ABB makes another advance in mine shaft hoisting efficiency and safety

Posted by Daniel Gleeson on 7th December 2011

abb.jpgABB has successfully completed all tests and the no-load commissioning of its ACS 6000 drive, installed at the Ma JiaLiang coal mine’s main shaft hoist in Shanxi Province, China. ABB’s ACS 6000 drive is designed to allow for continued hoist operation at half-speed and under full-load, if required by the process. With this successful breakthrough, ABB says it “becomes the first supplier worldwide to design and realise this kind of function in a hoist system.” This function will greatly reduce the maintenance time and increase the reliability and availability of coal mine production.

The Ma JiaLiang coal mine is a major construction project of Shanxi Province with a planned annual production capacity of 12 Mt/y of coal and maximum capacity of 15 Mt. When put in operation, it will be the coal mine shaft with the highest production in China.

ABB provided two hoist systems for the main shaft, with each hoist pulley having a diameter of 5.7 meters, a payload of 45 tons, and a motor power of 7000kW. It utilizes MV AC-DC-AC direct torque control (DTC) technology and is the biggest hoist system ever installed in China. In June 2011, ABB started the installation and no-load commissioning of the mine’s No. 2 main shaft hoist, which covers the mechanical part, the motor, the control system, as well as the ACS 6000 MV drive and brake control system. The half-speed under full-load function is designed to maintain the safety of the hoist system and a continued production in case of failure of the hoist’s drive system. Half-speed with full-load redundancy has been available for systems using DC drives and AC-AC direct conversion frequency drives, but this specific function has never been realized before for hoist systems based on AC-DC-AC frequency conversion drives.

Stephen Zhu, Manager of ABB’s Mining and Minerals business in China, said, “ABB designed an ACS 6000 MV drive system using two independent sets of active rectifier units (ARU) and inverter units (INU) for the Ma JiaLiang project. Under normal conditions, the two operate together, providing power to the motor. If one fails, a switch cabinet will connect the redundancy operation mode and start the operational set. This is a significant achievement which can greatly reduce shutdown time, providing our customers continuous production with improved reliability.”