With more than 70 years of reserve ahead of it, the Oxenford Quarry had been making do with a ?temporary? plate feeder for the past 15 years, according to quarry manager Wayne Wallace.
?We?ve been looking to improve the plant as we go and the old plate feeder was put in temporarily and its time had come, it had definitely got past the temporary stage,? Wayne said.
?It?s proven to be chalk and cheese to what we have now. The Simplicity has made us a lot more consistent and the plant is easier to control and is not as dirty ? it?s been a very good investment by the company.?
The Terex Simplicity stepped deck grizzly design provides greater feed distribution of material and superior scalping, meaning less undersize material passes through the primary crushing phase.
The heavy-duty steel channel construction provides high strength in the tipping impact zone, while deep side channels minimise spillage and material side creep in wet conditions. The Simplicity feeder?s major assemblies are bolted rather than welded which assists in eliminating stress fracturing and also allows fast and easy repair.
Processing upwards of half a million tonnes of the metagreywacke material found at Oxenford into a range of coarse and fine aggregates, manufactured sand, road base and revetment rock, Wayne Wallace said the new grizzly feeder fitted seamlessly with Nucrush?s plans to continually improve the crushing and screening circuit.
?We?re very comfortable with the feeder; we?re always looking to make things easier again and it is certainly working well,? he said.
?It has allowed us to get a lot more material through now if the other side of the plant will take it and we are getting much better feed rates than previously. We have the capacity of up to 700 tonnes per hour with the feeder but are maintaining it around 400 tonnes per hour.?
Available in a range of custom configurations, Nucrush elected for a pan feeder trough with a two-deck grizzly scalping stage. The grizzly features a longer deck on the second stage to suit Nucrush?s existing 100 tonne feed bin design.
The cascade between the grizzly decks allows material to move freely, delivering greater scalping capacity and reducing feed to the company?s 30? x 54? Terex Cedarapids primary jaw.
?It certainly does a good job of feeding the crusher and combines well with the bin design. We are now crushing bigger stone through the primary jaw, so we?re getting lots of advantages out of it,? Wayne said.
With tropical weather an operating reality in southeast Queensland, managing wet material was also a criterion in Nucrush?s feeder selection.
Providing excellent distribution out of the pan, the Terex Simplicity feeder delivers powerful oscillating forces from the twin shaft vibrating drive assembly, which is fitted directly to the pan. This assures constant material movement with reduced plugging and material bridging under the most adverse conditions.
Tapered adjustable grizzly openings also help prevent wet material plugging.
As well as improved performance the new Simplicity feeder fits seamlessly with other key equipment which also has Terex origins.
?We could have chosen other equipment, but we?ve stuck with Terex because we?ve got their crushers and screens,? Wayne explained.
?Terex have been very co-operative in designing the feeder to suit our operation and their feedback and support has been excellent. They?ve been very responsive in getting our questions answered and are there when we need parts or maintenance and support.
?We have the plant to a stage where we are very comfortable with it now without going to the next step which would be to add a live surge pile where this feeder would really stream.
?There?s always scope for development with plants and Oxenford is going to be around for another 100 years so we always look pretty hard at what we can do to make things easier again.?
Source: Terex Jaques/Industri Communications