Innovative product solutions protect the environment
The project Nuevo Nivel Mina is intended to open up new copper reserves in deeper layer of the mountain so that mining can now take place underground. With the new conveyor belt system, which will transport the mined rock, the mine operator implements energy-saving solutions. The steel cord belts from ContiTech are manufactured with an XLL Compound, a special, energy-optimized rubber composition. Since this rubber compound significantly improves visco-elastic properties, the indentation rolling resistance on the conveyor belt system is minimized. In comparison with conventional conveyor belts, this enables energy consumption during the transport of raw materials to be cut by up to 25%. In this way, energy costs and CO2 emissions can be significantly reduced.
Improved safety and reliability thanks to electronic monitoring
Alongside energy-optimized steel cord belts, the ContiTech Conveyor Belt Group is supplying innovative electronic conveyor belt monitoring and inspection systems for El Teniente. These systems are well suited for the diverse challenges of the copper mine and guarantee a high degree of safety and reliability.
Conti®Protect monitoring systems protect conveyor belt systems against serious damage, thereby making a major contribution to enhanced operational reliability by reducing the number and length of malfunction-related downtimes. Conti®Protect Splice Elongation Measurement is designed to monitor larger conveyor belt systems and uses magnetic markers to detect irregularities in splice length. "On conveyor systems with ever more stringent safety factors and ever increasing conveyor belt strengths, monitoring the splice increases operational reliability," says Arndt Bunzel, application engineer in the Mining World segment at the ContiTech Conveyor Belt Group. Conti®Protect Belt Rip Detection uses conductor loops vulcanized into the conveyor belt to detect longitudinal slits as early as possible. With improved conductor loops and low susceptibility to electromagnetic interference, the belt monitoring system prevents error messages and, in turn, costly conveyor downtime. Online support is also available. On request, the experts from ContiTech can log into the system and remotely check and optimize processes.
In the development of its electronic monitoring systems, ContiTech uses synergy effects across the corporation and builds on the know-how of the Continental Automotive Group, which among other things develops and produces pioneering electronic systems for the automotive and commercial vehicle industry. From this collaboration derive innovative solutions for more security in conveyor belt systems. The newly developed belt monitoring systems of the ContiTech Conveyor Belt Group meet the high standards of the automotive industry and guarantee a high level of reliability.