Tag Archives: Broadmeadow

Miller Tech’s battery-electric Relays start up at BMA’s Broadmeadow coal operation

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Miller Technology has announced the sale and delivery of the first BEV Relays to BHP Mitsubishi Alliance’s Broadmeadow operation in Queensland, Australia.

This battery-powered light duty vehicle (LDV) is capable of completing its bulk charge in less than 20 minutes, providing enough range to complete a typical mining shift of 10 hours, according to Miller. The regenerative braking capability, meanwhile, can add up to two hours in a mine with optimised topology.

This run time and fast charging is made possible by an advanced battery management system (BMS), which monitors battery temperature, with its enclosed refrigeration temperature monitoring system keeping the temperature within the optimal narrow temperature range. The BMS responds instantly to varied demands, while charging and in use, helping the Relay to provide 10 years of battery life, according to Miller.

James Palmer, BMA President, said: “The new electric transporters are a major step towards safer and more sustainable underground workings. This is another positive step in our journey to achieve zero emissions by the year 2050.”

Darren Wood, Project Manager BMA, added: “Diesel machines create a real hazard in an underground mine and we’ve been on a journey over the past four years to reduce these diesel particulate matter emissions in the ventilation system. We’re thrilled to have found the perfect solution in these battery-electric vehicles, which will be used by our maintenance personnel to travel in ‘negligible-explosion risk zones’ throughout the underground mine.

“Hopefully, within the next two years, we will have electric vehicle options available that can enter all areas of our underground coal mines. We couldn’t be more excited to be at the forefront of these new global initiatives.”

Miller’s BEV Relays are not yet certified as ‘Explosion/Flame Proof’ in Australia, but IM understands the company is working on achieving this certification in around the next 18 months. The electric LDV has previously had a trial run at Alamos Gold’s Young-Davidson mine in Ontario, Canada.

Miller Technology said: “Unlike traditional battery-electric vehicle mining LDVs, which are modifications of donor vehicles, typically Toyota’s Land Cruiser, the ground-up design of the Relay BEV has meant ‘everything that is mining’ has been incorporated into every aspect of the design and production.”

(Photo: Daryl Wright)

The Canada-based company says it has invested over a decade of research and development into the Relay BEV, focusing on serviceability and modularity, with a rugged design and construction. The Relay BEV was designed completely in-house by Miller Technology and uses an RESS (Rechargeable Energy Storage System). The system is rated for a maximum continuous 3C charging rate and maximum continuous discharge rate of 5C.

“Utilising the CCS (Combined Charging Strategy) protocol via Combo-2 connection and NMC-G cells (nickel manganese cobalt cathode and graphite anode) offers charging with the most convenient and most widely adopted chargers worldwide,” the company said.

Power is directed to a mid-mounted motor with dual drive output shafts providing 150 kW (peak) to both front and rear differentials. With a drive shaft exiting each end of the electric motor, the 4×4 system minimises moving parts and negates the need for a transfer case, capitalising on drivetrain reliability and power efficiencies, according to the company.

The dual-cab configuration can accommodate four mining-equipped, work-ready adults comfortably and can carry a 2 t payload. Around 1,550 Nm of torque is available from the motor, with the ability to offer the same drivetrain in the Miller Technology BEV Underground Grader.

A ROPS/FOPS Level 2 structure is integrated into the cabin structure, while telemetry diagnostics are data logged on board and transmitted to a control room through Wi-Fi or LTE networks. The data transfer is bi-directional, enabling on-board software to be updated remotely from a control room or mobile tablet.

Paul Summers, Lead BEV Engineer, Miller Technology, said: “The technology in the Relay creates a game-changing vehicle. The unique BMS battery management system and cooling/temperature monitoring process offers a vehicle at the top of its game that is environmentally friendly and the safest, most efficient vehicle of its kind available today.”

LDO Group looks to accelerate away from Australia BEV competitors

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LDO Group of New South Wales is looking to capitalise on the push toward reducing diesel emissions in underground mining operations in Australia by supplying Rokion battery-powered crew and utility vehicles that not only decarbonise mining environments, but also potentially boost mine productivity.

LDO has held the exclusive distributor mantle for Canada-made Rokion battery-powered vehicles in Australasia since 2018. In that two-year period, the company has seen interest in electrification gradually increase.

In South Australia, BHP has trialled light electric utility vehicles at Olympic Dam with Voltra’s LandCruiser conversions. In Victoria, Safescape’s Bortana EV has built up four months’ worth of usage data from Kirkland Lake Gold’s Fosterville mine; the vehicle has also had a brief outing in Western Australia’s renowned Kambalda nickel district. Other mine-ready utility vehicles have also made an appearance in Australia such as the Tembo 4×4 Electric Cruiser and Electric HLX.

These come on top of the battery-electric ST14 LHD Epiroc has delivered to the Glencore-owned CSA mine at Cobar in New South Wales, plus the interest logged from the recent tour of Sandvik-owned Artisan Vehicle Systems’ Z50 battery-electric haul truck.

The last 12 months has been a busy period for LDO, with initial interest from the Australian market being converted into trials (more on that later) or much more advanced discussions, according to LDO Managing Director, Peter Ross.

“There has always been an interest since we started looking into this in 2015, but, in the last year especially, we have seen it spread right throughout the coal industry,” he told IM.

It is the Australian coal sector the company is currently focused on, a market that, until now, has been further down the pecking order for battery-electric vehicle producers. Most have homed in on the country’s hard-rock mines.

Underground coal mines are also a new environment for Rokion’s trucks, which are currently proving their worth at Vale’s Sudbury nickel operations in Canada.

Alan Ross, Sales Manager at LDO Group, says the Rokion battery-powered vehicles are prepared for the challenge of operating in an underground coal mining environment.

“Most of the tailoring is from an Australian regulatory perspective,” Alan Ross said. “The machine has already been specifically designed for underground environments, so will be able to cope with these conditions.”

While acknowledging the “serious competition” from other electric vehicle suppliers, Peter Ross said the Rokion products are second to none in their class: “Rokion trucks are engineered from the ground up for mine use, and built by an OEM with significant mining pedigree – these vehicles are not conversions.”

He added: “It’s all well and good having battery-powered machines, but they have to be able to deal with the realities of operating in an underground mine, protecting personnel while navigating roads and ramps that can deteriorate from one hour to the next.”

The benefits of improved drive ergonomics and environmental conditions are often overlooked while focusing on vehicle performance, according to Peter Ross.

“Our trucks produce no emissions, generate less heat and less noise than all other mining vehicles,” he said. While difficult to measure, it is expected that an improved working environment would allow mine personnel to perform to their potential, boosting overall mine performance.

Drive ergonomics and employee performance are not the only selling points.

Rokion trucks are equipped with lithium iron phosphate batteries – the safest battery technology currently available, according to Rokion. Battery modules are (re)charged on ramp descent thanks to the vehicle’s regenerative braking capacity, which contributes to longer operating times without charge. Other benefits include reduced brake and drive wear, extending the duration between maintenance intervals, Rokion says.

The vehicles can also navigate mine sites with 20% grade at a full gross vehicle weight and full speed while travelling more than 70 km per charge – typically more than enough to get the battery through a full shift.

On top of this, Rokion has manufactured its battery-powered vehicles for simple and easy maintenance.

The modular change-out options – which extend to both the battery and drive system – are “ideal for remote mining locations where the priority is to have dedicated service personnel with expertise in production mining equipment rather than in electric vehicle technologies”, Rokion says. This will come in handy in the coal mining hub of the Bowen Basin, in Queensland, where maintenance staff with battery-electric expertise are in demand and in short supply.

Broadmeadow baseline

It is this region where LDO has made some serious headway of late with the Rokion vehicles.

The BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) is in the process of preparing a Rokion R400 to go underground at the Broadmeadow mine, near Moranbah in the Bowen Basin. This follows an above-ground trial of the smaller Rokion R200 at the same mine.

BMA is a 50:50 joint venture between BHP and Mitsubishi Development Co that operates seven metallurgical coal mines in the Bowen Basin, plus the Hay Point Coal Terminal near Mackay.

Paul Wyatt, Electrical Engineering Manager, Governance & Technical Stewardship Superintendent at BMA Broadmeadow, said the company initially visited Rokion in Canada back in 2017. At this time, the Rokion range included the R100 that came in a two-passenger utility or four-person crew configuration and the R200, built on a slightly larger four-passenger vehicle platform with double the battery capacity (44 kWh).

On the lookout for a battery-electric personnel carrier vehicle to test at its Australian mine sites, BHP agreed to trial an R200 at Broadmeadow. This was part of a group-wide project to reduce health impacts from diesel particulate matter exposure at BHP underground operations.

In 2018, the R200 then took part in an above-ground trial at the underground Broadmeadow mine.

Wyatt explained to IM: “We mapped the underground RLs (Reduced Levels) and we did a series of trials around the surface of the mine to get a grip on the dynamics of the machine, its performance in this replicated environment, the charging time, and how it coped with the extreme heat of Australia compared with Canada where it had previously worked.”

This trial proved successful on all fronts.

“That surface trial laid the platform for us to move into the underground environment,” Wyatt said. “We then knew the vehicle was capable of working underground, and we also knew it could be charged on the surface ahead of a shift and would not need charging again.”

The latter factor was important for the Broadmeadow team as the establishment of underground charging infrastructure would have added complexity to the project.

A zonal system coordinated through RFID tags on the R200 and underground mine infrastructure meant the non-explosion-protected vehicle could roam around 80% of the underground mine without entering hazardous areas close to the working face. Modifications to the gas monitoring capabilities of the machine also meant it ticked the regulatory box required for underground coal mine use.

More testing ensued, with the results, again, proving positive.

“The operators liked the quietness of the machine, the reduced heat generation and the fact you could have a conversation with other people while operating the vehicle,” Wyatt said.

The Broadmeadow team were still keen to see how the newest Rokion machines would perform at the underground mine considering the product advancements the Rokion Engineering team had made since the 2018 R200 was delivered for testing, hence the latest R400 trial.

The R400 platform allows for a diverse range of vehicle configurations from three or six passenger utility up to nine or 12 passenger crew variants, Rokion says. It also comes with 100 kWh of battery capacity and a much smoother ride, according to Wyatt.

Wyatt said the R400 was only weeks away from going underground at the mine after arriving at Broadmeadow earlier this year.

While using the same underground blueprint the R200 had in place – coordinated through the RFID tags equipped on the machine and mine – the R400 will be used as a “development support” vehicle in this latest trial, taking people close to the working face, but staying within the ‘non-hazardous’ zones of the mine as the R400 is not yet explosion-protected, something Rokion and LDO are working toward changing.

The two companies are expecting to release the explosion-protected version of the R400 sometime in 2021.

This is not the only battery-electric machine set to be tested at Broadmeadow in the medium term, with a battery-electric LHD trial also being eyed up, according to Darren Wood, BMA Broadmeadow’s Project Manager of Mods & Small Projects.

In the meantime, the R400 trial will allow Broadmeadow to gain a better understanding of how it could eventually use battery-electric utility vehicles for crews of up to 12: the number it currently transports in diesel-powered personnel carriers at the mine.

Rokion says it is well positioned to meet this demand as development of a 12-passenger R400 is now complete while development of an explosion-protected model is well underway.

The BEV race

LDO hopes the progression of the R400 trial at Broadmeadow will generate further interest in battery-powered technologies in Australia.

BMA’s reviews to date will help this cause, with Wyatt saying the advancements in engineering from the R200 it had on trial to the new R400 waiting to go underground at Broadmeadow were impressive.

LDO will be hoping to make the most of this opportunity, ensuring it retains its lead over battery-electric competitors only now starting to look at Australia’s underground coal market as a lucrative proposition.

BMA achieves ‘Australia coal first’ with shuttle car proximity detection trial

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The team at BHP Mitsubishi Alliance’s (BMA) Broadmeadow coal mine, in Queensland, Australia, have been looking at ways to use proximity detection technology to reduce the potential exposure and risk to its people while working underground, and has recently achieved an Australia first for coal.

Glenn Owens, Project Manager, and Dave Zanette, Project Execution Lead, brought together a team of experienced electricians and engineers, and using the knowledge of its operators, began trialling proximity detection in Broadmeadow’s underground shuttle cars.

“Shuttle cars are considered to be one of the more higher risk pieces of equipment in underground mines as they are used to transport coal from the development face to the coal clearance system,” BHP said. “This machinery can unload hundreds of tonnes of coal per shift and are critical to the mine’s operations.”

After many months in planning and development, the team launched an Australian first for coal – rolling out the first ever Proximity Detection Shuttle Cars in full auto and stop modes.

“Keeping our people safe is always our highest priority so implementing this technology is a huge step forward in the future of underground mine safety,” Zanette said.

“It opens up the opportunity for us to use the technology across multiple pieces of mobile equipment and, if implemented correctly, can impact human behaviours in a positive way.

“It also has the potential to be replicated across all of our BHP underground and surface assets and throughout the broader industry, ultimately making mining safer for our people.”

The Proximity Detection System uses low frequency magnetic field generators, which are installed in the Shuttle Cars. The magnetic fields can detect two zones – Zone 1 (Warning Zone) and Zone 2 (Danger Zone).

When a pedestrian is detected in the Warning Zone, the machine will automatically slow down and the operator and pedestrian are both alerted via flashing orange beacons and alarms on the vehicle and cap lamps (worn on each person’s helmet).

Once someone enters the Danger Zone, a red flashing beacon and alarms sound and, importantly, the machine automatically stops, BHP said.

“Unique to an underground mining environment, there’s moving machinery, noise, limited lighting and confined spaces, so it’s fantastic to know that this technology provides an engineering solution on top of the existing controls to help keep our people safe,” Zanette said.

The project is currently in trial phase, with two of Broadmeadow’s shuttle cars already fitted with the system. All shuttle cars in Broadmeadow mine’s development panels are on track to operate the system by the first quarter of BHP’s 2020 financial year.

The Project Team will be testing this technology on Broadmeadow’s other mobile equipment such as personnel transporters, LHDs, shield haulers and selected surface mobile equipment, it said.

Battling convergence events at BHP’s Broadmeadow coal mine

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Following a number of “severe convergence events” after employing the top coal caving method at the Broadmeadow coal mine in Queensland, Australia, in 2010, BHP and SCT Operations Pty have put in place a geotechnical monitoring programme to mitigate these issues during the operation of the latest longwall mine.

In a paper titled, Management of Initial Convergence Events at Broadmeadow Mine, R Coutts, K Mills, D Lynch and M Martin; BHP, Moranbah, Queensland, Australia and SCT Operations Pty Ltd, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, will discuss these practices at the SME Annual Conference & Expo on Monday.

“The mine introduced a top coal caving (TCC) longwall (LW) face in 2010, but since then experienced a series of severe convergence events soon after starting each panel,” the authors said in a presentation abstract. “During LW8, LW9 and LW10, weighting events occurred at 60-70 m retreat resulting in equipment damage and the longwall almost becoming iron bound.”

The authors said considerable effort was required in LW10 to regain sufficient clearance for operations to resume, with LW11 characterised to have a similar risk of a weighting event to LW10.

The authors said: “This presentation documents the learnings from a geotechnical monitoring programme undertaken during LW11 and details the operational methods used to mitigate these initial convergence events. It also comments on the significance of the top coal caving technique to the convergence events.”

BHP commented in its recently released half-year results to end-December, that coal volumes were up compared with the same period a year ago; a period when Broadmeadow’s output was affected by roof conditions.

Broadmeadow is owned by the BHP Mitsubishi Alliance joint venture, which owned 50:50 by BHP and Mitsubishi.

When the top coal caving method was initially employed at Broadmeadow it was the company’s first mine in Queensland to use it. Employing this method was expected to lift recoveries from around 60% to 90% in the Goonyella Middle Seam and increase production rates, it said in a 2013 briefing.