Quarry Jun 2021

How OEMs are employing modern design tools to create more effective screens

DRY HIRED PLANT’S ROLE IN TUNNEL PROJECT A rental equipment supplier outlines its part in the West Gate Tunnel project

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THE ART OF SCREEN DYNAMICS

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OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF QUARRYING AUSTRALIA

JUNE 2021

KOMATSU: CREATING VALUE AT 100 YEARS STRONG An earthmoving giant celebrates its centenary – with a keen eye on the next 100 years

Komtrax Standard Komtrax data transfer Communicates data via satellite or cellular (mobile) network.

Komtrax Air Relay data transfer Using WiFi connectivity, Komtrax Air Relay doesn’t need satellite or cellular connection.

DataLink technology allows inter-machine connectivity for optimal data transfer, even in low-signal areas.

Take your fleet management to the next level Enhanced fleet monitoring in any environment To ensure you get the best from your fleet, it’s essential you can constantly monitor the health and performance of your equipment. Which is why Komtrax Remote Monitoring comes free with every Komatsu machine.

Komtrax Air Relay is an optional extension of Komtrax – for new or existing machines – that ensures full Komtrax functionality using remote WiFi-based data access where cellular or satellite coverage is non-existent or compromised. Plus features like customisable real-time alerts let you manage your fleet even more effectively.

As well, Komtrax Air Relay’s onboard hardware and software capabilities provide a foundation for continuous expansion and development to ensure it meets your future fleet management needs.

1300 199 054 | my.komatsu.com.au

IN THIS ISSUE JUNE 2021

VOLUME 29, ISSUE 06

FEATURES 20 MACHINES OF BEST FIT An OEM has remained dedicated to offering the best of its screens and feeders across five different brands.

28 CHOOSING A MOBILE THAT OUTDOES THE MODELLING How Australia’s Metso Outotec mobile crushing and screening distributor is providing knowledgeable support, choice and quality service.

30 TURNING MARKET PRESSURE TO OPPORTUNITY

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SCREEN DYNAMICS How OEMs are employing modern design tools to create more effective screens.

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FOR ALL SEASONS A family business maintains a decades-long preference for optimised vibrating screens.

To adapt to a changing market, a local company is pivoting towards Australian-made products to combat supply chain issues.

34 UPSTREAM TECH SOLVES DOWNSTREAM WEAR, TEAR Why a full rock-on-ground service can ensure an operation’s quarry products smoothly make the transition from the face to the gate.

42 IMPROVING AIR QUALITY CONTROL When it comes to air quality control, the onus is increasingly on quarries rather than regulators to ensure best practice is met.

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TUNNEL PROJECT A rental equipment supplier outlines its part in the West Gate Tunnel project.

JUNE 2021

OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF QUARRYING AUSTRALIA

DRY HIRED PLANT’S ROLE IN TUNNEL PROJECT

KOMATSU: CREATING VALUE AT 100 YEARS STRONG

A rental equipment supplier outlines its part in the West Gate Tunnel project

An earthmoving giant celebrates its centenary – with a keen eye on the next 100 years

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QUARRY

How OEMs are employing modern design tools to create more effective screens

100 YEARS STRONG An earthmoving giant celebrates its centenary – with an eye on the next 100 years.

An industry expert warns snap lockdowns still remain an impediment to the construction materials sector’s ability to lead the nation’s postpandemic recovery.

JUNE 2021

www.quarrymagazine.com

THE ART OF SCREEN DYNAMICS

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44 WHY CONSTRUCTION IS A POST-COVID-19 LIFELINE

COVER ADVERTISER: Delta Rent’s heavyduty Hitachi excavators have provided a “sea of orange” on the West Gate Tunnel Project for the past two years. To learn more, turn to page 32 or visit deltagroup.com.au/rent

EVERY MONTH 04 FROM THE EDITOR

48 IQA AWARDS

06 FROM THE PRESIDENT

52 IQA NEWS

08 NEWS THIS MONTH

53 FROM THE IQA CEO

16 PRODUCT FOCUS

Quarry June 2021 3

EDITORIAL

TIME FOR NEW EMPHASIS ON THE END VALUES OF QUARRY PRODUCTS

A

s this issue went to press (mid-May), I participated in a webinar presentation. The session – We built this city: Assessing the supply and demand for geological construction materials for a global city – was based on a study consultancies RW Corkery & Co and Ecoroc conducted on the construction materials supply and demand profile in the Greater Sydney Region (GSR).

The study was undertaken on behalf of the Mining, Exploration and Geoscience division of the New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. It included surveys and face to face interviews with industry stakeholders.

I doff my hat to presenters Dugald Gray (Ecoroc) and Mitchell Bland (RW Corkery) for an outstanding presentation.

It highlighted the extractive industry’s ongoing challenges, not only in the GSR and NSW but across Australia and the globe.

Those challenges include – but are not limited to – the licence to operate, the supply of raw materials to satisfy insatiable social demand (in spite of regulatory and public resistance to the extraction of some virgin materials), and post-site uses. It is remarkable at a time when construction activity is at record highs in Australia (see page 10) and despite the inherent value of the end products the population consumes (about seven to eight tonnes per capita per annum) that quarries continue to have to prove their worth in the “court of public opinion”.

Clearly the industry has to make a conscious, collective effort to promote itself, short of aggressive selfmarketing. In particular, the licence to operate should be justified not only in environmental and social responsibility terms but in an emphasis of the end values of quarry products. The

industry’s staunchest critics little know that silica quartz granules make up the transistor technology that powers the smartphones they use to lobby against it. How much more will they appreciate quarry products if they understand an impending global shortage of silicon chip production will impact the next generation of remote working and home entertainment devices?

Never has a grain of sand been so critical to our reliance on technology – and it should be cited in the assertion that quarry products permeate many aspects of our lives – from toothpaste to the computer chips in cars. Couple that with roads for our cars and the buildings we live and work in, and perhaps people will recognise how intertwined quarries and their lives are.

This is a potent narrative for the regions where expanding and new quarry projects are being confronted by the “What’s in it for me?” brigade.

Perhaps they may be more receptive if it can be explained that they will be the beneficiaries of the diversified applications of these quarry products later in the cycle – again through the technologies and utilities that I’ve mentioned above.

People understand the diversified uses of flour and sugar in food. It is well past time they better understood the diversification of quarry products – and that no matter far away aggregates are transported, they will inevitably be felt in some form at their point of origin.

However, it requires a collective will to craft a compelling, modern message – and to sing from the same proverbial “hymn sheet”. The IQA has identified that as part of its strategic priorities to 2025, so we await the initiatives it will develop.

DAMIAN CHRISTIE Editor

Published by:

IT IS REMARKABLE AT A TIME OF RECORD CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITY AND AGGREGATE CONSUMPTION, QUARRIES CONTINUE TO HAVE TO PROVE THEIR WORTH IN THE “COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION”

11-15 Buckhurst Street South Melbourne VIC 3205 T: 03 9690 8766 www.primecreativemedia.com.au Publisher John Murphy john.murphy@primecreative.com.au

Editor Damian Christie damian.christie@primecreative.com.au

Journalist Henry Ballard henry.ballard@primecreative.com.au

Business Development Manager Les Ilyefalvy les.ilyefalvy@primecreative.com.au

Client Success Co-ordinator Ben Griffiths ben.griffiths@primecreative.com.au

Design Production Manager Michelle Weston michelle.weston@primecreative.com.au

Art Director Blake Storey Subscriptions T: 03 9690 8766 subscriptions@primecreative.com.au Follow Quarry online: Facebook: facebook.com/quarrymagazine Twitter: twitter.com/2021Quarry LinkedIN: linkedin.com/groups/4314906/ Web: quarrymagazine.com The Publisher reserves the right to alter or omit any article or advertisement submitted and requires indemnity from the advertisers and contributors against damages or liabilities that may arise from material published. © Copyright – No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the permission of the publisher.

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Quarry June 2021

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PRESIDENT’S REPORT

POSITIVE SIGNS AHEAD FOR THE NATION AND THE INDUSTRY The Institute of Quarrying

T

he Australian economy is bouncing back, unemployment is coming down, increasing numbers are getting vaccinated and while the long-term debt will be something that generations will have to contend with, we couldn’t be in a better place to regroup and look to the future with a great deal of confidence.

Due to the concerted effort by the federal and state governments to invest in local, state and federal infrastructure accompanied by a housing boom in regional areas, most quarry suppliers are experiencing improved market conditions.

Productivity remains the key to efficiently and sustainably meet increasing demand for our quarry products. In all areas of productivity – eg technical skills, supervision, teamwork, leadership, safety, quality, risk management, technology, etc – the IQA can provide education to help industry workers gain the skills and knowledge they need to participate in a modern and rapidly advancing technological environment. The time is now, so don’t put off investing in yourself in terms of your education.

Contact the IQA and we will manage your educational pathway so you will never forget how important you are to your team’s and company’s success.

It’s with confidence we look to the future with the IQA being an integral part of the education landscape in the quarrying and related industries.

The IQA board has highlighted key programs of work to address gaps and to take advantage of opportunities as part of the annual strategic plan review. These programs of work will ensure that the IQA continues to strive to become a high performing and sustainable organisation, increasing relevance in the eyes of

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Quarry June 2021

Australia

our industry partners and members, and maximising outcomes for the industry through modern, relevant education and sustainable practice.

I look forward to sharing these programs with you in future issues of Quarry as we finalise the details of our plans. Thanks to those members who provided valuable contributions for consideration by the IQA Board as we reviewed the five-year strategic plan.

A call out for nominations to the 2021 IQA Awards that will be presented at the IQA October Newcastle conference. You still have time, so make time, to nominate someone.

The closing date for all nominations is Friday 6 August, 2021 at 5:00pm.

What a great way after a year to forget to recognise great people in our proud industry. I am sure we can all think of people in our business that deserve to be recognised. To nominate someone and to inform them of their nomination is reward in itself and then if they are successful among their industry peers and are recognised with the award, it is personally very satisfying when you see their proud faces as they receive an individual award or on behalf of their teams (eg for the Gold Hard Hat Site Safety, Gold Environmental and Excellence in Innovation and Community Engagement awards).

Get going now and let’s make sure we recognise as many deserving people as we can. For more information, turn to page 48 of this issue or visit quarry.com.au On behalf of the IQA Board and administration, stay safe, stay positive and stay healthy.

SHANE BRADDY President Institute of Quarrying Australia

Educating and connecting our extractive industry

quarry.com.au IT’S WITH CONFIDENCE WE LOOK TO THE FUTURE WITH THE IQA BEING AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE EDUCATION LANDSCAPE IN THE QUARRYING AND RELATED INDUSTRIES

The IQA’s Strategic Plan 2020 to 2025 embodies the following vision, values and strategic priorities: Vision: Educating and connecting the extractive and associated industries.

Values: • A safe and sustainable environment.

• Diversity and inclusion.

• Working, development skills, careers and life-long learning.

• Networking, connection, trust and communication.

Strategic Priorities: • Maximise outcomes for industry through education and sustainable practise.

• Increase our relevance.

• A high performing and sustainable organisation.

IQA CONTACTS: Phone: 02 9484 0577 Email: admin@quarry.com.au Chief Executive Officer Kylie Fahey Company Secretary Rod Lester For all education, member and branch enquires please email: admin@quarry.com.au.

NEWS

FIRST SPLASH DOWN AT THE OCEAN REEF MARINA ‘LOCAL JOBS ARE BEING CREATED AND LOCAL ROCKS ARE BEING USED TO BUILD WHAT WILL BECOME WESTERN AUSTRALIA’S PREMIER RECREATIONAL BOATING DESTINATION’

limestone cores, while granite from Byford Quarry will protect the structure from erosion.

EMILY HAMILTON

“Local jobs are being created and local rocks are being used to build what will become Western Australia’s premier recreational boating destination.”

MP FOR JOONDALUP The construction of the breakwaters will require 650,000 tonnes of limestone and 30,000 tonnes of granite.

The first slabs of limestone have been placed as breakwaters in the construction of Western Australia’s $250 million Ocean Reef Marina.

Ocean Reef is a suburb about 25km north of Perth, and its new marina will require more than one million tonnes of locally sourced limestone and granite.

The supply and construction of the breakwaters will be undertaken

by WA Limestone and Italia Stone Group and is expected to be complete by mid-2022.

WA Limestone director Steve Della Bona said the company was proud to help in transforming

the beachfront.

“WA Limestone is proud to be associated with this contract that will add such a huge infrastructure boost to the area and significantly better boating facilities to the local community,” Della Bona said.

“We will drill, blast, sort, transport and place over 1.2 million tonnes of product. We are expected to create between 100 to 120 new jobs over the next 18 months in the seawall/ breakwater construction phase and that in itself is a fantastic opportunity to be a part of.”

Limestone from Neerabup Quarry will provide the breakwaters’

Western Australian Minister for Lands Tony Buti said the community can’t wait to see the project up and running, after the State Government gave it the green light more than a year ago.

“Ocean Reef Marina is at an exciting stage and will really start to take shape in the coming months as the breakwater rocks are lowered into place,” Buti said.

Emily Hamilton is the Member for Joondalup, of which Ocean Reef is a part, and said the benefits of the development are abundant.

“This is an exciting moment for our local community with the next stage of the Ocean Reef Marina construction underway,” Hamilton said.

“Thousands of jobs will be generated by this iconic development, and some $3 billion will be injected into the WA economy – making it an important project for our state.

“This is a decades-in-the-making project that will deliver massive benefits to the local community with new facilities, recreational areas and job-generating businesses.” •

PARKLAND PLANS REVEALED FOR SYDNEY QUARRY Two years after more than one million cubic metres of clean fill was tipped into Hornsby Quarry, north of Sydney, the master plans for the plot’s rehabilitation have been announced.

The new Hornsby park will include facilities for walking, cycling, mountain biking, climbing, field sports and more, while the old process plant will be converted into a recreational building.

In consideration of the local community, Hornsby Shire Mayor Philip Ruddock said the resultant parkland would be a great reflection of the people it plans to serve.

“A core component of projects of this magnitude is always the extensive public

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Quarry June 2021

consultation that is undertaken,” he said.

“These are landmarks that will be part of our Shire’s heritage for generations to come and we want to make sure that the community has a sense of ownership.

“The only way to do that is by making the community an active part of the planning process.”

Inconveniently, the development of Hornsby Park and nearby Westleigh Park have a combined cost of about $130 million for the Shire.

After healthy contributions from the New South Wales Government and local council, a balance of $85 million still remains.

Ruddock said the reality when rehabilitating very large, old quarries is the cost and timeline associated.

“The simple reality is that Hornsby Shire is much smaller than it was when this project was first considered, and we do not have the same resources that we did then,” Ruddock said.

“We are not scaling the projects back as a result, but we will have to carry out their implementation in stages.”

The one million cubic metres of fill used in the restoration process came from the nearby NorthConnex Tunnel project, which has connected the two major highways at either end of Hornsby Shire. •

NEWS

CONSTRUCTION MAINTAINS RECORD ACTIVITY The Australian Performance of Construction Index (PCI) lost 2.7 points from March’s record highs, yet April 2021 still saw all four segments indicate continued growth.

Conducted by the Australian Industry Group (AiG) and the Housing Industry Association, the PCI saw its construction activity index jump to its own record high of 62.8 points (where scores above 50 indicate growth).

This record came as home builders rush to take advantage of newly approved HomeBuilder grants.

AiG head of policy Peter Burn said that demand should remain for a good year, as the new orders index remained at 57 points.

“Across the industry, employment and new orders were both higher in April although their expansion was slower this month,” Burn said.

“Apartment building and commercial construction were again in positive territory, although with current growth coming after long periods of contraction the levels of activity remain relatively modest.

“New orders were strong once again on the back of the house building and engineering construction sectors, suggesting continuing healthy levels of activity in the months ahead,” Dr Burn said.

Construction activity in housing (69.7), apartment (54.6) and engineering (63.8) all rose in April, while commercial activity dropped to become the lowest of the four segments at 51.4 points. •

METSO OUTOTEC ON TRACK TO DECARBONISE ‘A DIESEL AND HYBRID OFFERING COMPLETE EACH OTHER; IN REMOTE LOCATIONS WHERE A POWER GRID IS NOT AVAILABLE, A DIESEL DRIVELINE IS STILL THE ONLY VIABLE SOLUTION.’ KIMMO ANTTILA METSO OUTOTEC

The annual emissions of the Lokotrack range are reportedly 20,000 tonnes lower than they were in 2010.

Metso Outotec has launched a range of hybrid mobile crushing and screening equipment, merging a quietly capable diesel engine with clean and economical electric power.

The Lokotrack e-Power range includes 15 crushers and six screens, leading the market for hybrids of this product type.

Kimmo Anttila, the vice president for Lokotrack solutions at Metso Outotec, said it is fitting for Metso Outotec to develop such a complete range.

“We introduced the first Lokotrack e-models already 35 years ago, so we are one of the pioneers in this field,” Anttila said.

“During the past couple of years, the demand for hybrid solutions has really taken off as environmental regulations have become increasingly stringent in more countries. In fact, sales of the Lokotrack e-models have doubled in five years, and we expect the trend to accelerate.”

Metso Outotec’s Planet Positive initiative aims to limit global warming by 1.5C° and the Lokotrack range has contributed healthily to this.

The annual emissions of the Lokotrack range are reportedly 20,000 tonnes lower than they were in 2010.

The Australian PCI Index for April 2021 had unprecedented levels of building activity.

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Quarry June 2021

The e-power range has been proven to save up to 40 per cent on fuel costs for the crusher range, while various machines in the range use their own blends of electric to diesel ratios.

Screens, feeders and conveyors, for instance, are hybrid, while crushers

can be powered using only electricity.

Multiple fully electric machines can be powered using the one generator or simply from the power grid.

Anttila said there are multiple benefits to electric vehicles in the quarrying industry, and that lower fuel costs are just the beginning.

“We give consideration to the total fuel consumption, including the engine and driveline technologies, but also to other factors, such as the unit transportation weight and the engine stand-by function,” Anttila said.

“Additionally, we have reduced the hydraulic oil and lubricant volumes by more than half to further ease the environmental burden. Based on our data, a Lokotrack unit uses as much as 80 per cent less oils compared to our previous models and compared to many other brands on the market.”

Anttila stressed a hybrid option is the best in consideration of today’s infrastructure capabilities, especially in remote areas.

“A diesel and hybrid offering complete each other; in remote locations where a power grid is not available, a diesel driveline is still the only viable solution,” he explained. “We are investing heavily in development of sustainable technologies. Lokotrack is robust, energy-efficient, and highly mobile – and it meets the versatile needs of customers today and tomorrow.”

Metso Outotec mobile products are available to order in Australia via Tutt Bryant Equipment. •

NEWS

HOLCIM STAKEHOLDERS APPROVE CHANGE On 4 May, LafargeHolcim confirmed at its annual general meeting (AGM) that its name will be reduced to Holcim, as first proposed to stakeholders on 15 April, 2021.

For efficiency and impact, the board recommended omitting Lafarge from the company name and becoming Holcim around the world, to which shareholders approved the change.

In a welcome speech to open the AGM, chairman of the Board of Directors Beat Hess said the name change will unify the company globally.

“The proposed simplified group name change today aims to unite all of our market brands under this one simplified banner to support our future success,” Hess said.

“We will be keeping all of our market brands as they exist today from Lafarge and Holcim, to Ambuja, ACC, Aggregate Industries, Firestone Building Products to Geocycle.

“Our market brands are at the heart of our success, standing as beacons of trust for our customers across all of our markets.”

The original French company LaFarge was formed in 1833 and the original Swiss Holcim began operation in 1912. With a combined market value then exceeding $USD50 billion, the two companies announced a merger in April 2014 and the LafargeHolcim Group was officially launched in July 2015.

The company already goes by the name Holcim in Australia, but in supplying more than 70 markets around the world, many global customers will notice a change of branding to the flagship name. •

Stakeholders have voted without reservation to rebrand French/Swiss multinational Holcim.

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BORAL TO SUPPLY PERTH’S MOST SUSTAINABLE INDUSTRIAL ESTATE ‘THE FOCUS ON LOW CARBON CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS AT ROE PARK CAN PLAY A CRITICAL ROLE IN INFLUENCING SUPPLY CHAINS IN THE INDUSTRY.’ IAN LEARMONTH CEFC

Boral’s Envisia low carbon concrete has entered the trial phase to test the viability of its use for a new Perth logistics facility.

Announcing its selection as the project’s preferred supplier, Boral said the low carbon product would be used for structural and flooring elements, if it passes the trials.

The concrete uses a specially milled ground granulated blast furnace slag to replace up to 53 per cent of the usual Portland cement without losing strength, size or durability. This in turn allows for a 40 per cent reduction in embodied carbon content.

The logistics facility will be funded by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), a statutory authority that aims to facilitate increased finance flows to the clean energy sector. The project will use solar panels alongside the low carbon concrete to create Perth’s most sustainable industrial property.

The project – the Roe Highway Logistics Park (RHLP) – has received $95 million from the CEFC and will be built over the next 18 months.

CEFC chief executive officer Ian

Boral will supply a form of decarbonised concrete to Perth’s new Roe Highway Logistics Park development.

Learmonth said the nature of the project provides a great opportunity for emissions reductions and products like Envisia to change the construction landscape nationwide.

“The focus on low carbon construction materials at RHLP can play a critical role in influencing supply chains in the construction industry,” ” Learmonth said. “This offers a new pathway to cut emissions from the supply chain, and provides a world-leading example of low carbon options for the industry” According to the CEFC, the built environment represents 25 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. •

MONARO QUARRY PROPOSAL ON TRACK IN ROYALLA The Monaro Rock quarry project has identified a high quality rhyodacite resource in Royalla, on the border of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

Monaro Rock is a joint venture between Monaro Mix and Pacific Formwork which have a combined history of 75 years and 250 employees.

“As a local company Monaro will be employing local people and seeking supply to the operation from local businesses,” Warren said. “It is expecting to hire between 20 to 30 full-time personnel for the project and additional contractors and suppliers.”

To supply predominantly local markets, the project’s EIS is being prepared and has generated a lot of community interest.

Warren added people who attended the community information sessions expressed concerns about noise and dust (including silica exposure), blasting effects, potential impacts on water and local biodiversity. They also said transport should access the Monaro Highway directly.

Nick Warren, principal environmental consultant for RW Corkery & Co, which is undertaking the environmental impact statement (EIS), said the proposal has a focus on supporting the local region first.

These concerns and matters raised in the planning secretary’s environmental assessment requirements will be considered through the technical assessment presented in the EIS. •

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ORICA ENABLES BLASTING NEAR SENSITIVE STRUCTURES Orica has bolstered its blasting technology offering with the release of advanced vibration management (AVM) software.

The software allows operations to combine blast designs, drill holes and vibrations measurements to understand blast outcomes ahead of time.

The technology has been designed to preserve sensitive structures and maximise blast outcomes, complimenting Orica’s BlastIQ digital blast optimisation software suite.

Not only can the technology avoid damage to sensitive structures, but it can also allow operations to blast closer to structures than previously thought possible.

Thus, some operations may have the potential to widen their scope of resources and increase project life.

Orica vice president for digital solutions Raj Mathiravedu said the technology has become increasingly important in today’s society.

“Vibration management is critical to many sites’ ongoing licence to operate and can instantly stop the operation, if not effectively controlled,” Mathiravedu said.

“The release of AVM is driven by these needs and is the latest tool resulting from our continued investment in developing intelligent and autonomous modelling systems that enable our customers to make informed productivity improvement decisions.” •

Orica’s Advanced Vibration Management (Visualisation) software. Image: Orica.

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ADELAIDE QUARRIES TO GIVE BEACHES NEW LIFE ‘STARTING IN JULY WE WILL DELIVER AROUND 250,000M3 OF SAND TO WEST BEACH FROM QUARRIES WHICH WILL BRING BACK THE BEACH IN TIME FOR SUMMER LATER THIS YEAR.’ DAVID SPEIRS SA MINISTER FOR ENVIRONMENT, WATER

The South Australian Government will transport 250,000m3 of quarried sand to Adelaide’s West Beach, in the first step to replenishing the 10-year desolate shorefront.

The first sand instalment, part of the SA Government’s $48.4 million Securing the Future of our Coastline project, is half of the resource intended for West Beach, just 10km from the Adelaide CBD. A total 500,000m3 of sand is planned in 2021-22.

The quarry sources for the sand were left unnamed but SA’s Minister for Environment and Water David Speirs said the project had multiple benefits.

“Starting in July we will deliver around 250,000m3 of sand to West Beach from quarries which will bring back the beach in time for summer later this year,” Speirs said. “This is one of the most significant sand replenishment actions ever, and will provide an environmental, social and economic boost for the western suburbs.

“We will continue to explore options for the other 250,000m3 to be delivered in the first half of 2022, and start construction of a sand pumping pipeline to secure the future of West Beach for the long-term – which the

Up to 500,000m3 of quarried sand will be used to replenish Adelaide’s West Beach (pictured). in 2021-22.

local community has long called for.”

Speirs justified the origins and transport of the quarried sand.

“There is a limited amount of sand in Adelaide’s beach system and to find a suitable external sand source for the large-scale beach replenishment, we’ve been investigating offshore sand deposits as well as land-based sources from quarries,” Speirs said.

“We acknowledge trucking can cause a disruption for local residents.

However, by doing the hard work during the colder months, we can ensure there’s sandy beaches ready for the whole community to enjoy come summertime.” •

3D-PRINTED CONCRETE COULD BE THE FUTURE OF CONSTRUCTION Engineers from Brunel University in London have embarked on a threeyear project to develop 3D-printed interlocking building blocks measuring 50cm2 from recycled building waste materials to form an interlocking wall.

The Lego-style blocks should decrease carbon emissions caused in the construction process by reducing the amount of virgin concrete and cementitious materials sourced for building materials.

Seyed Ghaffar, project lead and associate professor in civil engineering at Brunel University, said the project was unprecedented. “Demonstration projects built over the past few years have shown the viability and potentials of 3D printing technologies,” he said. “However, these projects have used conventional raw materials in

their concrete feedstock.

“The use of recycled, waste-driven secondary materials to replace virgin aggregates for 3D printing of a building block has not yet been done, but we hope to demonstrate it with this project.

“Our objective is to decrease the CO2 footprint of printed products against traditional virgin concrete and cementitious mortars, through the development of printable mixtures that will use up to 100 per cent recycled aggregates,” Ghaffar said.

Concrete is the second most used substance on Earth, after water, and 29 million cubic metres of it are used in Australia every year. Some measures suggest about 0.85 tonnes of carbon dioxide are released for every tonne of cement manufactured. •

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EXTRACTING FERROUS METALS WITH MAGNET RANGE The ConveyorTek CORE magnets contain high strength strontium ferrite ceramic magnets to achieve high extraction rates from a stream of conveyed material. They are designed to extract ferrous metals such as mild steel, carbon steel, cast and wrought iron. The CORE conveyor magnets are available in either permanent suspended (manual cleaning) or self-cleaning overband types with a wide range of strengths and sizes to suit your application.

More information: Tricon Equipment, triconequipment.com.au

HEAVY-DUTY MOBILE CLASSIFYING SCREENS To guarantee effective screening of large volumes, Kleemann’s two new mobile classifying screens offer a feed capacity of up to 750 tonnes per hour. The MOBISCREEN MS 1202 and MS 1203 are available with twin- or triple-screen decks. They have screening surface areas of 12m² in the upper and middle decks and 11m² in the lower deck. With a feed hopper holding volumes of up to 10m³, feeding is possible from both a crushing plant and a large wheel loader. The angle and amplitude of feed material is highly adjustable, allowing for increased performance and product quality. These models are flexible in application, with a large selection of screen surfaces and good transport properties, plus Kleemann’s dual power can be optioned to provide electric power only.

More information: Wirtgen Australia, wirtgen-group.com/en-au/

H-SHAPED HOLES ELIMINATE WATER USAGE IN SCREENING

KWATANI SCREENS AND FEEDERS Sandvik has acquired South African-based manufacturer Kwatani, which will bring its screens, feeders, fine separators, drives and services to Sandvik’s range. Kwatani will complement Sandvik’s quality product range in the Australian market through comprehensive, custom-designed vibrating equipment to meet all feeding and screening requirements.

More information: Sandvik Rock Processing Solutions, rockprocessing.sandvik

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Quarry June 2021

Haver & Boecker Niagara’s new modular screen media – Ty-Deck Ultra – has a 50 per cent longer wear life than the original Ty-Deck.

The polyurethane panels are ideal for screening product, especially on a vibrating screen’s second deck. Based on customer feedback, the Ty-Deck Ultra cleans material without using any water through the rapid movement of the screen’s H-shaped openings. The Ty-Deck Ultra is ideal for abrasives up to 50mm on a second deck, where the vibration can almost eliminate the need for pegging and blinding.

More information: Haver & Boecker Niagara, haveraustralia.com.au

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SCREENS & FEEDERS

THE ART OF SCREEN DYNAMICS: LIGHTWEIGHT DESIGNS VS MOMENTUM

For efficient classification, screens need to generate more acceleration than a rocket being launched, while also being lightweight and energy-conserving. Gary Styger and Steven Hunter, of Weir, explain how OEMs are successfully employing modern design tools to create economical, yet more effective screens.

T

he working principle of a screen is simple – you drop tonnes of material onto the screen from the feed end and through a combination of mechanical power and gravity, the screen separates it into oversize and undersize fractions.

More complicated however, are the screen’s dynamics – how all of its parts and forces affect each other and the feed. While engineers do their utmost to minimise the large accelerations screens produce, it takes a lot of power to achieve effective feed stratification and classification.

So, how much acceleration does a screen require?

Weir Minerals’ engineers design loaded screens to generate a minimum acceleration of four times’ gravity (Gs), whereas unloaded screens will operate at 4.5 to five Gs. Some of Weir’s triple-shaft horizontal screens can even run upwards of five to seven Gs. Between four and seven Gs of acceleration may be considered average by other screening manufacturers. However, Weir’s engineers consider these accelerations optimal. If you’re not familiar with Gs of acceleration, the following numbers may put things into perspective. During a rocket launch, astronauts experience around three Gs; when designing products capable of producing energy comparable to space rockets, overcompensation can have disastrous effects for producers.

The effect of such high accelerations on surrounding equipment and structures needs to be carefully considered. Concrete is the preferred material for housing vibrating equipment and most larger sites use it to dampen a lot of the dynamic force generated by the screens.

Sometimes sites are forced to use steel structures – occasionally even free-standing ones. As you can imagine, the dynamic forces playing upon such an arrangement introduce

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Quarry June 2021

A 450mm aggregate on the surface of a Trio incline screen.

significant structural and safety concerns if not accurately measured before installation and monitored throughout operation.

Although not ideal, many sites that require steel structures also lack a dedicated structural engineer to monitor them. Weir Minerals can assist producers in keeping personnel and equipment safe by evaluating the site’s structures and its equipment’s impact upon them.

There are several ways to manage a screen’s dynamic forces to ensure it operates efficiently without negatively affecting the surrounding environment. For example, Weir Minerals’ range of Trio and Enduron screens use optimum materials such as high quality springs and rubber buffers on support points to isolate live frame vibrating loads.

Screens and structures can also benefit from external supports, such as an isolation frame, a structure applied to the screen which contains a mass suspended in between springs. By

working against the movement of the screen, the isolation frame can reduce the dynamic load on the structure by up to 90 per cent.

Although this method does increase the static mass of the structure, it is still a tradeoff preferred by many structural engineers. An increased static mass is easier to calculate and address, whereas a high dynamic load progressively increases the structure’s fatigue, making the site less safe over time in unpredictable ways.

New Industrial Internet of Things monitoring systems such as Weir Minerals’ Synertrex technology allow screen operators to monitor several key factors, including the stroke and frequency, in real time.

Having access to live information on equipment, in addition to warning alerts when the screen or its environment changes, increases safety and allows operators to optimise equipment to levels that were practically impossible before.

Screen dynamics aren’t just important for new sites to consider. Brownfield operations that install new equipment without considering the effects it could have on nearby structures and equipment can find themselves suffering from extended downtime and added costs.

While structural supports add costs to an upgrade, minor downtime and additional support costs at the project’s beginning are preferable to the significant downtime and costs associated with structural and equipment failure during operation. Not to mention the safety concerns associated with lack of support around dynamic equipment.

Weir’s expert team has years of experience commissioning screens and their supporting structures. Whether it is a site expansion or upgrading of existing machinery on existing structures, Weir Minerals can partner with quarrying producers to find the best screening solution for their operations.

Trio screens use high quality springs and rubber buffers on support points to isolate live frame vibrating loads.

DO SCREENS NEED TO BE HEAVY? With more safety features and higher quality materials, is a heavier screen always better?

The answer may surprise you.

Traditionally engineers will want to incorporate additional, weight safety factors, together with the highest quality materials to guarantee a robust and long-lasting solution.

While this line of thinking is more acceptable in certain types of equipment like pumps and valves, when applied to screens, it often results in exceptionally heavy screens over-engineered in all the wrong places.

New methods are radically changing the way screens are designed. Digital calculations, simulations, modelling and drafting allow designers more freedom to challenge traditional designs and make use of material advancements to build screens that are more reliable, safer and efficient without the need for unnecessary weight increases.

When a product’s primary function is to move, the product’s mass is always a drawback. The airline industry is a prime example; a lighter plane will always outperform the heavier model.

Considerable effort is made on every new iteration of design to ensure that a vehicle is made as efficiently as possible by removing unnecessary weight.

A lot of similarities can be drawn from the airline industry to screening but until this point screening has been unable to capitalise from the best practices shown in other industries, due to the difficulties and inertia manual design entailed.

As computer-aided design has become more advanced, screen designers are now empowered to make wholesale changes to their product. The introduction of computersimulated finite element analysis (FEA) has enabled design engineers to instantly validate any design changes made, a process that wasn’t previously possible.

The result of such progression and innovation within the field of screening is often a differently shaped and weighted product.

However, such screen products should not be mistaken for being lightweight. While these screens may be lighter compared with previous models, Weir’s engineers ensure that they are only “as heavy as they’re required to be”.

To that end, Weir’s range of “engineered to order” Enduron screens, which are built specifically to meet quarrying producers’ requirements, with its engineers using the customer’s requirements, flowsheet and on-site data as the design’s foundation.

Without modern design tools, it would be practically impossible to customise the equipment so fundamentally to meet the needs of a specific application on a specific site.

By identifying the specific features, size and wear materials required to excel in their intended application, Weir’s design engineers are to free remove weight where the screen assembly is experiencing low stresses and thus decrease both operational and manufacturing costs.

SAFETY IN PROCESS In the old days, screens were built big, heavy and padded out to try to ensure that if anything went wrong, it wouldn’t go catastrophically wrong. It was a brute force approach to safety, which if used today, produces an unnecessarily heavy screen.

Today, there are a number of tools available to ensure there are no surprises when the time finally comes to physically test the equipment.

Engineers run a natural frequency simulation to check that the screen will not run at its natural frequency when operated, which is vital to avoiding resonance which can cause premature failure in the equipment.

A frequency response simulation is also used which enables technicians to analyse each

design using the actual forces the screen will encounter on-site (loaded and unloaded).

This allows them to evaluate each part of the product for high stress points and reinforce the screen where it is actually useful.

Weir’s design and testing processes are extensive and carried out by a team of experts, who combine experience with “outside of the box” innovation. They test new ideas and design philosophy against an extensive bank of successful, industry-leading designs and data gathered from real applications in mines and quarries around the world.

Using these tools, this expert team can build screens that are optimised around a specific application’s requirements, rather than against any possible problem a screen could possibly face. This allows the team to reduce the screen’s weight and complexity, benefits that are passed on to Weir’s customers.

This reduction in material also has knock on savings in terms of manufacturing time and transport costs, as well as lowering the weight required to lift and rig on-site, which makes installation and maintenance safer.

However, this modern approach to screen design goes beyond material reduction. The added data and evaluation enables Weir to supply products that will be: • Easier to maintain.

• Easier to operate.

• More efficient.

• Less power-intensive.

• Accessible to alternative exciter and vibrating motor options.

The benefits of this approach are clear. Using modern design tools, expertly customised screens can provide robust construction and vital safety features without the excess baggage.

Drawing on decades of working with screens, Weir’s designers pick and choose features useful for applications from a rich library of drawings which have proven themselves in real applications, all using Weir Minerals’ industryleading wear materials, such as Linatex premium rubber.

So, the next time you’re comparing heavyduty screens for a job, ask yourself: Are they heavy because they need to be? Or are they just heavy because no one’s put in the effort to optimise them? • Gary Styger is a senior engineer and Steven Hunter the leader in separation in the Weir Minerals Separation Technology Group.

Quarry June 2021 19

SCREENS & FEEDERS

MACHINES OF BEST FIT:

OEM RECOMMENDS VIBRATING SCREENS As the distinctive identities of many products in the crushing and screening sector give way to rationalisation over time, one OEM is staying dedicated to offering the aggregates industry the best of its screens and feeders – across five different brands. John Flynn explains.

T

he Terex Minerals Processing Systems group has evolved through combining equipment from the Jaques, Cedarapids, Simplicity, Pegson and Canica brands. Between them, these five brand names have more than 500 years of operating history and have an enviable record of providing premium feeding, crushing and screening equipment to the quarrying industry worldwide. Equipment from these brands has continued to be produced and refined under the Terex banner for the past 20 years.

Each quarry site has its own unique conditions in relation to location, raw material characteristics, layout of site and surround and production requirements.

As such, a “one size fits all” approach is impractical.

Whereas some global construction companies have heavily rationalised their equipment range after acquisition, Terex MPS has retained and developed the technology of its brands through its growth phase, allowing a “machine of best fit” approach when it comes to recommending equipment for its customers. A good example of this is with the Terex MPS range of vibrating screens.

Terex is a leading name in vibrating screen technology for both inclined and horizontal screens through the Cedarapids, Simplicity and Jaques brands.

After many years of providing an industryleading linear motion design, Cedarapids pioneered the triple-shaft elliptical motion screening machine. The current Terex TSV also has the unique ability among horizontal screens to be installed at various slopes to resist pegging and enhance control of material velocity.

The primary advantages of the horizontal screen such as the Cedarapids TSV is that it presents a low head height for ease of installation and will outperform an inclined

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The Terex SI screen is the newest addition to the Terex MPS static screening range and can be ordered with the option of grease or oil lubrication.

screen of similar size, the high G-force providing the ability to stratify and separate large quantities of material. It is ideal for mobile applications and installation into greenfields crushing plants or new screening stations.

The inclined screen has its own advantages as a cost-effective solution across a broad range of screening applications. From primary scalping to finish screening, fitted with grizzly bars, steel plate, modular or cross-tensioned screen media, screening wet or dry, the inclined screen presents a versatile solution across the full range of screening requirements.

The Terex Simplicity and Jaques Torrent inclined screens are designed for a multitude of applications. Thousands of these inclined screens having been placed into operations in North America, Australasia and South East Asia. A high percentage of these have been as replacement of Terex or competitor units or to fit a specific envelope.

The Simplicity’s screen design produces a balanced vibration to minimise stress and fatigue. The shafts utilised in the Simplicity screens are cut specific to each unit and

designed for smooth, reliable operation and the longest service life available.

The Jaques Torrent screen has been a mainstay of the Australian quarrying industry for many decades, as generations of quarry operators have profited from the high performance, long life and reliable operation of these units.

Now Terex has used all of its screening experience to develop a newly released screen range combining features of the Simplicity and Torrent screen designs.

The Terex SI screen is the newest addition to the Terex MPS static screening range.

Constructed with ease of maintenance in mind, these screens feature additional clearance between decks, removeable spring base plates, hand-hold access to screen interiors and are built with oversized bearings to ensure maximum performance and longevity. Vibrating motion is provided by a combination of an unbalanced shaft and bolt-on counterweight plates. The shaft provides the bulk of the motion, ensuring smooth operation and minimal transverse movement, which can result in frame failure.

The bolt-on counterweight plates facilitate

stroke adjustment to finetune screen operation. The screen body and deck construction are engineered to eliminate high stress areas and fatigue allowing for longer service life.

Huck bolts secure the frame connection with about 10,000psi (each), effectively “joining” together the segments of steel. The screen deck design includes a conversion kit which can adapt standard crosstensioned screen decks to accommodate modular media.

Significantly, the Terex SI screen can be ordered with the option of grease or oil lubrication.

Designed around the requirements of Australian quarry operations, the SI screen fits the footprint of the Jaques Torrent screen and is also available in modular arrangements. • For more information, visit terex.com/mps/en-au/ products/static/static-screen John Flynn is the Australia and New Zealand business manager for Terex Jaques.

The Simplicity’s screen design produces a balanced vibration to minimise stress and fatigue.

si series

Inclined Screen

A cost effective standardized design built to the robust standards Terex Jaques is known for: • Innovative design converts from cross tensioned screen cloth to synthetic modular media • Designed for ease of maintenance and durability • Grease or oil lubrication options available

MODULAR

PORTABLE

STATIC

© 2021 Terex Corporation. All rights reserved. Terex and Jaques are trademarks of Terex Corporation or its subsidiaries.

E: jaques@terex.com www.terexjaques.com

SCREENS & FEEDERS

OPTIMISED VIBRATING SCREENS

BOOST FAMILY BUSINESS A third-generation family quarrying business is maintaining its commitment to quality across changing seasons through its decades-long preference for sophisticated and optimised vibrating screens and their screen media.

T

he Peace River region of northeastern British Columbia, in Canada, is often associated with rich soils and moderate temperatures, making it an ideal agricultural environment. But there is also plenty of income to be made just below the surface. An aggregates producer recognised this in the mid-1960s and decided to take action.

In 1966, Nels Ostero established a sand and gravel operation in the Peace River Region – Nels Ostero Ltd. Since then, the company has grown significantly but has always remained humble and family-orientated. Nels Ostero’s son Tom Ostero took over the plant in 1982, and in 2007, his grandson Nilson Ostero assumed the manager position – where he remains today.

The plant, which resides on 130 hectares of land, supplies sand and gravel for residential and commercial needs in the Peace River regional district. The company’s products are

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Nels Ostero runs two Niagara T-class vibrating screens at the finishing end of the operation.

used in concrete applications, asphalt plants, oil fields and highways. With a capacity of more than one million tonnes per year, the equipment on-site plays a huge role in the plant’s success.

Nels Ostero Ltd, which resides on 130ha of land, supplies sand and gravel for residential and commercial needs in the Peace River Regional District.

THE RIGHT FIT To keep up with the demand of sand and gravel products, the quarry requires top level machinery. There are 11 vibrating screens, two crushers and dozens of loaders, trucks and excavators on-site, all of which need to be performing efficiently.

Haver & Boecker Niagara has been delivering dependable equipment to Nels Ostero for decades. In fact, the Canadian-based screen manufacturer has been Nels Ostero’s go-to since the quarry’s first years of establishment, back when the manufacturer was known as WS Tyler.

The first piece of Haver & Boecker Niagara equipment the company purchased was a Ty-Rock (today known as an F-class vibrating screen) installed in 1966. Since then, they have added a number of technologies from the manufacturer.

“My father chose the company because of the reliability of the equipment,” Nilson Ostero said. “I have tried some different equipment and screen media brands over the years, but nothing compares to Haver & Boecker Niagara.”

Most recently, Nilson Ostero replaced his two 4.8m x 2.1m machines, which were situated at the finishing end of the operation. They were supplied by another manufacturer and had been running since the 1980s. The equipment was outdated, inefficient and required more maintenance than the value they offered. He turned to Haver & Boecker Niagara which evaluated his operation and recommended implementing two Niagara T-class machines.

The new screens have proven themselves a good fit, increasing capacity and requiring little to no maintenance.

“The T-class machines are on their third season with us, and we haven’t had a single issue,” Nilson Ostero said. “They allow us 20 per cent more capacity than our old screens, but more importantly they are stronger and more reliable.”

Haver & Boecker Niagara characterises

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SCREENS & FEEDERS

the T-class machines as highly efficient and durable, which is important to the success of any screening business. This is especially true for this particular operation, which runs yearround and sees the effects of cold weather on material and screening equipment.

The British Columbia winter weather averages about four degrees Celsius but can dip down as low as -40oC. While some screen plants shut down their whole operation in the winter, Nilson Ostero’s high performing equipment allows him to perform crushing and screening year-round.

When temperatures remain steadily below -3o C, they pause aggregate washing. However, even with a portion of the operation’s process shut down, they are still able to produce more than an operation that has to completely shut down for several months.

“The colder it gets outside, the stickier the material becomes,” Nilson Ostero said.

“The extra moisture can lead to blinding and pegging, resulting in downtime for maintenance

to clear out the material. That doesn’t happen with the T-class machines.”

He has practical evidence that an operation that runs smoothly plays a large part in hiring and retaining high quality employees.

“At the end of the day, if the guys are working with good equipment, they are happier and perform better,” Nilson Ostero said. “Safety is obviously a big deal, but another thing is providing efficient, top-notch machines that don’t require unnecessary maintenance.”

Equipment is only one part of the equation, and he quickly found out how impactful the screen media would be, especially when it comes to downtime and maintenance.

DOWNTIME DECREASE Maintenance is required on all jobsites, but unexpected maintenance and subsequent shutdowns can equate to a significant loss of money for any company. Scheduled maintenance activities are only possible with

A bird’s-eye view of Nels Ostero’s Niagara T-class vibrating screens and washing systems.

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Quarry June 2021

The T-class screens are just two of 11 vibrating screens in the Nels Ostero inventory.

thorough analysis and planning as well as quality equipment and screen media. Nilson Ostero consistently found that any attempt to cut corners only resulted in lost profits. Each time he experimented with lowercost screen media, he would watch as unexpected downtime and lost revenue skyrocketed.

“The cost-saving was attractive, but it was never worth it,” he said.

“Cutting corners always meant a sacrifice of some kind, and it inevitably ended up costing me more money.”

Until the operation implemented the Haver & Boecker PROdeck method, the standard screen media required attention after every eight shifts, and a complete change-out every two weeks. PROdeck evaluates the screening process to effectively blend screen media for the highest production with the least amount of unscheduled downtime.

Markus Kopper, general manager of Haver & Boecker Niagara Rocky Mountains, and Dave Warden, Haver & Boecker Niagara sales manager, worked with the company to determine the optimal screen media combination for the operation. This included a combination of Ty-Max, Ty-Wire and traditional woven wire, as well as Major’s Flex-Mat. “Haver & Boecker Niagara partners with each customer and thoroughly evaluates an operation before making recommendations,” Kopper said. “For Nels Ostero, they were able to achieve a 70 per deck increase in wear life with our PROdeck approach.”

Nilson Ostero also consulted with Haver & Boecker Niagara to determine if any additional upgrades for his vibrating screens could reduce the time required for maintenance and screen change-outs.

He found a time saver in the company’s Ty-Rail quick-tensioning system. The new T-class machines are equipped with this system, which combines the tension rail and all hardware together in one assembly.

Ty-Rail has simplified the process and saves his team at least three hours each time a change-out is needed, as well as helping to eliminate losing nuts and bolts into the hoppers below.

“A complete screen change-out, on one screen, would have normally taken us five or six hours,” Ostero said. “But with Ty-Rail, we can do

“Pulse Vibration Analysis helps us spot issues before they interrupt production, saving us money down the road.”

Nilson Ostero, Nels Ostero Ltd.

HAVER & BOECKER

NIAGARA

Since 1966, Nels Ostero Ltd. has produced high-quality sand and gravel products. To keep their vibrating screens running at peak performance, they commission our Pulse Vibration Analysis Service on an annual basis to ensure any problems are corrected before they lead to costly downtime.

Pulse Vibration Analysis is designed to examine the health of any vibrating screen by detecting irregularities that could translate into diminished performance, decreased effi ciency, increased operating costs and imminent breakdowns.

1-800-325-5993 | www.haverniagara.com

SCREENS & FEEDERS

it in as few as three hours. And guys aren’t dropping bolts every 15 seconds, so that’s an added bonus.”

The three-hour time savings, coupled with increased throughput, resulted in an overall production increase over the first year. On top of that, it saved an estimated eight to 10 days of downtime per season, which equates to an increase of thousands of dollars.

However, Ty-Rail wasn’t the only time-saving option Nilson Ostero discovered. After years of frequently replacing worn out cross-beams, he opted to add Zip-Guard to his T-class machines. The 13mm-thick polyurethane liner is designed to reduce the impact of passing material by protecting the cross beams from wear. This results in increased equipment longevity and minimised downtime for maintenance.

All of the technologies on-site are supported by an ongoing service program, which gives Nels Ostero an added level of confidence in the products. Haver & Boecker Niagara begins every service visit with its signature Pulse vibration analysis. The advanced vibration analysis technology is designed to help customers, like Nilson Ostero, examine the health of their vibrating screen.

Haver & Boecker Niagara technicians use the technology and analysis to help detect irregularities that could translate into diminished performance, decreased efficiency, increased operating costs and imminent breakdowns.

“Markus and his team used Pulse to help me spot issues that our team wouldn’t have normally been able to find,” Nilson Ostero

The 13mm-thick Zip-Guard polyurethane liner is designed to reduce the impact of passing material by protecting the cross-beams from wear.

said. “Haver & Boecker Niagara first ran it on my machines right after they installed them, and now they run it once a year. It has caught problems that may have cost me money down the road, including a twisted frame on one of my screens. We knew there was a problem with the unit, but with Pulse, Haver & Boecker Niagara’s service technician determined exactly what was wrong.”

PREDICTING THE FUTURE Since the company’s inception, Nels Ostero has grown to become one of the largest sand and gravel producers in the area — employing more than 30 people, several of whom have been with the company for more than 15 years. With a constant focus on relationships and quality, the Ostero family built a

longstanding business on enduring whatever the economy throws at them, all while maintaining their reputation for consistently providing quality product that meets the demands of their customers.

Looking toward the future, Nilson Ostero hopes to continue to grow the business by increasing output year over year, continue retaining and adding employees, and – perhaps most importantly – keep the business in the family and one day pass it on to his children to continue the family tradition.

To learn more about the T-class vibrating screen and Haver & Boecker’s Ty-Wire and Ty-Max screen media, visit haveraustralia.com.au • Source: Haver & Boecker Niagara

The T-class screens are highly efficient and durable, especially for Nels Ostero, which runs year-round in warm and cold weather.

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Quarry June 2021

SCREENS & FEEDERS

BATTERY-POWERED SCREEN JOINS DECARBONISATION CHALLENGE

P

owerscreen, a manufacturer and provider of mobile crushing and screening equipment, has responded to the decarbonisation challenge by unveiling the concept Eco-Warrior batterypowered mobile screen. The unit is part of Powerscreen’s efforts to provide solutions in its mobile crushing and screening equipment that minimise environmental impact and promote sustainability. These include increased fuel efficiency and an electrification strategy for the future.

“Some may view this topic as a recent trend, but for Powerscreen, decarbonisation is multi-faceted and has always been at our core,” Powerscreen’s product and applications manager Neil Robinson said. “The Powerscreen mobile concept has always contributed towards decreasing the carbon footprint per tonne of material produced [Figure 1]. This is done by reducing unnecessary material handling of hauling and loading material to static plants in aggregate production or in the ability to recycle and reuse material at point of use, for example in roadbuilding projects where sub-base material is produced in-situ. Using stockpiling conveyors as part of a track mobile set-up is another perfect example of how to cut out unnecessary double handling, reducing fuel consumption and therefore carbon production.”

Powerscreen has evolved its product range to reduce environmental impact by making its crushing and screening equipment as

fuel-efficient as possible, using direct drive systems that are said to be 13 to 18 per cent more fuel-efficient when compared with hydrostatic units. Improvements to the screening range have also reduced engine speeds from 2200 revolutions per minute (rpm) to 1800 rpm.

Another tool for fuel efficiency is Powerscreen Pulse, the in-depth machine telematics system that helps customers see how and where their machines are being operated, understand fuel consumption and carry out fault-finding activities for optimised performance.

“Powerscreen Pulse has been refined to deliver actionable information with customised reports and suggested actions for more fuelefficient operation,” Robinson said.

Electrification is a key focus of the Powerscreen decarbonisation strategy.

The Powerscreen Hybrid range has been dramatically enhanced to include more fully electric crushers and screens as well as models powered by innovative diesel/electric combinations. These options enable customers to choose which fuel to use, depending on cost, location and availability, and benefit customers who operate in areas where electricity is more cost-effective, where diesel engine noise is unwanted or on sites where electricity is the preferred energy source.

Figure 1. According to Neil Robinson, the Powerscreen mobile concept has always contributed to decreasing the carbon footprint.

One of a kind: the Powerscreen Eco-Warrior battery-powered screen.

“Customers using Powerscreen Hybrid units powered off the grid have been able to reduce on-site carbon emissions by 57 per cent per tonne of material produced,” Robinson said.

Working closely with automotive technology and using top of the range, hyper-efficient drives and intelligent control systems, the concept Eco-Warrior battery-powered screen has been designed to deliver on the powerful screening action of other Powerscreen machines while being a self-charging, or plug-in, model that features a simple, quiet engine with no after-treatment requirements.

The required engine size has been halved compared with the diesel hydraulic unit and the battery pack can mean emission-free running or a power boost.

“To the best of our knowledge this is the first battery-powered screener in the world and has been clocking up testing hours since it was built in 2019,” Robinson said. “It still delivers on the powerful screening action that Powerscreen machines are famous for and we are now exploring taking it from concept to mainstream.”

Robinson said the Eco-Warrior is just the beginning of Powerscreen’s decarbonisation drive. “Powerscreen has many solutions available today to dramatically reduce our carbon footprint. We’re taking it to the next level, continuing to be the pioneers in adopting technology that supports the industry in meeting the requirements of government decarbonisation laws—this is the future.”

In Australia, Lincom Group is the national Powerscreen distributor. Visit lincom.com.au • Source: Powerscreen

Quarry June 2021 27

SCREENS & FEEDERS

CHOOSING A MOBILE THAT OUTDOES

THE MODELLING

As Metso Outotec’s Australian distributor, Tutt Bryant Equipment is expected to provide knowledgeable support, a wide range, and quality service – a tall order for any business.

But after a quick chat with Tutt’s staff, it becomes clear they have all that and more.

The Lokotrack ST2.8 mobile scalping screen makes easy work of sticky recycling material.

T

he Metso Outotec range of mobile crushers and screens makes sure to cater to all quarrying needs. Whether a quarry producer needs one machine or a whole fleet, Tutt Bryant Equipment (TBE) specialises in fitting the right equipment to the right customer. That’s according to TBE’s business development manager for Metso Outotec Paul Doran.

Doran has been with the company for six years, about two-thirds of the time TBE has brought Metso products to the Australian marketplace, and has witnessed great uptake in the robust nature of Metso Outotec products.

With offices in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, Doran said TBE has managed to grow in unison with Metso’s range, thanks to a steadfast service team.

“We have dedicated Metso technicians as well as other field service technicians who work in branches around the country to help in supporting our entire range,” Doran said.

“Our account management team’s phones are on 24/7, so our customers can rely on them for anything.”

TBE’s range of Metso Outotec crushers and screens are proving equally as reliable.

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Quarry June 2021

Doran said a lot of customers are known to get more than 10,000 hours of uptime out of Metso Nordtrack and Lokotrack screens, while crushers of the same line have been known to reach from 20,000 to 40,000 hours. Doran put the durability of Metso products down to how they are assembled.

“It’s primarily about the design,” he said.

“Metso Outotec equipment is well designed, robust and the components are slightly larger than they need to be. The equipment is designed to handle the hard knocks and to provide a long, serviceable life. Our customers buy Metso equipment because they know it’s going to last. We consistently have high, serviceable hours on our machinery and that’s the way Metso Outotec designs them – to last.”

Of course, machine longevity depends upon the application. As each machine will be routinely and comprehensively maintained in the same way by TBE, the next major differentiation is how they are used. Metso’s range is designed to provide for all-comers – from larger operations requiring multiple machines to process bulk volumes of material to smaller businesses that are seeking to make a start with their very first machine. TBE will

be able to assess each situation and provide the best option.

Doran said the best way to choose the right machine is by using Bruno, Metso Outotec’s crushing and screening simulation software package. TBE will input a business’s productivity rates, quarry material and any other key variables to the software and run through a range of configurations until a customer is happy with the set-up. As a result, Doran said that most machines tend to outperform the software’s forecast.

“Most of the changes that you can make to a jaw crusher in the field, we can model with the Bruno software package,” Doran said. “We can forecast the wear of the manganese components based on source rock properties, we can forecast the fuel usage or the electricity usage using a configuration to fit the customer’s requirements. So, it helps the customer build up a production cost for that specific configuration of equipment.”

Doran believed that Bruno is one of the biggest competitive advantages TBE customers are afforded when they choose Metso Outotec equipment.

For those catering to a bigger operation with

better machine monitoring technology, Doran suggested the Metso Lokotrack range. This high-tech brand of crushers and screens boasts a state of the art system for ensuring machines run to the quality as promised by TBE. “We have a fleet management system which you can access online from anywhere in the world,” Doran explained. “This helps you to schedule maintenance activities, as well as giving you regular service interval checklists, while allowing the user to order parts.

“The other good thing about it is, if you have a fault on site, our Metso technicians can log onto your machine and have a look at previous parameter changes, faults or alarms from before the machine stopped. This helps to diagnose the root of what caused the machine to stop.”

Also available in Metso’s Lokotrack range, for those with good access to electrical mains or a capable generator, is Metso’s hybrid BiPower engine. These machines are said to operate over two whole shifts without needing to refuel, boasting impressive efficiency.

Again, Doran stressed the Lokotrack range is

The Nordtrack S2.11 mobile screen can handle large volumes of feed material.

most suited to a certain type of operation.

“Hybrids are suited to a longer-term project.

But if you’ve got good access to electricity, it’s certainly a better way of crushing. Electricity is cheaper than fuel and if you don’t have engine and hydraulic systems on your equipment then that’s less repairs and servicing costs, as well as less downtime for scheduled servicing,” Doran said.

For those still unsure of where they stand in the range of Metso Outotec’s crushers and screens, Doran said he has some simple advice

to show customers the way, and it actually doesn’t come from him.

“The one thing I always do is to offer contacts of other owners of a particular type of machine,” he said. “There’s no better reference to the performance of your equipment than another customer’s comments about ownership.”

Some salespeople sell. Others, like Doran, offer and let the products do the talking. When it comes to Metso Outotec products, they will “talk” on, and on, and on. •

SCREENS & FEEDERS

TURNING MARKET PRESSURE INTO

MARKET OPPORTUNITY M

ost people would list some essential qualities of quarrying equipment as robust, reliable, low maintenance, and maybe high tech. But one feature becoming increasingly important, in the wake of COVID-19 restrictions is Australian-made.

In 2020, as supply chains were ravaged by the pandemic, through border closures and illness in the workforce, businesses were left stranded and without the brimming inventories they were so used to. It’s a point only worth recounting once, if that, as the effects of the health crisis were felt so universally.

In adapting to a changing market, Precisionscreen has told Quarry it has made a decision to pivot towards Australianmade products in order to combat supply chain issues.

It is a move that would have gone against the grain in recent history, but certain circumstances have called for change.

Precisionscreen general manager Paul Kerr was handed the company’s operations in the early 2000s by his father Harold, an Irish engineer. Harold founded the business in Brisbane in 1986, providing Australia with a locally based manufacturer in a world dominated by Irish-made screens. As has been custom since then, parts were still shipped from overseas.

Born in Northern Ireland, Kerr has told Quarry it is because of Precisionscreen’s history that the company has the expertise to become known for an Australianmade advantage.

“Precisionscreen takes a huge amount of inspiration from those early days in Northern Ireland, but I’ve always believed that you make your home where it is,” he said.

“We’re finding for the first time in a long time the narrative about Australian-made is turning around, people are definitely willing to pay and account for an Australian-made premium price.”

The reason for this, according to Kerr, is people are willing to pay the price for quicker delivery times on parts and equipment.

“The main change over the past 20 years has been a gradual reliance on more imported equipment, and less so on local

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Quarry June 2021

Precisionscreen’s 3.6m x 1.5m Super Reclaimer is manufactured here in Australia.

support and local content as the Australian dollar leveraged up,” Kerr said. “As a manufacturing industry, the massive change has been the reduction of local content designed specifically for the Australian market. I think we’ve got four or five years where people will pay for uninterrupted delivery, while the supply chain remains damaged in the near-term.

“From a quarrying perspective, the cost of uninterrupted business will have a bigger factor and allow companies to leverage in a little bit of a premium.”

Thanks to Precisionscreen’s decadeslong manufacturing history, the company has already well positioned itself to take advantage of a post-COVID-19 manufacturing world, as it has had the Australian Made kangaroo stamp upon some of its products since 2016.

Kerr said much of the competition may struggle to cope with the transition to Australian-made, as the market demands.

“Our competitors really don’t have the basis to turn to Australian-made. At Precisionscreen we’ve been manufacturing in Australia for 36 years, and so we have strong local content,” he explained. “We see turning to Australian-made due to a damaged supply chain, not as a market pressure, but as a market opportunity.”

When it comes to expensive quarrying equipment, businesses can scarcely afford unscheduled downtime or lengthy delivery times on parts and equipment.

Kerr acknowledged the premium placed on locally made content and said that global circumstances haven’t given suppliers or consumers much of a choice.

When given the choice between reliable or cheaper equipment, Kerr believed most would opt for reliability.

“When I speak to people in the marketplace, Australian-made is rating so highly for customers,” Kerr said.

“If our products allow a customer to run a better month because Precisionscreen runs with slightly better components, then I think that’s a win. But it comes at a cost and that is a slightly upfront cost in components which allow for a highly degree of reliability and uptime.”

Another benefit to locally made products is the creation of more Australian jobs and the development of young Australians.

It’s been a philosophy at Precisionscreen, built by Kerr’s father, to contribute to the growth of the community which allows Precisionscreen to function – in this context, in Australia.

“A big passion of mine was developing young men and women. There are too many jobs in Australia where they’re really suited to white collar work,” Kerr said. “But there’s a whole generation of really confident people where paperwork isn’t their thing – they want to be hands-on and increased manufacturing allows for that. As we build that skillset the less we are relying on overseas knowledge.” •

CONVEYING

CUTTING INSTALLATION TIME BY HALF, DEFEATING DUST

T

he nature of operating environments presents a number of fire hazards. The dangerous nature of quarrying materials, the heavy equipment and vehicles used on-site and the remote location of many sites mean extra vigilance is required to help prevent and prepare for a fire.

In the era of health and mental wellness, downtime has so many positive connotations.

However, in the cement industry, it is a downright negative concept. The cost of downtime at a cement plant can add up to as much as $AUD33,000 per hour – so you can see why the industry tries hard to avoid it.

You’re probably aware of many occurrences that result in downtime at a cement plant.

Scheduled maintenance is just one reason an operation can come to a halt, but it’s necessary to ensure a belt conveyor system performs at an optimum level. It is also necessary to prevent catastrophic events from occurring such as a major belt rip or severe build-up of spillage that causes the belt to mis-track and cut into the structure.

To reduce the time you spend on scheduled maintenance takes careful planning and a level of financial investment. Here are some tips for ensuring you have an efficient belt conveyor system that allows you to shave time off your scheduled maintenance procedures: 1. Invest time and money wisely into systems that have easy to access replacement parts and are easy to maintain. Spending money on conveyor maintenance accessories can

The easy to install Flexco enclosed skirting system.

at times be costly, but investing in the right engineered system for a site could move downtime from hours to minutes.

2. Do your research into a product that makes installation and maintenance easy to understand. A product may promise to do everything you need it to, and it may deliver - but you don’t want to install it correctly after painstakingly pouring over the instruction manual for hours, and trying to put what seems like one of a million pieces together in the correct formation.

As an Australian heavy-duty specialist, I know about this dilemma all too well. I was part of a major overhaul where a site conveying dry concrete via a belt conveyor system was experiencing great difficulty maintaining its current system from a European manufacturer.

The severe levels of spillage also resulted in a loss of profit due to wasted and unsellable aggregate material. In addition, the spillage caused a material build-up on one side of the conveyor belt, causing the belt to mis-track and damage the soft skirt and also the conveyor structure.

However, the biggest challenge was the unnecessary maintenance hours required to maintain this system. To replace high wear items such as a soft skirt, the user had to remove unnecessary parts of the conveyor first, which meant a huge loss in productivity. Realistically, the task should have been simple.

As soon as the complex system was replaced with a Flexco enclosed skirt system, which

Severe spillage on an inefficient system.

was engineered to be simple and easy to install, the site saw great results. In addition to ease of installation, the design’s simplicity meant production time no longer had to be compromised to complete maintenance tasks such as soft skirt change-outs and adjustments.

The system also incorporated easily adjustable hard skirts for longer wearing side panels.

3. Constant optimisation. Technology is constantly progressing in all facets of our lives. This is no different for conveyor belt systems. Technology just looks different in the cement industry. It comes in the form of well-engineered, easy to use and effective products. While conveyors are built to last, to get the most out of the system you should constantly be looking for ways to upgrade parts that are fast becoming ineffective.

Don’t wait until it’s too late and the system has caused mass amounts of chaos, needing hours upon hours of service and maintenance to get back up and running to a sub-par standard. Invest resources into constant optimisation so that you can not only reach but exceed your throughput goals.

Flexco offers free belt conveyor assessments as a way to ensure that your system performs at an optimum and quarry producers get as much product out the door as possible to reach productivity goals. To register for a free on-site assessment, visit via info.flexco.com/free-beltconveyor-system-assessment-flexco • Sebastian Olguin is a heavy-duty field specialist at Flexco Australia.

Quarry June 2021 31

RENTAL HIRE

DRY HIRED PLANT PLAYS CRITICAL ROLE IN WEST GATE PROJECT The West Gate Tunnel Project is part of Victoria’s Big Build program and is designed to provide a viable second river crossing to take trucks out of Melbourne’s inner city residential zones.

A plant and equipment supplier to the project outlines the important role its inventory is making to this transformative public infrastructure development.

I

t was almost two years ago when the first Delta Rent excavator was transported to the West Gate Tunnel Project in Melbourne – and the company’s gear has been there ever since.

It’s always pleasing to see as you drive over the West Gate Bridge into Footscray, the “sea of orange” as the Hitachi diggers on hire from Delta Rent are working away. It is an important project for Victoria and Delta Rent is proud to be a part of it.

Currently, more than 200,000 vehicles a day rely on the West Gate Bridge, and a single accident can stop traffic. In addition, trucks in the west have no alternative but to use local roads just to get to the port.

The West Gate Tunnel project will end Melbourne’s reliance on the West Gate Bridge by building a new tunnel and new links to the port, Citylink and the city.

STRICT CRITERIA Not any piece of equipment can be on this site though. Every machine must be checked thoroughly and pass a strict check list to ensure it will be safe and remain safe for all the operators on the site. As Delta Rent’s operations manager Darren Galley said: “There are so many different applications our equipment can play in because we order them with everything. We’re in the hire game so having a versatile and capable piece of equipment that can go anywhere and do anything is key to not only repeat business but keeps the customer happy.”

Nothing could be worse than having a unit turn up on site, only for it to be parked up because it does not meet the safety criteria.

It can still happen to this day because someone didn’t read the fine print or ask the right questions and the site is stuck with a digger that can’t be used, causing not only heartache but hurting the hip pocket because every day the equipment is not digging is costing money.

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Delta Rent’s heavy-duty Hitachi excavators have provided a ‘sea of orange’ on the West Gate Tunnel Project for the past two years.

Delta Rent’s dry hired equipment working at one of the project sites on the West Gate Tunnel Project.

The Delta Rent equipment comes standard with dual pole isolators, tilt hitches, ROPS (Roll Over Protection System), dual hydraulic piping for attachments, case drains, anti-fail hydraulic RAM protection and front mesh guards to ensure every time one of these units is placed onto this project it meets the strict criteria set out by the contractor.

On top of this, every one of Delta Rent’s excavators is hard-wired for Topcon GPS

which is essential not only on the West Gate Tunnel project but most infrastructure projects across the country. These days GPS is a fairly standard feature and if you want to be on these projects, it’s a must. Delta can either hire the cab kit out to the contractor or use the contractor’s GPS equipment, whichever is required. All systems fitted are through Position Partners which provides excellent installation and back-up service.

BUCKETS AND HAMMERS Delta Rent also supplies attachments for its range of excavators. Mud, GP, Trench and shaker buckets are all part of the standard bucket array Delta Rent has available, and all come part of the hourly hire charge, so there are no extra charges for the buckets.

Hammers and breakers are also available, the customer needs only make a request.

Another benefit of hiring through Delta Rent is every machine is backed up by a 24/7 operations team which deals with any issues, services, or maintenance. The 1300 number connects to a dedicated team of tradespeople who are responsible for ensuring each machine is serviced and maintained as per the manufacturer’s recommendations and using only genuine parts. This ensures machines do not break down on-site, causing downtime and anxiety.

Lastly, remote monitoring is becoming an essential part of the reporting and understanding of not only where the equipment is, but how it is working. With the click of a

The proposed northern portal once the West Gate Tunnel Project is completed.

button, Delta Rent can supply information around fuel burn, load rates, operator traits, speed and general equipment information which can be used to train and keep the operators in check and efficient.

It’s why Delta Rent is always chosen when dry hired equipment is required on these types of infrastructure projects. Customers don’t have to worry about adding anything to the

equipment, it can be sent straight to site and get to work straight away. Delta Rent is a “onestop shop” whose aim is to make the hiring of equipment easy from start to finish.

For more information about Delta Rent’s dry hire equipment and services, visit deltagroup. com.au/rent/ • Source: Delta Rent

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DRILL & BLAST

UPSTREAM TECH SOLVES DOWNSTREAM WEAR AND TEAR

How you drill and blast your aggregate can be vital to how it is processed and refined downstream.

Steve Price, of Impact Drill & Blast, explains why a full rock-on-ground service can ensure an operation’s quarry products smoothly make the transition from the face to the gate.

I

f there’s one thing that Steve Price has learned in more than 10 years in the quarrying game is that everything in a quarry is closely connected. As the explosives and technical services manager for national rockon-ground company Impact Drill & Blast, he understands better than most how inter-related the quarrying process is, from initial surveying to the end product and every step in between.

“The drill and blast part of the process is very important in so far as how it influences other downstream processes,” Price said.

“Extractive operations frequently have issues related to crushers so feed characteristics are critical. The presence of oversized rocks not only decreases throughput and seriously bottlenecks the entire process, they also dramatically increase machine and liner wear and tear, leading to increased maintenance and energy costs.”

Price knows what he is talking about. As the shotfirer on the Wagner Group’s Wellcamp Project, he oversaw what is considered today to be the largest “non-mining” blast in the southern hemisphere. He emphasises the importance of a quarry’s drill and blast program to ensure a uniform feed.

“If you blast better, the muck pile digs better, trucks take the right material to the right place, rocks are the best size for where they are going, and processing sites achieve optimal throughput,” he said.

“Advances in drilling and blasting means you can recover more material and have improved control over fragmentation which reduces wear and tear down the line.”

INTEGRATION LEADS TO BETTER OUTCOMES In recent years there has been increasing attention paid to the effects of blasting and drilling on subsequent operations.

For a seasoned quarry man like Price, the biggest mistake that most quarries make is separating drilling from blasting.

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Steve Price is the technical services manager for Impact Drill & Blast in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales.

When a blast is successful, the data and graphics can be reused to make the blast results repeatable.

A portion of the blast or the entire blast design can also be modified accordingly.

“The traditional method of drilling and blasting is to treat the two items as separate processes,” Price said.

“We really think quarries should manage these two activities as one. If you combine the processes, you can achieve a more uniform

rock fragmentation that will make the crushing process easier down the production line.”

Price said Impact Drill & Blast now practises what he preaches. Once a smaller familyowned driller operating in Queensland and northern New South Wales, the company has

transformed into a much larger entity since Yahua Australia amalgamated four Australianbased drill and blast companies under the Impact Drill & Blast banner. Headquartered in Brisbane, the combined company is now one of Australia’s largest drill and blast businesses with bulk explosives supply capabilities.

“Impact now provides a more integrated service to quarry producers,” Price explained.

“Our true point of difference in comparison to our peers is that we offer full rock-on-ground services – from design planning through to drilling, loading and firing.

“From the initial quotation, we do planning for environmental parameters, GPS mark-outs and drone surveys, design load and fire utilising MPUs [mobile processing units].”

BLASTING NOT A SIMPLE SCIENCE To outsiders, rock breaking seems like a simple science but that’s far from the truth as anyone who works in the industry knows. There are numerous variables to determine which combination will accomplish the desired result.

There’s burden, charge length, explosive type (strength and energy), powder factor, priming systems, drill hole diameter and depth, drill spacing, stemming, timing and sequence – and that’s before you bring compressional stress wave velocity, rock specific gravity and rock strength into the equation.

It starts with proper planning and thinking differently, according to Price, which is why Impact has developed a “Warranted Hole Placement and Selection Policy” to ensure what is drilled is adding value to the customer.

“An excessive number of face holes can increase blasting costs considerably, due to the extra drilling, bulk product and accessories required and can often yield much less cubic metres of material than the design,” Price said.

Price explained that selecting the most economical hole diameter for the job, based on environmental parameters and geology, is key to a successful blast.

“A larger diameter hole can mean less drilling, labour and accessories are used in the blast activity,” Price said. “The second

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Figure 1. Projected accumulated OPEX cost savings per annum by reduction of the secondary breakage at a southeast Queensland quarry.

point is around accuracy of the designed pattern versus actual drilled and the warranted placement of holes, particularly around the perimeter of a free face.

“Putting all of this together, you can deliver greater safety and more bang for less bucks.

That’s impact.

“Most explosives companies will tell you: the more explosive you use, the better fragmentation you will have. That’s not impact.

The efficient placement of explosives and

DRILL & BLAST

Centre lift at a quarry in southeast Queensland.

timing of the charge are the dominant factors in developing good fragmentation.”

On timing, Price added, “We now use electronic detonators offering the flexibility to infinitely change timing.”

Impact Drill & Blast has, in conjunction with engineers from Davey Bickford ENAEX (aka DBE), focused on enhanced blasting outcomes with electronic detonators.

“The benefits of electronic systems are huge, as quarry operators who have switched to these systems have realised considerable operational savings,” Price said.

“Programmability of DBE electronic detonators allows varied settings from zero to 10,000 milliseconds (ms) in 1ms intervals.

Blasts can, therefore, be modified to suit operator needs and the particular geology of an area.

“To fully realise the potential, companies have to look beyond breaking rock. Better fragmentation in a quarry blast allows more material to pass through the crusher circuits, thus improving profitability, as more stone moves out the gate.

“Massive savings can be achieved on electricity costs at the crusher and load and haul rates can be improved. Wear and tear on plant is also reduced. Throughput in tonnes per hour increases and, as fragmentation is better, the risk of equipment breakdown is reduced.”

THE RIGHT EXPLOSIVES MIX Electronic detonators may have revolutionised blasting but loaded with its high energy

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RedStar emulsion blend, Price added, Impact can deliver more effective results than regular ANFO (ammonium nitrate fuel oil) and other emulsions.

At one quarry site where he worked, Price said oversize material was reduced to less than two per cent and led to increased fines that subsequently improved crusher throughput by more than 100 tonnes per day.

“The improved fragmentation profile led to completely remove the secondary crusher from the production circuit,” he said. “There was also less back-break and pre-conditioning of the pit walls, improving the safety of the blasting crew and other quarry personnel.”

At another site in southeast Queensland, similar results were recorded (see Figure 1).

“A reduction of 75 per cent in oversize material saw secondary breakage requirements fall from four days per week to one day per week,” Price said. “Overall improvements to fragmentation and reduction of oversize material eliminated the need to hire sub-contractors to meet production targets.

“Based on an assumption of commercial rates at $250 an hour for rock breaking and operating 20 hours a week, we were able to save the client around $200,000 a year..”

Price continued that Impact’s modern explosive trucks have improved the way explosives are mixed, leading to more power and creating better results.

“We are seeing better results with fragmentation and this means the productivity of the quarry increases. This has a knock-on effect for downstream processes such as

transport, separation, processing and wear and tear,” Price added.

EVALUATION LAST PIECE IN PERFECT PUZZLE The final piece in the pursuit of the perfect drill and blast puzzle, Price said, is using real time performance data to adjust operations.

“After the blast, we survey the results on foot, by drone or other field machines and analyse the data to determine if the blasting results were as expected, how the blastholes affected one another and fragmentation outcome,” he said.

“When a blast goes well, we can use our data to make the blast results repeatable. We can also use the recorded data to modify a portion of the blast or the entire blast design.

That ability gives both our company and the quarry an important advantage and saves us both time and money.

Post-blast production reports are available for Impact’s customers to access from the web-based “We Manage” platform. “We Manage” provides drill data, equipment prestarts, shot data, videos and environmental monitoring reports.

“One of our mantras at Impact is ‘More You, Less Us’,” Price said. “That’s the best way to go about optimising the end-to-end production process at a quarry. Focus on what works best for the operator, not your bottom line, and the operation will look after itself.”

For more information about Impact Drill & Blast’s services, visit impactdrillblast.com •

DRILL & BLAST

A QUARRY-SPEC DRILL RIG – FOR APPLICATIONS BIG AND SMALL

W

hen the tendering process is heating up and businesses require the most versatile and intelligent drill rigs available, Epiroc has proven its machines can be the deciding factor in getting deals over the line.

The Swedish manufacturer has seen a strong uptake in the SmartROC T45 series drill rig, both in the short feed for quarries and the long feed option for mining.

The T45 is an all-rounder in rock drilling, thanks to its premium fuel efficiency, smarter operating system and the option to include Epiroc’s essential hole-positioning system.

Kris Thomas, Epiroc’s product manager for the surface drilling division, told Quarry the T45’s best advantage is easily the intelligent on-board computer.

“The efficiencies of the control system are the biggest selling point. It’s a smarter operating system which controls the engine, so it only generates the pressure it needs when it needs it,” Thomas said. “It’s not sitting there with hydraulic and pneumatic pressure when it’s idle, where older versions of these machines would sit there maintaining unnecessary

The T45-SF combines intelligence and power to ensure maximum productivity.

pressure and wasting energy.”

On top of the adjustable, cabin-controlled airflow and dust collector speed, the T45 has been designed to ensure no compromises have been made on fuel efficiency or productivity. This is thanks to the 242kW Caterpillar turbo-charged diesel engine (Cat C9, Tier 3 and Tier 4), 12-bar Epiroc C14607 screw-type compressor and standard automatic radiator fan.

The components are programmed to automatically adjust to changes in the operating mode. While tramming or idle, for example, the compressor will put no extra demand on the engine, reducing revolutions per minute (rpm) and ultimately, fuel burn.

If better fuel efficiency wasn’t enough, the 1900 rpm hydraulic system does not use or require as much oil as other rigs, and the hydraulic tank is therefore a third of the standard size for its type, according to Epiroc.

Biological oil can also be used at exactly the same cost as regular oil.

“The total cost of ownership of the machine is very low,” Thomas said. “There’s very small amounts of oil required on the drill, so with less oil, there’s less fuel burn, there’s less wear and tear on the machine, and longer component life.

“Obviously with the lower fuel burn, the engine life is greatly improved. The oil capacity is 100 litres in the hydraulic tank – whereas other manufacturers are using 300 to 400 litres in comparison. So, you have that hydrocarbon disposal benefit too – you’re not dispensing so much waste oil, which makes it environmentally friendlier.”

This can be an important consideration for quarry operators and contractors, as a disparity so large should be almost enough to change most minds.

“If they’ve got a 10-year-old machine using 60 litres an hour, the T45 can go onto that site between 15 and 20 litres an hour, making it an obvious no-brainer for the hiring party,” Thomas said.

What has been swaying contractors even more of late, however, has been Epiroc’s hole navigation system (HNS), which can be optioned into the T45.

The short feed drill rig is suited to quarries of any size, with the long feed option catering to mine sites.

HNS can bring the rig’s drill accuracy to within +/- 50 millimetres, ensuring the correct angle and collaring position while saving time on hole marking and costs on explosives.

“This is becoming quite a requirement now for contractors tendering on jobs,” Thomas explained. “They need to be able to provide accurate hole position data. Same with the fuel burn as well, they need to come in with a more efficient machine. These are both high priority things for the quarrying industry now and will be a deciding factor on whether they win the contract or not.

“A lot of big companies have cottoned onto the efficiencies of our machines where we’re starting to win favour over our competition due to the fact we can supply machines which are more efficient.”

The T45 has been well received by the Australian market, according to Thomas.

Especially on the east coast where a majority of the country’s quarries are found.

He put this down to the machine’s versatility – with options for long and short feeds, added technology, and a quarry-spec unit packed with the power to mine.

“The T45 can be used for the smallest of jobs, but it still has the high energy rock drill (3060 MEX) to drill up to a 140mm hole, which can be moved on bigger quarry sites or even mine sites,” Thomas said.

According to Thomas, there’s no operation the T45 isn’t suited to, or rather, that isn’t suited to the T45. •

Quarry June 2021 37

LOAD & HAUL More of Komatsu’s Hybrid excavators, designed for civil works, are today being employed in aggregates jobs.

KOMATSU: CONTINUING TO CREATE VALUE

AT 100 YEARS STRONG An earthmoving giant celebrates its centenary – with a keen eye on the next 100 years. Damian Christie reports.

O

n 13 May, 2021, multinational earthmoving plant and equipment manufacturer and supplier Komatsu marked a century of business.

Over the past 100 years, Komatsu has become an industry-leading manufacturer and supplier of equipment, technologies and services for the mining, quarrying, construction, forklift, industrial and forestry markets. Its equipment and services have been used by companies worldwide to develop modern infrastructure, extract fundamental minerals, maintain forests and create technology and consumer products. The company’s global service and distributor networks support customer operations, especially by exploiting data and technology to enhance safety and productivity and optimise performance.

The Komatsu company draws its name from the coastal city of Komatsu, Japan, located in the Ishikawa prefecture, about 500km northwest of Tokyo and about 280km north-northeast of Osaka. The city and the surrounding agricultural regions in the early 20th century were reliant on copper mining activities and the Komatsu Iron Works, established in 1917 by Meitaro Takeuchi, manufactured mining machines for the Yusenji

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copper mine. When the mine closed in 1921, Takeuchi formed Komatsu Ltd to sustain and employ the surrounding community. This included acquiring the Komatsu Electric Steel Mills in 1922, which helped to give Takeuchi’s new company the foundation for integrated production from steel castings to machining and assembly, which is still a core strength of Komatsu today.1 Takeuchi’s four guiding principles – for quality first and foremost, technological innovation, employee development and global expansion – have all been realised in the past century.

As Komatsu Australia’s CEO and managing director Sean Taylor told Quarry, Takeuchi’s founding philosophy is very much alive today.

“Komatsu was founded 100 years ago on the basis of customer centricity – and this is a philosophy that we continue to place at the centre of our business,” Taylor said.

“The extraction of resources, such as commodities and aggregates, is critical for civil infrastructure and contributes to societal well-being in general. Komatsu is creating value through manufacturing and technology innovation to empower a sustainable future where people, businesses and our planet thrive together.”

QUALITY ASSURANCE After expanding into Japan’s domestic industry in its first 40 years (beginning with the production of tractors for the agricultural market), Komatsu eventually began to export

A mosaic of Japanese philanthropist and industrialist Meitaro Takeuchi, who started Komatsu in 1921 to sustain and employ the surrounding community from which the company draws its name.

its products in the late 1950s and opened new distribution channels in the international market in the 1960s and 1970s. It opened its first overseas subsidiary in Belgium in 1967 and its first offshore manufacturing facility in Brazil in 1975. The entrance of another OEM into the Japanese market in the early 1960s prompted a major overhaul in Komatsu’s quality control methods and mass production manufacturing processes, putting it leagues ahead of many other earthmoving companies in Europe, North

to strength and the company’s Asia-Pacific base has continued to grow into New Zealand and New Caledonia. In April 2012, the company, whose headquarters are in Sydney, opened a multi-purpose services facility in Wacol, Queensland.

A Komatsu motor grader was the first machine exported to Argentina in 1955.

America and South America.

“In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Komatsu determined that a focus on total quality management would be a key element in its future,” Taylor elaborated. “We achieved global recognition for the quality of our products and processes in the mid-1960s, which we have continued to build upon since.”

He added that approach to quality assurance has been similarly and successfully applied in other areas of the business, particularly in “technology and innovation, which has resulted in products and systems that lead the industry, such as the first hybrid excavators, the first autonomous haulage vehicles, our industry-leading electric drive dump trucks, our Smart Construction offering including intelligent machine control excavators and dozers, and of course our KOMTRAX remote monitoring platform.

“In particular, Komatsu has focused significant R&D efforts into emissions reductions, with our Tier 4 program, which is delivering up to 80 per cent reductions in particulate matter,” Taylor added. “Tier 4 emission technology is only a small part of Komatsu’s overall emission reduction strategy. We are continuing to actively invest in research and development projects that focus on reducing customers’ emissions and using alternate energy sources.”

In the 1980s, Komatsu established production and sales bases in the United States, the United Kingdom, Indonesia and Europe, permanently establishing its European HQ in Belgium. In the 1990s, the company continued its expansion into the US and Chinese markets, establishing manufacturing facilities in those regions for its engines, castings and hydraulic excavator products.

Since the turn of the 20th century, Komatsu has also developed new products in utility/

compact equipment and full-scale forest machinery and acquired the Joy Global mining equipment business, all while expanding its manufacturing operations in China, India, the USA and Russia. These manufacturing bases would have seemed improbable, if not unthinkable, at the start of the post-war, second half of the 20th century.

KOMATSU IN AUSTRALIA Komatsu began selling its earthmoving and forestry plant and equipment to Australia in 1965, with the sale of a D60-1 dozer to construction company AE & BA Leer in Sydney.

Bruce Leer told the Komatsu Australia website in 2015 that he and his father Alfred received a letter from distributor Wabco at the time, “congratulating us on buying this first Komatsu dozer in the country … As it turned out, not only were we the first D60-1 buyer in Australia, we were also the first D60-6 dozer buyer and that was a fantastic machine and also the first buyer of the D55 track loader”.2 The Leer company, which continues to operate today, would go on to buy and operate other “firsts” in the Komatsu line in Australia and at one time had the largest fleet of Komatsu vehicles in the Sydney metropolitan area. “In the early 1970s, two of us drove two 40-tonne dump trucks all the way down the highway from Sydney to Melbourne!” Leer recalled.

More formally, in 1991, Komatsu established a joint venture – NS Komatsu – to further promote the sales of its construction plant and equipment in the eastern part of Australia. In this region, while Komatsu’s official distributor had been selling Komatsu products for several decades, Komatsu decided to participate directly in retail sales with the establishment of the new company.

Komatsu Australia has grown from strength

THE NEXT 100 YEARS For its next century of operation, Komatsu is vowing to support mining, construction, forestry, industrial and agricultural producers in transformations to the digital workplace of the future – one that encompasses equipment and people, connected through smart technologies on an open platform, and driving towards zero harm, zero waste and zero emissions.

By helping to “digitalise” jobsites worldwide, Komatsu is optimistic its customers can optimise their on-site operations towards a carbon-neutral environment.

Part of that drive starts with “digitalising” its own workforce. “Over the past several years we have transitioned our service teams into digital technicians, which allows a safer, more efficient service process, and by harnessing the power of data and communications technology we can minimise machine downtime,” Taylor said.

This transformation in the skillset of Komatsu’s workforce, he explained, is also important in tackling many of the other global, social, technological and innovation challenges that Komatsu anticipates will occur in the next 100 years.

“Climate change and moving towards a global zero-emissions economy is obviously the big challenge for our generation,” Taylor said.

“Over the next few years, Komatsu is investing in electrification and alternative power sources

An advertisement for the first manufactured Komatsu plant – an industrial press machine – circa 1924.

Quarry June 2021 39

LOAD & HAUL

that will help in addressing this challenge.

Increasing inclusion and diversity across all levels of society is another huge challenge, but it’s something we need to achieve if we are to ensure equitable outcomes for as many people as possible. Automation is another major development that will change the way the industry operates, allowing societies to extract resources and build and maintain infrastructure in the most efficient, costeffective and productive ways possible – to the benefit of the whole community.”

Komatsu is very committed to engaging its workforce in these global and social challenges. To that end, it has launched “One World One Komatsu”, an online platform that challenges and inspires Komatsu employees to participate in sustainability-focused campaigns and competitions, to share ideas and engage with colleagues. The company believes that through this initiative, simple individual employee actions will amplify Komatsu’s core business activities to create a collective global movement toward a more sustainable future.

CREATING VALUE TOGETHER Komatsu is organising numerous activities over the next year that will be underpinned by its new brand promise to minerals and extractive producers: “Creating Value Together”. Taylor describes this as “a goal that our customers in the extractive sector readily appreciate. We have formed deep and long-lasting partnerships in the cement, aggregate and mining sectors because we ensure that our approach is aligned to helping our customers achieve their goals. This kind of partnership starts with our application engineers who can help ensure the right machines are selected for a site, our service and engineering teams who can help maintain the machine at peak performance, our remote monitoring teams who can help track and improve performance, and our training teams who can help ensure the operators get the most out of the machine”.

Taylor said the Australian extractive industry is already taking advantage of many of the technologies and innovations that will be central to Komatsu’s success in the years ahead.

“Products such as Smart Construction, particularly our drone technology, are already being widely and successfully used in extractive industries for stockpile measurement and management. Likewise, our KOMTRAX remote monitoring technology

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allows fleet owners unprecedented insights into their fleet performance and productivity.

The Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) technology ensures higher levels of safety and productivity with Komatsu autonomous mining operations around the world reporting positive improvements in safety through fewer incidents, accidents and ‘near misses’. We are continuing to develop and expand the capabilities of these technologies to further extend their benefits to our customers.

Indeed, Smart Construction and AHS are designed to allow more efficient and effective operation of machines and provide significant value to our customers upstream and downstream of the actual machine itself.

“Safety is paramount at Komatsu, so we are continually working towards a goal of zero harm, while also focusing on making our machines cleaner and more efficient,” Taylor said. “While our Hybrid excavators originally went to work in civil applications, we are seeing more applications in cement and aggregates, especially as our Hybrid range expands.”

“Over the past year we have also been rolling out our iSite offering in the quarry segment, which provides unparalleled opportunity to monitor and optimise an entire quarry fleet’s operation.”

LOW KEY CELEBRATIONS Komatsu’s anniversary celebrations in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region will be held over the next 12 months, to May 2022. “Celebrations will be held in individual branches, subject to any local COVID-safe requirements in place at the time,” Taylor said.

“Later this year we are also marking our centenary with the opening of our new parts distribution centre at our Wacol facility in Brisbane,” he added. “This facility will support our customers well into the future, and will include the latest technologies in warehousing and logistics as well as featuring our innovation hub, where we will showcase our latest technologies to customers, staff, suppliers and the community.”

Taylor said Komatsu Australia’s activities will be very much business as usual. “While we are extremely proud of our centenary, we haven’t planned any major celebrations. Our approach instead is to reflect on our journey so far, and to look at how we can continue to grow into the future. We have learnt a lot over the past 100 years and we are looking forward to the future, where we will create value together with our customers, our team

Komatsu Australia CEO and managing director Sean Taylor at the 2019 IQA conference.

members and the communities around us.

“Commitment to sustainable communities and a brighter future for the world is part of our DNA at Komatsu. Just as we focus on safety, law, quality, delivery and costs for our customers and society, we want to help prioritise sustainability as well. Together we can make a major impact if we all take small actions that add up to a significant effort globally. This strengthens our commitment to each other and our future, and makes us a stronger business partner for our customers and communities.”

A centennial anniversary video can be viewed on the Komatsu website.3 • REFERENCES & FURTHER READING 1. Komatsu 100th anniversary website. History:

Continuous footprints of 100 years with customers and society. komatsu-100th.com/en/ history.html 2. Komatsu Australia. Komatsu commemorating

50 years in Australia - Bruce Leer. komatsu. com.au/company/news-media/news/komatsucommemorating-50-years-in-australia-bruce 3. Komatsu Australia. Komatsu 100 years of

“creating value together”. komatsu.com.au/ company/news-media/videos

MAINTENANCE

A SINGLE, SMOOTH SUPPLIER OF BEARINGS AND COMPONENTS

A

proficient partnership between manufacturer and distributor aims to minimise downtimes in the quarrying, construction, extractive and processing industries with a one-stop-shop for high performing bearing systems.

When it comes to bearing assemblies, a glaring need for a complete set of parts from a single manufacturer has made itself apparent.

That is why manufacturer SKF has taken it upon itself to develop, design and manufacture its very own Quarry Kit to please producers across industries. The kit takes time out of researching and ordering all the necessary parts for bearings in crushers, screens, transmission shafts and conveyors.

With 114 years of research and development under its belt, SKF has become well-positioned to deliver a comprehensive, reliable bearing solution – all that was left was a dependable distributor to provide exposure to a hungry market. Enter, Applied Industrial Technologies to circulate this soon-to-be-released kit.

“All too often out in the field, customers share the predicaments they find themselves in by not having all the necessary parts to complete a bearing assembly change,” Anthony Mikhail, Applied’s branch manager for Wetherill Park and Minto, told Quarry. “Or even worse, they’re suddenly faced with a catastrophic failure on a conveyor drive and realise seals or adaptor sleeves are missing or housings are incorrectly sized to suit the bearings.

“SKF have put together a solution package which eliminates customers from being left in such painful situations and Applied Industrial Technologies delivers this innovative mindset to optimally satisfy supply chain demands

With typically dozens of bearings on site, quarry operators need reliable and easy to maintain products.

The kit will be available in two forms to provide options for customers, depending on application.

for its valued customers.”

Mikhail has been with Applied for four years in the metropolitan Sydney region, and previously worked with SKF for several years. Through almost 20 years in the industry, Mikhail has learned exactly what keeps the wheels spinning for the average Australian quarry.

By July this year, pending final launch approvals, the Quarry Kit will be available nationwide, and Mikhail said there are too many benefits to be ignored.

“This package isn’t just presentable and a premium quality offering for conveyors – it’s designed to reduce the costly time spent ordering all the components of a housed unit separately, which then helps make the process much smoother and simplified,” Mikhail explained.

“Rather than customers having a mixture of brands to make up a housed unit, this kit offers our customers one brand, all SKF components, making sure nothing is mixed and matched. One brand supports aftermarket reliability and local support, again through one channel – Applied.”

The kit will be available in two forms to provide options for customers, depending on application – the open-type bearing, and the sealed bearing.

The first option includes open-type SKF premium spherical roller bearings, matched with SKF robust housings, four-lip elastomer rubber sealing, adaptor sleeves with accessories and an SKF auto-lubrication unit. The lubrication unit is vital because it ensures the rest of the kit can operate at

maximum efficiency and safety.

The sealed option is the answer for producers looking for increased service life in contaminated areas, Mikhail explained.

“We also offer SKF’s sealed spherical bearing option, delivering maintenance cost-savings due to minimised lubrication consumption, as these bearings are pre-lubricated and sealed, enabling easy mounting methods,” he said.

The kit is most suited to a wide variety of applications on a smaller scale basis, where high performance demands don’t outweigh the need reliability. Given quarries are the types of operations that can’t afford unscheduled breakdowns, Mikhail implored all quarry managers and supervisors to consider the value of an improved bearing replacement inventory.

“Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) is something that manufacturing companies and quarrying operators should be seriously considering,” Mikhail said. “Applied helps its customers keep their inventories at levels that ensure low to minimal downtimes, resulting in smoother running operations, peace of mind and a focus on continuous improvement and customer satisfaction.”

In a country where small to medium quarry businesses form the backbone of the infrastructure and construction industries, products like the SKF Quarry Kit allow such businesses to serve the growing demand for resources. For those managers who can ill afford to be worrying about the serviceability of every bearing on-site, the Quarry Kit may just be the tonic required. •

Quarry June 2021 41

ENVIRONMENT, SUSTAINABILITY

MORE REASONS TO IMPROVE

AIR QUALITY CONTROL When it comes to air quality control, the onus is increasingly on quarries rather than regulators to ensure best practice is met. Henry Ballard spoke to environmental experts Cameron McNaughton and Roger Cudmore.

C

ameron McNaughton is a principal air quality consultant, while Roger Cudmore is a principal environmental consultant for consulting firm Golder, a member of WSP. They spoke to Quarry about the assistance and advice firms like Golder can provide to reduce dust and pollutant emissions and improve air quality control in the quarrying industry.

McNaughton and Cudmore emphasised that the consulting process does not stop at any on-site quarry assessment. In fact, the process of inviting communities and authorities to the table is equally important in helping quarries work responsibly.

“There’s an emergence of concerns about silica in the last five years,” Cudmore said. “In quarries, where air quality control was more of a nuisance to be dealt with, you’ve now got increased perceptions and concerns of the health effects associated with potential crystalline silica.

“The real skill of our job is trying to explain things clearly and try to educate as we go, so people understand the issues and can debunk

A standard air pollution detector station.

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ideas that might be wrong. Our role is to not only give the quarry sound technical advice, but also to disseminate good information about the science in a way that people understand.”

The consultants explained the ways in which Golder actively helps in improving quarrying processes.

“Typically, if we had a new client approach us, we’d do a site walk-through with the site manager. They’d walk us through the process of removing overburden, crushing, stockpiling and give us an opportunity to review their current practices,” McNaughton said.

“We can look at their dust management plan, and if they don’t have one, we can help to develop one that will codify what engineering and management controls they should implement on-site.”

INDEPENDENCE – IN THEORY Cudmore emphasised Golder’s role as an environmental consultant is not to manage the quarrying industry but to educate and encourage it to work responsibly on its own.

“What we can do for businesses is to help them effective good systems and processes to understand the effects and to really drive it from within their operations,” Cudmore said.

“The industry has to drive the monitoring and community engagement themselves. If we did it all ourselves and they just outsourced it all, it wouldn’t work.”

However, as the Golder consultants explained in a previous contribution to Quarry1, simply meeting regulatory standards isn’t enough to appease authorities and communities these days.

“In the past, the legislation has been very prescriptive,” McNaughton said. “Now, in some jurisdictions like Victoria, it’s shifting to the concept of a general environmental duty or results-based legislation which says to quarries: ‘You’re the expert in mining these rocks, you tell us – the EPA – what you’re doing to make sure you meet the criteria we’ve set out’.

“This is important because before you could pollute to the limit while being below what the EPA said. Now, there may be instances where you may be below the set limits but you’re still getting complaints from the public.

“The onus is much more on the quarry to demonstrate that they’re implementing best practices.”

McNaughton continued in describing the connection between quarry and consulting firm.

“It’s a partnership. We come in and take a look at your issues. We determine if there’s potential risks involved and if there are, we can help to upgrade controls. At the end of the day, we can verify measurements to show the authorities an operation is now up to scratch.”

AN ‘INVISIBLE’ ENEMY In the past, there were plenty more challenges to retaining air quality control and doing so in an accessible way. The consultants revealed just how these challenges have been dealt with only recently.

“If you look at a manufacturing plant, you can quantify an emission and understand the exposure that causes air quality,” Cudmore said. “But with a quarry, you’ve got excavators, trucks and lots of different means of generating dust. So, from a modelling perspective it’s very tricky to measure.”

McNaughton said the ability to obtain effective measurement tools has increased dramatically, making best practice quarrying far more accessible.

“Prior to five years ago, making any measurements of these types was very expensive – just one indicative monitor at one location would be $25,000,” McNaughton said.

“But now we have much different types of sensors, which may be less than $1000 each, including the solar power and the batteries to run them, and they’re equipped with SIM cards.

“So, we can ring the operation fences with the sensors, and push alerts to mobile phones of managers with different alarm levels.”

The consultants both said they believe these changes in regulation and

Everyone wants to be confident that the air we breathe isn’t going to harm our health.

accessibility are all for the better.

“Ultimately that change in the regulatory approach is a better way for the industry to go about its business and actually engage with the opportunity, instead of hiding behind numbers and regulatory ticks,” Cudmore said.

“It’s been really difficult to get cost-effective monitoring for operations of all sizes. But

now this new suite of sensors allows us to be more proactive in managing dust, even for the little guys,” McNaughton said. • REFERENCE & MORE READING 1. McNaughton C, Cudmore R. A breath of fresh air with the right data. Quarry [online], 19 March 2021. quarrymagazine.com/2021/03/19/a-breath-offresh-air-with-the-right-data

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SMART BUSINESS

WHY COVID-SAFE CONSTRUCTION IS ESSENTIAL TO AUSTRALIA’S RECOVERY Before the recent debate about the effectiveness of Australia’s vaccination rollout and quarantine systems, Ken Slattery, chief executive officer of the CCAA, warned that the construction materials industry’s capacity to be an engine for the nation’s post-pandemic recovery was under threat from snap lockdowns and implied border closures. His dialogue from February is printed in full.

W

hen it comes to battling COVID-19, Australians have done better than most, largely controlling the spread of this insidious virus, while continuing to support those sectors of the economy that most need assistance to get through the worst of lockdowns.

And much of our economic resilience over the past year has been built on the continuing operation of the wider building and construction sector, which combined accounts for about 10 per cent of Australia’s GDP and employs more than nine per cent of the entire workforce.

The building and construction sector – of which the supply of cement, concrete and aggregates is an integral part – provides more full-time jobs than any other

sector of the economy.

From quarry workers to bricklayers, from building site employees to truck drivers delivering concrete, the building and construction sector has kept Australia working during lockdowns, in a COVID-safe and constructive manner.

In the case of the heavy construction materials industry, which Cement Concrete and Aggregates Australia (CCAA) represents, we were among the first to devise and implement back in March 2020 a comprehensive suite of operational guidance and safe work practices to tackle COVID-19.

We have kept our workers and the community safe while remaining open for business and supporting the economic

A safety sign warns of builders and essential work being done on the roadside at the height of COVID-19.

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recovery throughout earlier lockdowns.

But the ability of the building and construction sector generally to remain the engine for Australia’s economic recovery is being seriously hampered by the decision of individual states to institute snap lockdowns and in the process, close down almost all construction activity.

The recent five-day snap lockdown in Victoria [in February 2021] is a case in point.

While certain public sector infrastructure projects deemed to be a priority were allowed to continue, the majority of the industry was forced to shut down for nearly a week.

That move alone is estimated to have cost the Victorian economy over $450 million in revenue a day, and $63 million a day in wages, according to figures compiled by the Master Builders Victoria.

The long-term economic and social impact of such revenue and wages loss is enormous, given that building and construction is the third largest sector of the Victorian economy, with more than one in four Victorians employed in the sector.

MAINTAINING ESSENTIAL ACTIVITIES There are good reasons why governments institute lockdowns. And we know that until the risk of transmission of COVID-19 has been eliminated, there will always be a prospect of outbreaks and governments may need to implement further controls.

However, while the priority will always be to protect the health of our community, this does not require indiscriminate closure of essential activities.

The unco-ordinated “stop-start” approach we have witnessed in Victoria with the building and construction sector in the past few weeks does not work, especially when we can demonstrate that we can operate in a safe manner.

During the toughest national lockdown

CCAA CEO Ken Slattery urges governments to avoid lockdowns during infrequent COVID-19 outbreaks.

restrictions last year, the building and construction sector established a track record nationally of being able to operate responsibly throughout the pandemic.

In the heavy construction materials industry, for example, there has been an extremely low number of cases of COVID-19, in part due to the nature of its activities, but also because we have been highly responsive to the challenges presented by the pandemic – and quick to respond and support government health directives.

In fact, in the wider building and construction sector there have been no reported COVID-19 cases on construction worksites since September 2020 [as of February 2021].

As the main building union said in a recent letter to Premier Daniel Andrews in Victoria, the building and construction sector went the extra mile to act responsibly.

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That is why we believe the time has come for all governments to recognise the essential role played by the building and construction sector in the economic and social well-being of Australians, and the crucial role we expect it to play in Australia’s economic recovery.

We call on governments to support the sector’s ongoing operations throughout these isolated outbreaks.

The many thousands of Australians employed in building and construction are essential to the building of the very infrastructure that keeps us safe, from homes to schools, bridges to roads and of course, hospitals.

The bridge to recovery post the pandemic will be built on a strong and viable building and construction sector. • Ken Slattery is the chief executive officer of Cement Concrete and Aggregates Australia.

Visit: ccaa.com.au This piece originally appeared on quarrymagazine. com on 26 February, 2021.

EDUCATION

EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE: RIDING BUMPS, DISPELLING DOUBTS In this third chapter of a seven-part series on the characteristics of effective leadership, IQA member and Hanson Construction Materials manager Sarah Bellman discusses her experiences of building leadership credentials in the quarrying industry, as told to Mike Cameron.

T

he Institute of Quarrying Australia has invited me to present a monthly story or practical example based on one of the seven core characteristics of effective leadership (see Figure 1).

Rather than write all seven of these scenarios, I have chosen to invite a number of people from a diverse demographic, and a number of industries, which I hope you will find enlightening as well as of real interest for you personally, regardless of your current role and future career aspirations.

This third scenario comes from Sarah Bellman, at Hanson Construction Materials.

She has selected Emotional Resilience for her story on becoming an Effective Leader.

In my book The Emerging Leader, I offer the following brief explanation for Emotional Resilience: Resilient leaders are aware and in control of their emotions and have the ability to adapt to stressful situations or crises. They overcome adversity without lasting issues.

MIKE CAMERON SARAH’S STORY I am sure everyone can remember a time throughout their lives where someone has questioned your decision-making, direction or ability. In these circumstances what defines us is how we allow these comments or experiences to influence us, likewise how we react to challenges or shifts in direction within the work environment.

For me, the seven core characteristics are all very important and must work in unison to be an effective leader. However, the one that resonates with me is Emotional Resilience, as I believe it is the foundation for successful modern leadership.

I have witnessed many circumstances where someone has hit a crossroad in their journey and I have seen how that person’s emotional resilience

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Figure 1. The Emerging Leader coaching model.

has influenced their outcome.

Now more than ever before we are living in a disruptive work environment.

Disruptive technologies connect the world, generate mass diversity in innovation and greater visibility of ideas, and ultimately fuel competition. Combine this disruptive age with the new challenges businesses face due to COVID-19, thus new business models, and a shift from globalisation to “glocalisation”, the Emerging Leader

needs to be highly adaptive. A successful leader cannot be overwhelmed by this work environment, rather, they should embrace it.

I have always worked in non-traditional fields and certainly early within my career I received many questions and comments that tested my resilience.

However, I learnt that through perseverance, hard work, knowledge, integrity, vision and passion for your field, the critics would often become your greatest supporters and would

From my perspective, Emotional Resilience can certainly be strengthened but in order to do this, you must be self-aware. You need to be able to check in to those challenging situations and learn the strategies to give yourself the confidence to face them and maximise the opportunity. It is an underlying natural instinct to take the safest path, the one most commonly travelled.

However, your confidence will build, hence your emotional resilience as you realise through sound strategy, new paths can be constructed safely and are very rewarding. A key to building emotional resilience is not seeing failure as failure but rather what can be learnt from that situation and putting it into practice.

One of my favourite quotes is by the late US President Franklin D Roosevelt: “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.” The bumps are what make us compassionate, dynamic and resilient leaders. • Sarah Bellman is an IQA member and the country operations manager SR at Hanson Construction Materials, based in Kerrie, Victoria. She was previously the South Australia aggregates operations manager for Hanson. She is a former chair of the SA division of Cement Concrete Aggregates Australia and also the former SA co-ordinator for the IQA’s Women in Quarrying network.

Sarah Bellman has always worked in non-traditional fields and fielded many questions and comments that tested her resilience.

certainly enable you to gain a balanced perspective.

I grew up on a small cattle farm in South Australia and from a young age I loved to tinker with anything mechanical, curious to understand how things worked. I remember when I was in Year 11, I had a meeting with my teacher to discuss my selection of subjects for Year 12. I had selected Year 12 mathematics because I wanted to try to get into mechanical engineering at university. The teacher advised both myself and my parents that I should choose a different subject as that would not be necessary for my most likely career, which he suggested would be in a more “traditional” field. I selected mathematics and later topped engineering mathematics at university and graduated with first class honours in mechanical engineering.

I have always enjoyed a challenge but especially where doubt has been cast by others.

I have two beautiful children. After my first child, I was questioned countlessly about whether I would be returning to work and whether I would be capable of returning to work. In some cases, I was made to feel guilty by contemplating a return to work. Like any new mum, this hit the core of my resilience, but I most certainly returned to work and have demonstrated to many that it can be done, while continuing to be a great mum – ie not missing out on the special moments, and setting a beautiful example to a daughter who believes she can do any role when she grows up. While working full-time, I also chaired the industry association (the South Australian division of Cement Concrete Aggregates Australia), sat on a Ministerial Board (the SA Minerals and Energy Advisory Council) and continued to serve as an officer in the Army Reserve. One positive out of COVID-19 is that we now do many things virtually – which means we can fit so much more in! I work for a company that is very supportive of females in the workplace and parental leave but there are many workplaces that have room for improvement and this should be everyone’s challenge to normalise the benchmark.

Mike Cameron is an IQA member and the principal of Strategically Yours.

Visit strategically.com.au Mike will be running 4 x 90-minute online Key Account Management modules for the IQA between June and September 2021. For more information and to register, visit quarry.com.au and click on the ‘Events’ tab on the home page.

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Quarry June 2021 47

EDUCATION & TRAINING

IQA AWARDS: SHARING INNOVATION

T

he IQA is now taking nominations for its 2021 Awards, which highlight the industry’s merits in education, innovation, community engagement, environmental management, safety and creativity.

The IQA Awards will be presented as part of the IQA’s National Conference from 5-7 October, 2021.

All current IQA members are permitted for award nominations, while a non-member is permitted to be the nominator.

IQA chief executive officer Kylie Fahey told Quarry the awards represent an opportunity to recognise the achievements of the industry, while setting a positive example for peers to follow.

“Awards are really important for an industry,” Fahey said. “Sharing innovation and good practice on safety and environment will only improve the industry as a whole, and if you’re looking at individual awards that’s about individual contribution to an industry and a business.

“Awards really recognise industry sectors and showcase some of that innovation and progress.”

Fahey said that peer recognition from a nomination can also lead to improving work culture and performance.

“There’s a lot of research that points to how recognition of your peers and recognition of your teams within a business can improve culture, performance, morale,” she said.

“Awards are one tool people use to do that.

“Just the process of nominating peers can be very powerful. The awards give an opportunity for managers, businesses to be recognised by their teams and their peers.”

This year’s IQA Awards will showcase how companies have responded to COVID-19related changes to working environments.

“We’re coming off the back of a very interesting period of social connectivity as a result of COVID and I really encourage people to just take time to be nominating people and recognising people,” Fahey said.

“It’s an opportunity for businesses to take stock of what they have been achieving in unusual circumstances and that team and peer recognition is really important.”

Nominations will close on Friday 6 August, 2021 at 5.00pm AEST, with the winners to be finalised in September.

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10 FTE. Prizes include a framed certificate plus $3000 contribution to a professional development opportunity.

Quarry Manager of the Year > 10 FTE (sponsored by Metso Outotec) Highlights an individual quarry manager with demonstrable achievements within the quarrying industry, who has more than 10 FTE. Prizes include a framed certificate plus $3000 contribution to a professional development opportunity.

The 2019 IQA Excellence in Innovation Award, sponsored by Trimble and presented to Alasdair Webb.

The 2021 IQA Awards include:

The Alec Northover Award (sponsored by AIQEF) Acknowledges IQA members who have completed study and received a qualification in Certificate III, Certificate IV, Diploma or Advanced Diploma in surface extractive operations. Prizes include a framed certificate and allowance to attend the IQA conference.

Gold Hard Hat Site Safety Award (sponsored by IQA) Recognises a site’s contribution to the advancement of OHS in the quarrying industry.

Prizes include a framed certificate and an engraved gold-plated trophy.

Gold Environment Award (sponsored by Groundwork Plus) Presented to a site that has contributed to the advancement of environmental management through areas including quarry rehabilitation, a new or improved pollution control method and displaying environmental awareness and leadership. It also includes a framed certificate and an engraved gold plated trophy.

Quarry Manager of the Year < 10 FTE (sponsored by Metso Outotec) Highlights an individual quarry manager with demonstrable achievements within the quarrying industry, who has less than

Excellence in Innovation and Community Engagement Award (sponsored by Cement & Aggregate Consulting) Recognises an individual’s contribution to excellence and innovation in the quarry industry, including outcomes in community engagement and consultation. The contribution can be for innovation in design, production, operations, automation, plant design, maintenance or processes. Prizes include a framed certificate, trophy and a contribution for an approved professional development activity.

Quarry Operator of the Year (sponsored by RTV Training) Recognises a quarry operator with demonstrable achievements in the quarrying industry, including a personal commitment and leadership in occupational health and safety and demonstration of broad industry knowledge. The award is in recognition and memory of Sydenham Hill and his contribution to the extractive industry. Prize includes a framed certificate.

President’s Medal Given to an applicant with outstanding and ongoing service to the extractive industry that shows leadership and the advancement of the industry. Prizes include a framed certificate and inscribed medal.

IQA Conference Exhibitor of the Year Awards a supplier/sponsor with the most creative and engaging exhibition and involvement in the IQA 2021 national conference. Prize includes a framed certificate.

For more details about the 2021 IQA Awards, visit the IQA website: quarry.com.au •

The 2021 IQA Awards will be presented in the following categories: Alec Northover Award

Sponsored by AIQEF

Gold Hard Hat Site Safety Award

Sponsored by IQA

Gold Environment Award

Sponsored by Groundwork Plus

Excellence in Innovation and Community Engagement

Sponsored by Cement and Aggregate Consulting

Quarry Manager of the Year <10 FTE

Sponsored by Metso:Outotec

Quarry Manager of the Year >10 FTE

Sponsored by Metso:Outotec

Quarry Operator of the Year

Sponsored by RTV Training

IQA Conference Exhibitor of the Year

Sponsored by IQA

President’s Medal

Sponsored by IQA

C L O S I N G D AT E All award nominations close 5pm (AEST) Friday 6 August 2021 For more information contact us by email: admin@quarry.com.au or by phone: 02 9484 0577 The Institute of Quarrying of Australia • P PO Box 1779, Milton BC, QLD. 4064 • W quarry.com.au

WOMEN IN INDUSTRY AWARDS

WHY TEAMWORK IS A SOLID

FOUNDATION FOR SUCCESS I

n 2021, Quarry is partnering with other Prime Creative Media (PCM) titles to acknowledge exceptional women for their leadership, innovation and commitment to their sectors.

PCM’s Women in Industry Awards recognise outstanding women from across the industrials sector – whether in quarrying, mining, road transport, ifm marketing manager Rachael Ashfield. manufacturing, engineering, logistics, bulk handling, waste management, rail and infrastructure.

Rachel Ashfield, from ifm, took home the award for Business Development Success of the Year in 2020, and is this year an ambassador for the 2021 awards. In a guest column for Quarry, Rachel encourages more women to nominate for the awards.

In this month’s column as Women in Industry Ambassador, I wanted to reflect on my secret to success – my team.

I truly believe that your success is only as good as the team structure, rapport and networks that you build, all of which lend themselves to the overall success of the company.

Hearing that I work for a highly technical automation company that sells complex automation and cloud solutions is not what people expect when they meet me at an event and ask what I do. Especially when I begin by explaining that I am in marketing. Eyebrows are quickly raised, and I know everyone wonders how I ended up here.

If I think back on my career, I too sometimes ask: “How did I get here?”

From the outside, it might seem like a slow rise to such a senior position, but the journey to head of the marketing division at ifm has been so quick in my eyes. My career has seen me travel pathways filled with triumph, hurdles, and yes, at times, disappointment. But throughout it all, I’ve had a supportive team around me.

While not everyone may have a “dream team” when starting out, I believe you get out of teamwork what you put in. Whether a man or woman in any role within any industry, if you bring a level of energy and conviction of belief to your career journey, the hard work will pay off and successful results will follow.

Even better is when you have worked with a team for a period and

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have developed great synergies – this builds a solid foundation for success. Together you build excitement, engagement and a dynamic that people want to be a part of. Departments can see the rewards of their participation with you when they see the outcomes of the material you produce because of their contribution towards the end goal.

As long as you are passionate, believe in yourself and strive for your best possible outcomes, you will be assured of career success and job satisfaction. It may not be easy and will possibly be a bumpy road along the way, but remember to celebrate the small victories. It is easy to overlook all these important milestones when you are busy working hard for the career highs.

Luckily, Women in Industry is here to help you acknowledge these small wins. We are the supportive team you can count on to be cheering for your success, the network of like-minded women to help build the excitement and engagement that will see you ooze confidence and work towards big overarching career highlights.

Ultimately the foundation of success of women in any industry is the innate desire to achieve results and strive for success in your chosen field. Being able to participate, network and apply your own understanding of people and what drives them will build a strong supportive team to help both individuals and businesses succeed.

One day, your team might even nominate you for a Women in Industry Award. Until then – nominate yourself. We’ll be here, ready to support you.

Rachael Ashfield 2021 Women in Industry Ambassador

Nominations for the 2021 Women in Industry Awards are now open.

Visit www.womeninindustry.com.au

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IQA NEWS speakers for the night included Justin Guilfoyle of Finlay Screening and Crushing, Damian Volker of DTMR, who gave a technical talk about foam bitumen, and Scott Meyn from TIG, who presented on the Haughton River Floodplain project and its progress.

The viewing platform on the top bench, especially set up by MCQ Quarries.

NORTH QUEENSLAND BRANCH NEWS The North Queensland branch held a site tour at the BQC Quarries “The Rocks” site in Ayr on 20 of April. Wet weather threatened to complicate the tour but fortunately it held off long enough so that a group of 60 attendees could explore the site. IQA members travelled from far and wide for the event, including Cairns in the north and Brisbane in the south.

BQC Quarries, established in 1974, has been hard rock quarrying in the Burdekin, Bowen and Whitsunday regions for nearly 50 years. BQC was the successful quarry supplier for the foam bitumen (FB) unbound 2.1 pavement supply for the nearby $500 million Department of Transport and Main Roads’ (DTMR) Haughton River Floodplain project, with The Infrastructure Group (TIG) being the principal contractor for this project. As part of BQC’s project win, a FB plant was to be situated at the Rocks Quarry for the duration of the project. This presented a perfect opportunity to showcase the supply logistics of the first plant-mixed foam bitumen DTMR project in North Queensland in more than 15 years.

Once on site and the visitor inductions were completed, the group was escorted through Koppens’ Development’s FB plant where Koppens’ FB plant operator Matthew Burns introduced everyone to the intricacies of

foam bitumen production. Koppens is being subcontracted by TIG to supply and place about 85,000 tonnes of foam bitumen for the Haughton Floodplain project.

The attendees then boarded the bus for a tour of The Rocks Quarry. While passing through the stockpile areas, several different quarry products could be seen ranging from crusher dust to base type 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4, screenings, ballast and drainage and scour protection rock. The tour then proceeded past the various mobile crushing plants, fixed plant crushers, pre-coating plant and onto the first bench where the group could see the quarry’s bench layouts and source rock as well as drilling preparations for an upcoming blast. Throughout the tour, BQC Quarries operations manager Lawrence Fahey gave an informative talk on the quarry’s history, geology, plant set-ups and current challenges.

As the rain continued to stay at bay, all attendees exited the bus to take in the sights from the viewing platform which had been erected especially for the tour. From this lookout on the top bench, the group could see all over the quarry and far across to the mighty Burdekin River. This was a great photo opportunity for many to enjoy.

As the evening progressed, the group travelled to Claredale Pastures at Mio College to enjoy a “paddock to plate” meal and networking. Guest

The North Queensland branch acknowledges that the night would not have been possible without the generous sponsorship of Burdekin Transport and Finlay Screening and Crushing.

A special thanks also goes to the speakers, the quality meal provided by Claredale Pastures and BQC Quarries and Koppens Development which granted members with access to their quarry and FB plant.

The North Queensland branch’s next meeting is later this month, when it hosts the North Queensland Quarrying & Mining Safety & Health Conference and dinner in Townsville on 23 June.

Mike Cooper (left) receives his IQA Fellowship in recognition of his years of service to the industry from Clayton Hill.

QUEENSLAND BRANCH NEWS Technical Lunch & Learn After the first date had to be rescheduled due to a sudden COVID lockdown, nearly 50 members attended a technical lunch and learn event at Victoria Park Function Centre on 30 April, 2021.

The event was emceed by IQA Past President, Director and Fellow Clayton Hill. Attendees were presented with an overview, update and an opportunity to ask questions of Jeremy Kruger, the project director for tunnels, stations and development on the Cross River Rail Project.

Koppens’ Matthew Burns addresses North Queensland members.

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Quarry June 2021

Cross River Rail is a new 10km rail line from Dutton Park to Bowen Hills, which includes

The Institute of Quarrying Australia

INSTILLING RESILIENCE

IN OURSELVES AND OUR PEOPLE It’s exciting planning the education and events for 2021-22 with our committees and branches.

A key theme that is arising is one of connection and resilience. In planning the national conference, Women In Quarrying conferences and local branch events, the committees are looking to support the industry to engage and adapt to change.

Resilience is our ability to adapt well in the face of adversity or stress. Resilience in ourselves and our teams is key in coping with ongoing change. The IQA will be supporting a range of programs that will support resilience.

The IQA national conference organising committee, chaired by James Collings, has focused on the theme of “Re-source, Re-think, Re-engage” and bringing through a message of resilience. The committee have secured a number of key speakers for the program who will address the conference theme and provide insights, learnings and strategies to support the industry to adapt to change, grow and evolve.

Rachael Robertson will present “Leading

on the Edge”. She shares the lessons she learned as the leader of a year-long expedition to the wilds of Antarctica, reflecting that the job of a leader is to create more leaders – not more followers! This keynote address will explore how great leaders build and invest in those around them and turn “moments into momentum” by paying attention to the little things. This is all about showing big leadership in small moments.

Jason Todd, the head of wealth management investment strategy at Macquarie Bank, will share insights on the economy and impacts on the extractive industry, while Gus McLachlan, the executive general manager for business performance and improvement at Boral, will share insights on engagement and change.

Gus had almost 40 years of experience in the

5.9km of twin tunnels under the Brisbane River, inner South, and the CBD, including four new underground stations, eight rebuilt above ground stations on Brisbane’s Southside, and three new stations on the Gold Coast line. The project also includes new signalling technology, the European Train Control System (ETCS), which will allow trains to operate closer together, enabling trains to run more efficiently and with greater safety. The ETCS will be progressively rolled-out across the entire southeast Queensland passenger rail network. Each of Cross River Rail’s high capacity stations will generate unique opportunities for local urban renewal, economic development, the revitalisation of a number of inner city precincts and the creation of new employment opportunities.

(TBMs) – Else and Merle – now excavating 3.6km of twin tunnels from Woolloongabba to Normanby, and major works continuing at all of the new underground stations. Significant works have also commenced at the Exhibition station and on the Southern line stations from Yeronga to Salisbury.

Cross River Rail has now entered its second year of construction, and work is underway at more than 10 worksites across southeast Queensland. 2021 is the “Year of Tunnelling” for the project, with two tunnel boring machines

IQA NEW MEMBERS GRADE NAME ASSOC TMIQ ASSOC MIQ ASSOC ASSOC MIQ ASSOC ASSOC ASSOC

BRANCH

Graham Lockett Darren Read Joel Lauga Peter Young-Whitford Mark Keys Emily Morandy Steve Kenworthy Mark Player Lauren Robinson Jone Qereqeretabua

NSW WA QLD NSW NSW QLD NSW NSW QLD NSW

Australian Army before joining Boral in 2020.

Barbara Chappell, of consultancy Simply Speaking Seanachai, will lead a case study on improving relationships between, people, communities and decision-makers.

To register for the conference visit quarry.com.au KYLIE FAHEY Chief Executive Officer Institute of Quarrying Australia

As well as the two TBMs, the underground cavern and tunnel works are also employing six large road header machines – all cutting through rock formations that are well known to many in the local quarrying fraternity. The $5 billion-plus project is scheduled to see trains running around 2025.

OP TMIQ ASSOC ASSOC MIQ MIQ MIQ TMIQ ASSOC TMIQ MIQ ASSOC ASSOC

Michael Shelton Lionel Romei Todd Clark Luke Heptinstall Liam Hillery Matthew Allard David Cooke Jared Barnes Geoff Reeves Neil Anderson Beau Patton Garry Day Daniel Thompson

NSW NQLD NSW WA NQLD VIC NQLD QLD NSW NSW VIC NQLD NQLD

Quarry June 2021 53

IQA NEWS and largest of its kind in Victoria. The original quarry site was 50 years old and positioned across the main road from the new two-yearold quarry. It is a 24-hour, six days per week operation. Basalt is the primary resource mined there.

The Boral side of the tour was led by Ben McGroutheran, a MIQ Young Member construction engineer who was involved in the quarry site project build.

The Alex Fraser Group’s first Victorian licenced

glass recycling facility is a recent addition to the Laverton site, which has been operating for about 10 years. The recycling plant takes concrete, glass and asphalt and recycles these into resources used to make roads.

There is enough recyclable material to fill two Melbourne Cricket Grounds. Alex Fraser recycles glass and C&D waste into the quality materials needed to build greener roads, including up to one billion bottles into road asphalt per annum.

Its long-term plans include recycling kerbside plastics such as milk bottles into asphalt. •

The Victorian Young Members Network visited Boral Deer Park in its first face to face meeting since 2019.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS At this event, Michael (Mike) Cooper was presented with his Fellowship to the IQA in recognition of years of dedication to the industry and the IQA. The Queensland branch also welcomed its newest premium supporter CDE Global to the meeting.

VICTORIAN SUB-BRANCH NEWS The Victorian sub-branch, kindly sponsored

by Komatsu Australia, held its first event in well over a year. It was easy to see that regional Victoria was keen to get together with more than 50 attendees who heard from the sub-branch committee chair Adrian Bourke, followed by a presentation from Nick Johnstone from BreatheSafe.

Johnstone explained that Komatsu and BreateSafe jointly began working together in 2007 to tackle the issue of mine dust cabin ingress and HVAC, causing poor performance and breakdowns. BreatheSafe began testing and developing pressurisation systems with HEPA filters to eliminate dust cabin ingress.

Furthermore, respirable dust is a high risk factor and equally as concerning as inhalable dust.BreatheSafe provided demonstrations of respirable dust particles and highlighted a variety of products it produces that can be used independently or in conjunction with one another including HEPA filtration, testing equipment, air filters, cabin pressuriser and primary pre-cleaner.

VICTORIAN BRANCH NEWS

NEW SOUTH WALES • 6 June

• 10 June

YMN Site Tour, Albion Park Central West Dinner Meeting, Dubbo

QUEENSLAND • 10 June Quarrying & Mining Safety & Health Conference, Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre • 30 July Central Queensland Annual Golf Day, Mercure Hotel, Rockhampton

NORTH QUEENSLAND • 23 June

Quarrying & Mining Safety & Health Conference, Townsville

• 23 June

Dinner Meeting (following the S&H Conference), Townsville

• 23 July

Cairns Sub-Branch Annual Golf Day, Cairns

• 2 September

WIQ 5th Annual Conference

TASMANIA • 15 June

Dinner Meeting & Tour (Hobart)

• August (Date TBC)

Technical Weekend, Bruny Island

• 7 September

AGM, Site Tour & Dinner, Launceston

VICTORIA • 17 June

Women In Quarry Lunch

To register for these events, email admin@quarry.com.au or visit the “Networking & Branches” section of the IQA website: quarry.com.au

EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COURSES • 8 June

Slope Stability Online Workshop

• 16 June

Electrical Awareness Online Workshop

• 16 June-15 September

Key Account Management Online Workshop

Young Members Network site tour

• 29 June

Learning From Disasters

The Victorian branch held its first Young Member Network (YMN) event since 2019. The event provided a site tour to Boral Deer Park Quarry, followed by a visit to the Alex Fraser Sustainable Supply Hub in Laverton.

• 21 July

Learning From Disasters

• 27 July

Supervising for Safety (Brisbane)

• 31 August

Learning From Disasters

The Boral Quarry at Deer Park is the newest

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Quarry June 2021

Corporate training is available on a broad range of areas. To find out more and/or to organise corporate training, email admin@quarry.com.au

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