Tag Archives: 797F

Caterpillar surpasses 5 billion tonnes of material autonomously hauled

Automation, IoT, Mining equipment, Mining industry recognition, Mining safety, Mining services, Mining software, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Roughly nine months after reaching the 4-billion-tonne (4.4-billion-ton) autonomously hauled milestone, trucks equipped with Cat® MineStar™ Command for hauling have now moved over 5 billion tonnes (5.5 billion tons), the OEM says.

Cat autonomous trucks are on pace to eclipse previous record totals of materials hauled in a calendar year, projected to be more than 1.4 billion tonnes (1.57 billion tons) in 2022.

Currently, more than 550 mining trucks are equipped with Command for hauling, operating across three continents. Over the last nine years, trucks equipped with Command for hauling have journeyed nearly the average distance between the Earth and Mars with zero loss-time injuries, according to the mining OEM.

Denise Johnson, Group President of Caterpillar Resource Industries, said: “In 2013, we placed our first fleets of autonomous trucks in Western Australia at FMG Solomon and BHP Jimblebar. Since that time, trucks using Command for hauling have safely travelled nearly 200 million km, more than twice the experience in autonomous operations of any automobile manufacturer. Caterpillar has grown the number of autonomous trucks in operation by 40% in the past two years.

“We believe that automation is one of many keys to implement technology that unlocks the value miners need when it comes to the energy transition toward more sustainable operations.”

One of the company’s recent contract wins on the automation front relates to BHP’s majority-owned Escondida mine, in Chile.

Marc Cameron, Vice President of Caterpillar Resource Industries, said of this agreement: “The new Cat 798 AC electric drive trucks replacing BHP’s entire haul truck fleet at the Escondida mine will feature technologies that advance the site’s key initiatives, including autonomy and decarbonisation. The agreement allows Escondida…to accelerate the implementation of its autonomy plans by transitioning the fleet with autonomous haulage system (AHS) technology.”

Caterpillar has enabled 13 customers at 23 different locations to succeed with full site autonomous haulage solutions. Starting with iron ore at Solomon (Fortescue Metals Group) and Jimblebar (BHP), its solutions now manage oil sands, copper, gold, coal, lithium and phosphate. Spanning the 190- to 370-t class sizes, the Cat 789D, 793D, 793F, 797F, and electric drive 794 AC and 798 AC mining trucks are capable of fully autonomous operation. Retrofit kits allow miners to expand Command for hauling to existing Cat mining trucks.

Since 2019, Caterpillar says it has won eight of nine greenfield autonomy sites on offer.

Sean McGinnis, Vice President and General Manager for Cat Mining, said: “In 2023, we will expand Command for hauling to the 139-t truck class at ioneer Ltd’s Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron mine. This is the first greenfield project in North America to use an AHS. We are now seeing a shift toward autonomy requested on new Cat trucks. Whereas large mines with fleet sizes of more than 70 trucks were the early adopters of the technology, we are seeing economic viability for autonomy at smaller mines with a fleet of less than 15 trucks.”

Caterpillar says it continuously monitors the industry for opportunities to broaden the use of automation to help drive safety and efficiency.

Beyond expansion of Command for hauling to the Cat 785 for ioneer, Caterpillar sees potential for Cat autonomy in quarry and aggregates. Additionally, Caterpillar’s AHS technology has been deployed on the Cat 789D autonomous water truck (AWT) operating at Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri mine in Australia, the world’s first AWT, for automated watering of haul roads.

Cat 797F haul truck proves its worth in Tier 4 Final configuration

Environmental, Equipment maintenance, Mining equipment, Mining maintenance, Mining services, , , , , , , ,

Cat says its 797F large mining truck is now available in a fuel-efficient configuration that meets US EPA Tier 4 Final emissions standards.

Through more than 16,000 hours of successful pilot machine operation and 100,000 hours of production truck operation in Tier 4 configuration, the system has proven its ability to deliver strong performance and greater fuel efficiency compared to the Tier 2 797F in most applications, the company said.

The 797F Tier 4 Final is equipped with an exhaust aftertreatment system featuring selective catalytic reduction, which uses diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) to lower NOx emissions. This Cat emissions platform is proven through more than 20 million operating hours in the field, according to the company.

The 797F aftertreatment system uses less than 11% new content, improving reliability, while the modular aftertreatment system, with readily accessible components designed for serviceability, is aligned with truck preventive maintenance intervals to maintain high availability, Cat said.

The best-selling truck in the 400-ton (363-t) size class, according to Cat, the 797F is powered by a 4,000-hp (2 983-kW) Cat® C175-20 engine, available with optimised fuel maps for customers focused on the lowest fuel burn, Tier 2 equivalent rating, and now Tier 4 Final. It is renowned for delivering class-leading payload and speed-on-grade performance, Cat said, adding that the 797F delivers the same production performance in Tier 2 and Tier 4 Final configurations.

“Beyond offering similar performance, the Tier 4 Final 797F reduces total specific fluid consumption costs (fuel plus DEF) in most applications,” Cat said. “Lower fuel burn results in longer engine life and lower repair costs.”

Field evaluations of the 797F included a wide range of applications in oil sands, deep pit copper, iron ore and coal mines. The trucks exceeded production targets and demonstrated strong engine performance in all applications, including sites with extreme ambient temperatures as well as some with altitudes greater than 16,000 ft (4,877 m), according to Cat.

Cat finds the right digitalisation and physical simulation balance

Base metals, Coal technology, Equipment maintenance, IoT, Mining consumables, Mining equipment, Mining software, Precious metals, Steel and iron ore, , , ,

In the age of big data, it is refreshing to see OEMs still using in-the-flesh simulations of equipment and components to verify new and improved products.

That is exactly what Caterpillar is doing at its Technical Centre R&D facility in Peoria, Illinois.

IM toured the facility on Monday and discovered a dedication to testing anything from single components to entire drivetrain systems in the harshest of mine site conditions one can imagine.

Cat is making the most of digitalisation and big data throughout the group – its renowned MineStar system is leading the way in fleet management, machine guidance, equipment and personnel tracking, and equipment health – but it is also cognisant of the need to provide the conservative mining industry with in-the-flesh simulations.

At the R&D facility in Peoria, the company is not testing out concepts – of which the company has many (some 15,000 patents and counting).

The company spends some 4% of annual sales and revenue on R&D and, by the time tests are carried out in this facility, analytical models have already identified potential new products or improvements to existing products.

This is where the integration of digitalisation and in-the-flesh simulation align nicely; the latter taking its lead off the former.

The role of the Peoria facility is to verify equipment/components can perform as expected, thereby laying the groundwork for further in-the-field testing at one of the company’s three proving grounds.

One of the simulations IM witnessed on Monday was the testing of an entire drivetrain from the 363 t 797F mining truck.

Here, the company can replicate a 24-hour cycle by modifying certain inputs to give the drivetrain the impression it is, for example, operating on a 30° incline.

The drivetrain can be plugged into more than 100 feedback channels to gain an accurate picture of what impact this operating scenario has on the machine.

This 797F test has been in place for more than 15 years, but the company and its customers are still after still want such feedback before buying one of these expensive machines.

There are also a series of other tests available at the facility where systems and components can be put through their paces at temperatures as low as 40°C and altitudes as high as 12,000 feet (3,658 m).

While there are digital models within the company built to do exactly this, the reality is the results do not yet match up.