In the wake of the recent successful installation of a Blair Multi-Rope winder at Glencore’s Mopani Copper Mines’ Synclinorium shaft in Zambia, FLSmidth will now supply BMR winders for the mining company’s two new shafts: the Mindola shaft at the Nkana mine in the Kitwe district and the new Mufulira shaft at Mufulira mine 25 km due north of Kitwe. This is the highest value order FLSmidth’s Mine Shaft Systems business has received for BMR winders to date. The company has installed more than 90% of the world’s BMR winders and has been actively involved in their development since the first installations in 1959. “With only about 50 BMR winders of this kind operating in the world, it is gratifying to be adding another four in a single application, bringing to five the number of these units in one country, whereas two years ago there were none,” Wendy Norman, FLSmidth’s sales manager for Mine Shaft Systems in South Africa, says.

FLSmidth will supply identical equipment for both shafts, each of which will incorporate a double drum BMR rock winder and a single drum BMR man/materials winder. The drums are almost identical for all four winders, each measuring 5.7 m in diameter with two 1.8 m wide rope compartments.

Also setting this order apart is the fact that this will only be the second customer where a Hooke’s joint application has been used in mine hoisting on the African continent, and the first for Zambia. The Hooke’s joint is a giant universal coupling  used on double drum BMR winders to link the two drums mechanically, without the use of gears to allow the drums to be angled towards the conveyance centres to improve rope fleeting angles. This system offers significant capital cost savings over electrically coupled winders. The cost of a BMR installation is offset by the higher tonnages that can be hoisted using twin ropes per conveyance.

FLSmidth, an industry leader in this technology which is unique to the African mining industry, installed the first Hooke’s joint in the early 2000s at a gold mine in Westonaria. Development work had been in progress since the mid 1980s on the use of these joints in a hoisting application. At the Mindola and Mufulira shafts, the Hooke’s joint will allow the wide BMR drums to be installed at an angle of 12° to each other, accommodating the drum centres without incurring any fleeting angle problems.

The company will begin delivering the equipment to Mopani Copper Mines in the last quarter of 2015, with installation likely to commence in 2016. The drums are being made by a South African company and the drum shafts by an international supplier. Voith is manufacturing the Hooke’s joints for this application.

Once manufacture of the drum shafts is completed and following a trial assembly in South Africa, the Zambian government will send mining inspectors to examine and verify all the equipment before it leaves the country. Thereafter the equipment will be dismantled and transported on superlink trucks by road to Zambia. Owing to their significant size the drums will be sent in half sections. All the equipment necessary for this installation will be sent to the mine site in strict sequence, since the main components are too big to be stored on site for any length of time. The total weight of the components that will travel to the mine by road is in the region of 3 000 tons, including electrical equipment such as transformers.

FLSmidth, the mining industry’s undisputed leader in deep level hoisting, is focused on building the necessary skills and experience to become a one source solution in the mine shaft business worldwide, just as it is in the mineral processing and cement industries. This follows a formal integration of the company’s mine shaft systems capabilities in South Africa and Canada in 2012 to form a dedicated business unit within FLSmidth.

The mine shaft systems offering comprises two distinct product lines serving a common and unique sector of the mining industry — mine hoisting and mine shaft equipment technology — and draws on a spectrum of in-house engineering skills to offer customers a holistic solution. FLSmidth’s global procurement strategy allows the mine shaft systems team to source its equipment from all parts of the world, enabling it to secure the most competitive prices, while still delivering the quality products with which the company has come to be associated.

ADDITIONAL BMR WINDERS FOR MOPANI PIC 01A AND PIC 01B : FLSmidth double drum BMR winder showing splash screens and brakes.
ADDITIONAL BMR WINDERS FOR MOPANI PIC 02 : FLSmidth drum shaft being installed on the Synclinorium shaft.
ADDITIONAL BMR WINDERS FOR MOPANI PIC 03 : Side view of FLSmidth double drum BMR winder showing drum, bearings and clutch.
ADDITIONAL BMR WINDERS FOR MOPANI PIC 04 : Top view of the 5.5 metre diameter by 1.8 metre wide FLSmidth double drum BMR winder at Mopani Copper Mines PLC's Synclinorium shaft during installation.
ADDITIONAL BMR WINDERS FOR MOPANI PIC 05 : 3D model of the new Voith universal Hooke's Joint to be used on the Mindola and Mufulira shafts.