A SECTOR EMBRACING CHANGE

With autonomous operation becoming more established, newer forms of technology, such as remote operation, are increasingly being explored.

According to industry experts The Parker Bay Company’s Surface Mining Equipment Index, which tracks sales of mining equipment, 2023 had a strong start to the year before sales declined in the latter half of the year. Like construction, it is a cyclical industry, and it is worth noting that from 2020 sales have been rising and so these declines come from a position of strength. There are parallels to construction equipment, which is also predicted to see a decline in 2024, but from a healthy level. Another similarity between the two sectors is a lack of workers.

Tomahawk Construction is developing land to create a new 700-acre residential community in Florida, US, but its owner, Scott Lyons, reveals, “We really have just had a hard time getting people into haul trucks.”

One way to address this is through the use of technology. Tomahawk Construction is using Teleo, which builds autonomous technology for heavy equipment to provide a solution to address the labour shortage. Teleo retrofits any make, model and year of heavy equipment with its technology that enables remote and autonomous operations of the machines.

“I am the first operator in the world to run multiple articulated dump trucks at once,” says Tomahawk machine operator Max Bogacz. Specifically, he remotely operates three Teleoequipped articulated dump trucks (ADTs) on the Naples, Florida, US, jobsite, simultaneously, from a command center 40 miles (64km) away in Fort Myers.

Tomahawk recently became the first customer to get Teleo’s autonomous capabilities on their machines. This means that while machines are set to autonomous mode, they can perform repetitive tasks on their own, like hauling materials from one point to another.

If there are complex tasks that the autonomous technology cannot yet fully handle, the machine waits for the operator and Bogacz is there to take over, and can switch between machines with the press of a button.

Autonomous ADT

Another technology venture for the sector has launched between four companies that will – they hope – future-proof the effectiveness and competitiveness of quarrying operations within the minerals and aggregates industry. The companies – Chepstow Plant International (CPI), Bell Equipment, technology platform specialist, xtonomy, and global materials solutions company Sibelco – are working to produce an autonomous articulated dump truck (ADT).

The launch event for the venture was held at Sibelco’s quarry in Devon, UK, with a full demonstration of the new autonomous solution within a working quarry setting.

New technologies are increasingly being used in quarrying and mining

IMAGE: TELEO

Teleo enabled Tomahawk Articulated Dump Trucks and Excavator

IMAGE: TELEO

Bogacz remotely operates three Teleo-equipped articulated dump trucks from a command center 40 miles away

IMAGE: TELEO

The minerals and aggregates sector must embrace technology as a way of continually delivering improvements

Interactive presentations highlighted onboard hardware and software technologies, including radar sensors, GPS, multichannel communication systems and onboard processing hardware. They have been incorporated by xtonomy into a standard B40E dump truck to create an Autonomous-Ready drive by wire B40E solution.

INDIA’S FIRST ELECTRIC DUMP TRUCK

Sany India has unveiled the SKT105E Electric Dump Truck, which the manufacturer claims is the first of its kind to be locally manufactured in India. The SKT105E Electric Dump Truck is said to be designed to meet the demands of opencast mining operations. The fully electric vehicle has a payload capacity of 70 tonnes. The unveiling ceremony was attended by Mr. Deepak Garg, vice chairman and managing director of Sany India and South Asia. “The SKT105E marks a historic moment for Sany India and the Indian mining industry,” commented Mr Garg.

The combination is said to offer autonomy with a navigation system that plans ADT paths and predictively controls the vehicle around the entire quarry site. The pilot scheme aims to demonstrate the potential to reduce vehicular incidents and subsequent accidents as well as upskilling the existing workforce to further support the future of quarry operations. Autonomous ADTs should be able to operate for longer periods during the working day, deliver accurate tipping results, and ensure that the existing quarry shift patterns can be tailored to improve productivity. Another benefit could be improved component life and reduced wear and tear on the trucks, leading to improved asset availability for quarries. “We envisage many benefits from having access to this sector-first autonomous ADT solution,” said Ben Uphill, director of operations, Kingsteignton Cluster at quarryowner, Sibelco. “The minerals and aggregates sector must embrace technology as a way of continually delivering improvements across our daily operations and cost base.”

UNDERGROUND MINING DUMP TRUCK

GHH, German manufacturer of machines for mining and tunnelling, exhibited its GHH MK-A20 dump truck for the first time at the Maden Türkiye 2024 trade fair. The GHH MK-A20 is an articulated dump truck for underground mining, which was developed with a high power-to-weight ratio for cost-optimised use in hard rock. With a length of 9.4m, a width of 2.2m and a height of 0.25m fully loaded, the dumper can also cope in narrow mines.

In addition to the standard tipping volume of 10 cubic metres, tipping volumes of between 6 and 12.5 cubic metres are available. The load capacity is 20 tonnes. In December 2022 Komatsu agreed to acquire GHH Group GmbH.

Rokbak says that customer feedback is often heavily focused on the reliability of equipment

IMAGE: ROKBAK

A Caterpillar autonomous truck is ready for loading

IMAGE: CATERPILLAR

Caterpillar recently released its annual report for 2023 in which it revealed that its resource industries segment, which includes quarrying and mining equipment, saw sales of US$13.6 billion, a 10% increase compared to 2022. The OEM also mentioned some highlights for the sector in the report. These that included ten years of autonomous operations with over 630 large mining trucks running worldwide, an expanded customer electrification engagement with CRH to advance the deployment of 70 to 100-ton-class battery electric off-highway trucks and charging solutions and the demonstration of its first battery electric prototype underground mining truck with semiautonomous capability.

Source: Parker Bay Equipment

Four firms are working together on producing an autonomous ADT

IMAGE: CPi

Hauling serious loads

Technology will, of course, play a part – a big part – in the future of quarrying and mining equipment but, as we look to the future, contractors and projects owners also have to keep an eye on the here and now and ensure that these machines are as efficient as ever. Scott Pollock, senior product manager, Rokbak, says much of the customer feedback is focused on the reliability of a workhorse that can answer modern jobsite demands. “At the end of the day,” he says, “the customer wants a hauler that works hard, with minimal downtime, that’s cost-effective, easy to operate and that’s productive.”

Rokbak haulers are focused on performance, driven by a combination of heavy-duty axles, drivetrain gear reduction and differential locks. As with the majority of ADTs, all three axles of Rokbak’s RA30 and RA40 remain in permanent all-wheel drive, giving enhanced traction, as well as reducing driveline wear and wheel spin.

Both machines feature transmission retarders, with the RA40 equipped with a variable retarder, which increases levels of control for operators, particularly reassuring when having to haul on very steep inclines.

The RA30’s engine delivers 276kW and a maximum torque of 1880Nm at 1400rpm; the RA40 has engine power of 331kW and a maximum torque of 2255Nm at 1300rpm. Rokbak’s regional sales manager for EMEA, Kenny Price, says, “Torque and rim pull are areas we focus on when it comes to the design of the trucks. They need to have that torque and pull when they’re fully loaded to move in an efficient manner.”

As well as trucks, large excavators also play a key role in in this segment and it was recently announced that Swiss company Steinbruch Mellikon AG has complemented its two longstanding production machines, which are slowly becoming redundant after more than 20,000 hours, with a new Hitachi Construction Machinery (HCM) ZX890LCR-7. This investment is a significant one for a limestone quarry that was established in 1912 in the Aargau Jura mountains.

Steinbruch Mellikon AG’s managing director, André Schärer, was able to take his main operator Giuseppe Lavorato to Germany, where he tried out the same model. “It’s important that an experienced operator like Giuseppe is happy with the machine, so that he can have no complaints afterwards,” he says.

FIRST LIEBHERR MINING EXCAVATOR TO EASTERN CANADA

Earlier this year, Liebherr-Canada handed over an R 9150 mining excavator to new customer L. Fournier & Fils – a general contractor working in industrial, civil, and mining. This R 9150 is the first Liebherr excavator commissioned in Eastern Canada and will work in the Abitibi-Temiskaming region at the North American Lithium operation, which is part of the largest spodumene – lithium ore – reserve in North America.

“It’s important to us that the Canadian mining industry understands we not only supply fantastic digging, hauling, and dozing solutions, but also products and services that can optimise the performance and longevity of our machines,” says Tom Juric, Divisional Director of Mining for Liebherr-Canada.

The ZX890LCR-7 prepares and loads the blasted rock into one of the site’s two articulated dump trucks or rigid dump truck. Every year, between 400,000 and 500,000 tonnes of materials are processed in the site’s crushing and screening plant into various sizes of products for a wide range of applications. Technology is changing the sector, and its impact will only accelerate. In 2023 Caterpillar announced that its autonomous trucks have travelled more than 200 million km and hauled more than 5.5 billion tonnes without a single injury – those figures will now be higher. The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will make autonomous machines more efficient than ever. “AI will revolutionise the way we interact with machines and design interfaces between systems,” says Caterpillar chief information officer and IT senior vice president, Jamie Engstrom. “It’s fascinating and changing at a very rapid rate.” With this tech it really is a case of: watch this space.