Mining Conveyors... Who Typically Designs Them 1

[GearsNsparks]

Who typically designs mining conveyors and hoppers?
1. Civil Engineers
2. Civil Engineers w/ PE
3. Mechanical Engineers
4. Mechanical Engineers w/ PE
5. CAD Technicians

I'm trying to figure out if these are typically engineered, and if so, by whom. Are PE stamps required?

 

[cvg]

this will be a material handling engineer, probably a mechanical and likely with a PE. Structural is also required as well as Instrumentation, electrical and controls.

 

[BigInch]

Structural engineers design the tower supports. It is doubtful that a PE stamp is required, as they do not normally have a significant number of persons aboard, they are not public works and they are usually located entirely on plant property. If they happen to span a public road, perhaps the story will be different. Usually they are considered a piece of equipment, not an occupied structure per say.

Learn from the mistakes of others. You don't have time to make them all yourself.

 

[bimr]

Conveyors are designed by someone with a mechanical engineering background. Whether or not a PE Stamp is required is project specific.

Project specifications are usually performance based.

 

[miningman]

At the risk of appearing anal, the OP's photo is a lite weight sand and gravel conveyor. In the mine I am presently at , we have about 32 miles of underground conveyors , rated at 3000 tones per hour , all powered with 750-1000 HP motors. Kind of chalk and cheese to use the term "mining conveyor " for both applications.

 

[BUGGAR]

Miningman, who designed your setup? Was it designed in-house?

I worked on the interceptor tunnels down the west side of Manhattan and I got to design the hopper that the skip hoist dumped into. At the time, I worked for the contractor (Perini), and the headframe and skip hoist was designed by Mayo Tunnel and Mining Equipment. The muck (tunnel spoils) spilled all over the place so the Project Engineer let me design a hopper to catch it. I was only a draftsman at the time. The biggest challenge was to design for impact loads from large falling rocks. We used T-1 steel for abrasion resistance. The rest was simple structural.

We usually have specialty equipment manufacturers design and build this stuff. I'm afraid to tell you who they hire, but their shop drawings come from everywhere from China to France.

Bob

 

[miningman]

Buggar, I am Canadian based and in the same way that I am totally unfamiliar with the names you have quoted, you would probably be unfamiliar with the organizations up here, and I would be reluctant to post the names anyway. The operation here was initially constructed 40 years ago and whereas I am sure nothing worked absolutely flawlessly from day 1, the operations people have built up an incredible depth of knowledge of what works and what doesnt. After 40 years it was time for a major upgrade ( $3 billion) and an EPCM contractor was chosen, but for the conveyors they were pretty well instructed to use only the designs and suppliers who had proved themselves over the last 12-15 years, and their initial designs were heavily scrutinised by our operations people and myself.

The problems that you encountered in Manhattan could easily have been avoided had the designs been scrutinised by someone like myself with 30 years mining experience. ANY splillage at all at the skip /dump interface is intolerable for both production and safety reasons. Mining is easy if you have the experience to know what doesnt work. The trouble is too many people, without practical experience, are of the opinion " How difficult can this be?" Use of abrasion resistant steel is pretty well ubiquitous and rock transfer points, especially in pre cambrian rock which cover something like 60% of Canada.

 

[BUGGAR]

Miningman,

I totally agree with you on the advantage of experience. Especially in specialties like mining - there are so many thing to consider in design as you indicated. Our problems in Manhattan were indeed due to lack of specific experience machine tunneling the rock (mica schist). This was the first successful mole in the City and we had teething problems.
You probably noticed that I was a draftsman when I designed that stuff - not really qualified but everything worked.

So in my response to the OP, my experience is that, in reality, everyone listed (qualified or not) designs this machinery, but probably the most qualified would be a mechanical engineer (with appropriate experience of course).

 

[GearsNsparks]

It looks like I could find either mechanical engineers or civil engineers that would design the entirety of the system. Even though there is some overlap between the disciplines its likely that on the job training/experience quickly fills in the gaps whether its mechanical engineers doing welded structures or civil engineers designing the moving parts/mechanisms. Its also likely that I find draftsmen that have been working on or around these things for 30 years that are creating new designs.

Thanks for the feedback.