At many existing bulk material handling facilities, equipment such as stackers, reclaimers and ore car dumpers are nearing the end of their design lives. Owners are faced with the decision on whether to refurbish existing or procure replacement machines. There are also continuing pressures for increased throughput and in the case of ports, to accept larger ships.
Traditionally, owners would carry out a refurbishment to allow the life of their equipment to be extended. However, due to the continuing strong demand for commodity exports and high equipment utilisation levels, downtime is critical. Thus, decisions between refurbishment and replacement equipment can have a big impact on plant availability, cost and revenue. Richard will talk about how ASPEC has developed a program called FULS (fatigue useful life simulation) to assist owners making decisions on when to carry out machine replacement or major refurbishment.
RICHARD MORGAN
Director, Aspec Consulting
10:35 MORNING COFFEE & NETWORKING