Recent Projects:
MineWATCH
Continental Conveyor
In 2003, Continental Conveyor won the contract to supply 2 main trunk conveyors to Svea North Mine of SNSG in Spitsbergen. The conveyors were each to be in excess of 2km long, transporting approximately 2,000T/Hr in adown hill tunnel. The main problem was to control the conveyors during starting and stopping and avoid unsafe tensions in the conveyor belting. The solution required that the torque transmitted to the hydraulic soft start couplings had to be very carefully controlled. Also, on conveyor stopping, the conveyor is required to have a disk brake system at the remote point of the conveyor. Davis Derby supplied the Minewatch PC21 distributed system which includes a main conveyor controller that monitors and protects the conveyor against damage from belt slip, blocked chutes, misalignment, etc. also integrated into the system are 2 coupling controllers which by monitoring the drive motor current, control the level of torque transmitted to the drives. At the remote point of the conveyors, a MineWATCH PC21 unit is used to control the hydraulic braking system and finally, the belt tension is monitored and controlled by a Minewatch PC21 automatic loop control system. All of the control units transmit data via a standard mining telephone cable to all the other Minewatch PC21 units and provide a totally integrated monitoring and control system. Finally, information is connected to the surface Davis derby MineSCADA system such that the conveyors are monitored and controlled from the surface control room. Since 2003, the mine have produced in the region of 3MT/Annum with all of the mines output being transported out of the mine by these two conveyors. Since this time, Davis Derby has gone on to provide the control and monitoring systems for all of the mines conveyors.
