Lowering operation costs for mining equipment attachments to achieve an overall productivity gain of 2 percent
Lowering operation costs for mining equipment attachments to achieve an overall productivity gain of 2 percent
VR Group
VR Group, designs, builds, and repairs fabricated mining equipment attachments.
- Centrala:
- Alrode, Gauteng, South Africa
- Produkty:
- Simcenter EDEM
- Sektor przemysłowy:
- Maszyny przemysłowe
The capabilities of Simcenter EDEM gave us the insight to be able to minimize the level of wear and strain on equipment whilst in the design stage before going into full production. We therefore increased the productivity of customers while minimizing peak strains in their equipment. What more could the customer and OEM want?
About the customer
VR Group, designs, builds and repairs fabricated mining equipment attachments. Clients include Anglo Coal, Arch Coal, BHP Billiton, BMA Coal, Coal India, CRM and Xstrata. VR Group has dragline bucket customers in the U.S., South Africa, Australia, Brazil and India.
With Simcenter™ EDEM™ software virtual prototypes, VR Group field-tests new design options, creates custom designs for specific users, builds fewer physical prototypes, shortens the design cycle and increases customers’ productivity.
Their challenge
VR Group needed to optimize dragline bucket performance and productivity for a wide range of media and mining conditions around the globe. They needed to develop a new, optimized bucket design balancing efficiency, capacity, durability and projected operations and maintenance (O&M) costs. VR Group wanted to streamline the design process.
Their customers needed design solutions that:
- Fill easily and empty completely
- Operate at maximum capacity
- Boost wear protection
- Reduce operating costs
- Improve overall efficiency
VR Group uses Simcenter EDEM for virtual performance testing in development of its dragline buckets.
Our solution
VR Group used Simcenter EDEM, which is part of the Siemens Xcelerator business platform of software, hardware and services, coupled with multibody dynamics simulation software, to simulate both the bulk soil dynamics and the dynamics of the bucket and lifting gear. This cutting-edge, integrated particle-machine dynamics solution was used to successfully model the transient particle-structure interaction, simulating the complete digging cycle of a dragline bucket. This virtual performance testing predicted the prototype bucket:
- Mode and rate of fill
- Transient loading of bucket and gear
- Wear patterns and rates
VR Group uses Simcenter EDEM for virtual performance testing in development of its dragline buckets.
Results
The Simcenter EDEM capability to accurately simulate the performance of the prototype bucket designs and wear packages resulted in engineering improvements including:
- Increase in fill level
- Shorter filling cycle
- Reduction in bucket mass
- Lower operation costs provided an overall productivity gain of 2 percent
VR Group benefited from improved bucket design, delivering only one physical prototype, repetitive virtual testing under the same operating conditions, and determined the best design faster.
“The capabilities of Simcenter EDEM gave us the insight to be able to minimize the level of wear and strain on equipment whilst in the design stage before going into full production,” says Bertus Haasbroek, chief design engineer, VR Group. “We therefore increased the productivity of customers while minimizing peak strains in their equipment. What more could the customer and OEM want?”