Technogrids save thousands in Canada
3rd Quarter 2014
Other technologies
A South African safety product has saved a Canadian mining company tens of thousands of dollars in potential downtime and damaged equipment. When a conveyor belt failed at a large potash mine, it was a Technogrid system developed and manufactured by Horne that immediately caught the multi-ton counterweight and prevented its fall.
Counterweights are needed to maintain belt tension in conveyors. Attached to the belt and suspended below it, the counterweight has the potential to damage equipment and structures should the belt fail. The Technogrid is designed to prevent such a fall, and the mine has 40 of them fitted beneath belt counterweights throughout the facility. Technogrids are also fitted to conveyor belt systems throughout the mining company’s other potash mines in Canada. Upon impact, the Technogrids stop the fall of the counterweight, absorbing all the impact energy and retaining the counterweight on the catch frame until it can be reinstalled on the repaired conveyor belt.
Horne developed the Technogrid several decades ago to absorb the kinetic energy of a moving object by deforming a metal grid of known design and characteristics through a stroke deformation of predicted value. The device comprises a series of multi-bar units connected in a staggered grid shape which, upon impact, yield and deform under double-curvature bending. It is the yielding of the bars that allows the unit to open up and stroke, and it is the strain hardening of the material that absorbs the impact energy.
For more information contact André du Preez, Horne Group, +27 (0)11 974 1004, [email protected], www.horne-group.com
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