ABB gearless drives for TAKRAF's most powerful mining conveyors in Chile

Building the world’s most powerful belt conveyor system for underground mining project in Chile

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Four 5 megawatt (MW) gearless drives were recently commissioned and tested at the head drive station of conveyor CV-02 and are now up and running. It forms part of TAKRAF’s scope of supply for an underground mining project in northern Chile and the world’s most powerful belt conveyor system. 

Source: Press releases by TENOVA

VIDEO: ABB completes commissioning of the world’s most powerful Gearless Conveyor Drive system
VIDEO: Manufacturing of a gearless conveyor drive
VIDEO: Commissionning of gearless drives
Ulf Richter, Product manager, conveyor systems at ABB
"ABB gearless conveyor drive (GCD) for high power has passed a 100% back to back (B2B) load test on site for all 11 pieces of 5MW drives. This project has been the greatest challenge and success for our Material Handling team, game changing for transport, installation and service on site."
Marc Hollinger, TAKRAF Project Manager
“Thanks to the effective collaboration of all concerned, together with our technology partners, ABB, commissioning of the drives was realized in a record time of only 14 days. This now means that the drives are ready and can be employed for the arduous task of belt installation, which makes the process significantly safer and faster”
This mega project achieves a number of world firsts, from the system’s total installed drive power to the first global application of the ST 10,000 conveyor belt. Thanks to the use of belt conveyor technology with highly efficient gearless drive technology, CO2 emissions have been reduced by 70% , together with significant improvements in system maintainability and performance.

Record breaking mining conveyors

Conveyor CV-02 is 20MW and the second of TAKRAF’s mega 11,000 tph gearless drive conveyors which will convey crushed copper ore from the underground mining area to the surface - a distance of 13km. 
 
It is fed by conveyor CV-01, also 20MW and a similar length, with both conveyors overcoming significant elevation change of more than 1,000m as they transport ore from the first level of the underground mine system to the surface. 
 
Conveyor CV-02 feeds into another TAKRAF conveyor, this time an overland conveyor of 15MW, also using advanced gearless drive technology. 

Together with TAKRAF ABB developed an outstanding and new concept of embedding the Gearless Conveyor Drive (GCD) with large synchronous motor into the conveyor structure.

Advanced gearless drive technology

VIDEO: Benefits of gearless conveyor drives
Crushing and conveying offering
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