SA motor control centre for Oz
Second Quarter 2005
News & events
When a South African plant design and control engineering firm was looking for a local company to supply a motor control centre for a manganese mining operation in Australia, the company it found that was prepared to accept the challenge was CHI Control.
Dowding Reynard and Associates, leading turnkey suppliers of process plants mainly for the mining industry, won a major contract for the design, construction and commissioning of a dense medium separation (DMS) plant, including steelwork, mechanical equipment, motors and conveyors, for the Bootu Creek manganese mine in Australia's Northern Territory.
DRA engineers approached several leading South African panel-builders to build the MCC to control the operation of the plant, and CHI was awarded the contract because they were able to meet the Australian requirements in the short period that was allowed for completion.
Most of what CHI Control offered as standard in the Unitrol TT (type-tested) MCC already fell within the parameters of the Australian requirements, while modifications to CHI's standard design resulted in full compliance.
One of the requirements was that the MCC should have internal arc proofing, already offered as a standard feature of the Unitrol TT, which is internal arc proof tested to 50 kA. The customer also specified that the MCC be supplied with semi-withdrawable buckets.
The motor control centre has been constructed in a shipping container, which has been equipped with airconditioning, so that it can be moved as a complete entity onto its site at the manganese mine in the remote Australian outback and be linked directly to the motors it will serve.
Commenting on CHI Control's quality assurance, Gert Potgieter, DRA engineer in charge of the project, said: "CHI Control's quality assurance standards are in line with our own. The product they supply is top quality, and their fault-finding standards are entirely satisfactory."
For more information contact Rob Hare, CHI Control, +27 (0) 11 827 9124, [email protected]
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