EXTERNAL COOLING & LUBRICATION SYSTEM

for a crawler drive, discharge conveyor, transfer conveyor and feeder drive destined for an open cast mine in China.

A total of five assorted Siemens Mechanical Drives gear units will be travelling to Shouzhou City, in China’s Shanxi Province, after manufacture in the UK. These include two 400kW Planurex bevel helical planetary units supplying the crawler drive (size P2KB30, weighing 11.4t each), one 350kW P2KA22 Planurex driving the apron feeder, and two Flender FZG B3SH size 14 (350kW) and size 12 (275kW) bevel helical units with integral backstops for the discharge conveyor and transfer conveyor.

The unit for the apron feeder features an external cooling and lubrication system, plus an integral motor mounting platform.

Chris Pearson, MMD’s mobile sizer projects director, said the Siemens units had been specified due to their performance characteristics and reliability: "We have used Flender gear units successfully for a number of years in our systems and their reliability and worldwide service support are key contributory factors for us.” MMD supplies sizers, feeder units and sizing stations for mineral applications all over the world. The high production capacity of this unit (9000tph) is due partly to its ability to continue sizing whilst moving. The unit will move 5m per cut and advance twice an hour.

The Siemens planetary units are fitted with coolers to cope with the site conditions and some highly flexible Elpex tyre type input couplings with drum brakes have also been supplied to the crawler drive units. Other Siemens input couplings supplied to the apron feeder include a Rupex pin and buffer coupling, and on the discharge and transfer conveyors, N-Eupex flexible input couplings.