In 2008, one of Australia?s largest aggregate producers required a comprehensive in-pit crushing solution at two quarry sites to ramp up production to meet local demand. Its requirements for extra capacity at the two sites were as diverse as they were challenging and resulted in separate tailored solutions. Metso worked closely with its local dealer, Screenmasters Australia, to ensure the right solutions were delivered. In all, 12 Metso Lokotrack units were supplied to create two Lokotrack trains.
LOKOTRACK TRAIN #1
At the first site, a new mobile plant was installed to produce road base products. The customer converted the existing fixed plant to manufacture high quality aggregates. After extensive trials of mobile equipment, material testing and site studies it was determined, due to the demanding nature of the greenstone resource, that the crushing equipment had to have the highest strength and quality of design and power to produce the right product day in, day out.
The multi-stage tracked plant consisted of:
? A LT125 primary jaw Lokotrack with three-stage vibrating grizzly, scalping system, rock breaker and push button setting adjustment.
? A Nordberg LT300GP cone crusher accepting feed from the primary. With 400kW power, variable cone speed and stroke and controlled by an IC800 PLC, hard rock was no problem for this machine.
? A Nordberg LT550GPF combination cone and screen Lokotrack for tertiary duties, with an onboard 6m x 2m triple-deck, high stroke horizontal screen. Oversize material was crushed in closed circuit by a GP550 cone crusher, a tertiary crusher with 1.5m head diameter and massive feed opening.
? A new LT9100 Lokotrack custom built for final crushing and fines generation of the road base product.
LOKOTRACK TRAIN #2
At the second site, the Lokotrack train had to deal with a hard river gravel deposit. Screenmasters tested the equipment on-site to intimately understand the crushing needs of the resource. The need to produce quality aggregates, especially in finer fractions, meant the right number of reduction stages and the ability for final shaping of the end product was crucial.
The final solution was a multi-stage Lokotrack train consisting of some of Metso?s newest mobile crushing and screening technology, including:
? A Nordberg LT110 primary jaw.
? Two LT300HP Cone Lokotracks for the secondary and tertiary stages.
? A HP300 cone crusher, with 400kW of installed power.
? A new LT7150 Barmac VSI, located at the end of the train, for well shaped product.
? Several new series double and triple deck 18 feet x 5 feet mobile screens, which ensured the right gradings were achieved.
The Lokotrack train systems at both sites provided a total solution from the customers? deposit to the quarry gate. A commitment to this amount of equipment and associated services is not one any aggregate provider can make easily. What is crucial, though, to the success of installations this size is a long-term commitment and collaborative approach from a supplier such as Metso or Screenmasters for the lifetime of the investment and beyond.