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Conveyance system assists productivity at Sudanese cement plant

20th September 2013

  

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Conveyance solutions provider Doppelmayr’s RopeCon system is assisting in transporting raw materials from a new crushing plant to the processing plant of Sudanese cement manufacturer Berber Cement.

The company's system is assisting Berber Cement to meet its daily demand of transporting 9 000 t of limestone to its new cement plant in Al Khartoum, in Sudan.

The company’s Tifila quarry is located next to Berber Cement’s company area, towards the east, while the marble quarry is about 15 km west of the Nile river and the stone crusher is on the western bank of the Nile.

Berber Cement’s modern crushing plant has been installed 8 km away from the processing plant.

“One of the biggest challenges was crossing the river, which is about 850 m wide in the area where the limestone had to be transported across,” says Doppelmayr.

The RopeCon loading station is located on the western shore of the river, behind the crusher. The materials are brought to the crushing plant on trucks.

The crushed stone is then loaded onto the RopeCon through a feed conveyor and a chute and then conveyed to Berber Cement’s processing plant.

The RopeCon system comprises a flat belt with corrugated side walls and spans the Nile with a single large rope span between two tower structures positioned on either side of the river.

The galvanised, fully locked steel track ropes on which the wheel sets run are the type used for suspension bridges or ropeways.

The RopeCon system uses three pairs of ropes and the bottom rope pair supports the bottom belt, while the rope pair in the middle supports the top belt.

The uppermost rope pair provides additional stability for the structure. It also serves as the travelling rope for the inspection vehicle, through which each point along the line can be accessed.

The track rope frames are fitted to the ropes at regular intervals to maintain the ropes in their relevant position and to distribute the loads. The ropes have fixed anchoring at both ends and are guided over tower structures, similar to passenger ropeways.

Depending on the terrain and on the individual requirements of each project, different types of RopeCon tower structures are used.

It is not necessary to have a support structure in the river, as the total length of the RopeCon is about 3 465 m – with a vertical rise – from the loading station to the discharge station. The system has a transport capacity of 700 t/h.

Owing to river navigation, the minimum clearance between the system and the high-water level of the Nile must always be 21 m. The highest of the five towers is about 80 m.

Apart from having to cross the river, other aspects of the transport were also taken into consideration, one of them being the space requirements of ground-mounted systems, as the shores of the Nile form one narrow corridor of fertile land that is used for farming.

The construction of a road would have cut right through this valuable strip of land, but RopeCon is elevated off the ground and, therefore, spans this corridor with just a few tower structures, with no division of the valuable farmland along the shores of the river.

Several settlements on the eastern shores of the river border on the farmland and a truck-based transport solution would have exposed residents to considerable noise and dust pollution.

Benefits

The RopeCon system combines proven ropeway technology with the features of conventional belt conveyors.

The elevated continuous conveyor reduces space requirements on the ground to a minimum.

RopeCon easily crosses obstacles, such as deep valleys, mountainous terrain, rivers, roads or other infrastructure, thus allowing for a straight route between the loading and the discharge point, while avoiding unnecessary detours.

Drive Capabilities

The RopeCon’s flat belt performs the haulage function, in the same way a conventional belt conveyor does.

The belt is driven and turned back by a drive drum in the head or tail station. After the material has been discharged, a turning device turns the belt by 180° to bring the soiled side of the belt upwards once more and prevents residual material from falling off the bottom belt. The system has a motor rating of 185 kW.

The system’s belt is turned once more before it runs onto the drum again in the loading station, while the drive system is similar to that of a conventional belt conveyor and consists of a gearbox and an electric motor.

The RopeCon system features two independent mechanical braking systems and all its braking actions are regulated to ensure constant deceleration and a controlled stop under all circumstances.

Edited by Megan van Wyngaardt
Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

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