We know that moving thousands of tons of heavy-duty materials can take a heavy toll on your belt conveyor system. Regular wear and tear can quickly escalate to rips, slits, or tears in your belt, requiring costly shutdowns, repairs or possibly even replacements if not detected in time. For one Flexco customer, an early warning proved to be the difference between an inconvenient belt repair and a catastrophic replacement.

Your hidden cost

A high-production steel plant in Southern New South Wales became the perfect candidate to trial Flexco Elevate, a remote belt cleaner monitoring system, as they have multiple conveyors with Flexco cleaners installed. The plant has a production capacity of over three million tonnes of steel per annum. As their profitability is a direct result of their uptime, their goal is to avoid significant belt repairs or replacements until scheduled downtime. However, this requires a significant commitment of manpower and resources to ensure the belt is monitored thoroughly and routinely.

Our found solution

Flexco partnered with the above-ground mining operation to trial 75 Elevate i3 Devices on 75 existing belt cleaners across three different departments. The goal was to monitor runtime hours against blade wear rate, which is one of the primary benefits of the platform as it can help operations maximise the life and value of cleaner blades.

Luckily for this mine, Flexco Elevate also monitors for abnormal events. One particular device picked up excessive vibration abnormalities on a precleaner mounted to a conveyor. When this occurred, the device sent out a notification to both the Flexco representative and the operations maintenance team. The alert prompted a manual inspection which confirmed the start of a potentially catastrophic rip in the belt. The rip forced part of the belt material to stick out and jolt the monitored cleaner with each rotation, resulting in the alert of an abnormal event.

The results

Had the puncture not been caught by Flexco Elevate, the maintenance team estimated that the rip had the potential to cause an entire belt replacement. Between time spent waiting for an available crew, belt availability, and time needed for the replacement, the downtime could have exceeded several days. By catching the tear early enough, Flexco Elevate prevented an estimated $37,000 expenditure on replacing the belt and labour costs, not including lost production.

Flexco Elevate offers an unprecedented, real-time remote view of the health and performance of belt cleaners - and that's just the beginning as the devices continue to get smarter and produce more accurate data as time progresses. From the successes of just a trial, the mining operation is now interested in implementing these devices for their critical belts.

To learn how Flexco Elevate can help prevent costly catastrophes at your operation, connect with your local Flexco representative today or check out www.flexcoelevate.com for more information.