Vertical conveyors are being successfully used at ever-increasing depths in underground mines across the world. The conveyors are seen to offer a number of benefits over conventional skip hoisting systems or systems of declines and ramps.
Benefits include:
- More environment-friendly and efficient means of bringing mined ore from underground to the surface
- Require a smaller footprint than conventional systems
- The surface infrastructure needed is significantly smaller than a typical skip headframe, with the required mine shaft diameter reduced by 30% to 40%
- Electrical power consumption can be up to 50% less than an equivalent skip hoisting system
- Production rates provided by vertical conveyors compare favourably with rates provided by skip hoisting systems and those usually achieved with the use of trucks in ramps or decline shafts
- No infrastructure is required between the underground loading station and the discharge zone on the surface
- Reduced operational maintenance, as a result of the conveyor belt hanging free in tension
- Provides continuous production, compared to the batch production of skips or trucks
FKC-Lake Shore, a division of Frontier-Kemper Constructors, has designed and manufactured hoisting systems and related equipment for over a century and has installed a number of vertical conveyors globally.
The company highlights an underground silver mine in Mexico that has been using an FKC-Lake Shore vertical conveyor for over three years, to hoist ore from a depth of 400 m. Even greater depths are under consideration and the company explains that, for deeper mines, two vertical conveyors operating in tandem with a small transfer conveyor in-between, would be utilised.
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