AG and Ball Mills Lift
Client: MCC Mining Pty Ltd
Completion: In Progress
Location: Cape Preston, WA
CITIC Pacific’s Sino Iron project was a massive undertaking, even by world standards. It included the construction of a 4.5km breakwater, a 1,700 bed accommodation village, a 1,700m2 warehouse and the installation of 12 giant grinding mills. VDM Group was involved in many facets of this project providing innovative alternative solutions that were both cost and time effective.
At the heart of the project are six autogenous grinding mills each weighing 1,300 tonnes (at the time, the largest in the world) and six regrind ball mills each weighing over 800 tonnes.
Historically mills of this type have been assembled on site, but VDM engineers adopted and refined their own innovative strand lifting technology to lift the mills pre-assembled. This technique is recognised as being safer than conventional methods and has proven its ability to lift some of the world’s heaviest loads. The mills were fully assembled in China and shipped to the site ready for installation.
VDM's innovative use of this technology makes lifting from above a safer, quicker, more flexible and more economical option than using conventional heavy lift cranes.
Special steelwork frames and cradles were fabricated to support the mills as they were lifted vertically up to 22 metres and moved horizontally up to 300 metres to rest on their bearings within half a millimetre tolerance.
The process ensures maximum stability of even the heaviest, most unwieldy load while conventional lifting methods would be slower, riskier and highly exposed to the capricious weather patterns of the northwest where, even outside the officially nominated cyclone season, winds are a frequent hazard especially when work is being carried out at height.
The installation of twelve very heavy grinding mills at the remote Cape Preston site was a huge component of the overall project and required an innovative approach to overcome logistical and operational challenges, to ensure that the risks were properly managed and to make sure results were accomplished in a timely and cost-effective manner.
The installation process designed by VDM Engineering is an innovative concept and this was the first time that large mills had been installed in this way. The first set of lifts was performed in February 2010 with outstanding success.
