutions, Rob Iredell said that wear life was the priority.
“They wanted to increase the tonnes per hour but knew they needed to modify their equipment to handle that. If you are blowing out chute walls you will lose production rather than increase it.”
Solution
“I was encouraged by Cutting Edges to trial their chromium carbide overlay wear plate in high wear / problem areas to obtain fast feedback on its performance compared to our traditional Bisalloy wear plate,” the Maintenance Superintendent said.
It wasn’t long before he knew he had found the right solution.
“The trial proved to be a great success with our feeder wear plate life increasing from three to nine months,” he said.
“This gave me the confidence to use Cutting Edges’ wear plates in many other high wear areas within the crushing circuit over 2019 and 2020, with similar results. We are now expanding our relationship with them.”
Speaking of their solution, Rob said it is exactly what Cutting Edges specialise in.
“We delivered wear plates they could rely on to minimise maintenance schedules and eliminate unplanned shutdowns, ultimately to help them improve productivity and produce the tonnes per hour they were seeking.”
Benefits:
Installing wear plates that last three times longer has led to a range of productivity, financial and safety benefits for the West Australian gold mine:
- Reduced wear plate replacement costs
- Reduced labour costs in maintenance periods
- Improved planning strategies: resources are directed to other high priority jobs during planned shutdown
- Savings by not having unplanned plant shutdowns
- Longer production periods without stoppages: they can run the plant for longer without having to worry about blowing out chutes
- Improved safety through less frequent replacement schedules. The safest way to do a job is to eliminate it
Learn More About Our Chromium Carbide and Tungsten Carbide Wear Plates
Designed to deliver superior performance in the most demanding conditions.
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