Elevating material in a capsule requires gas to be compressed causing heat of compression and then when the capsule is lifted the gas undergoes expansion and cooling with the expansion cycle. How much of these heating-cooling cycles are captured and how much is lost as a percentage of lift power? ■

I am sure that this system has merits and could be considered for some niche projects. The introduction of this as a credible technology will not be achieved by advertising it on this forum however.

If you look at other novel technologies or novel applications of existing technologies, they always take a long time to take off. The ones that have been successful are incubated in a large organisation that has the financial capacity to prove the system works so that a purchaser isn't left wondering if it will or won't work. Nobody wants to risk their project and fund your R&D at the same time. Until this product is something that people can see and touch at something approaching the scale of common commercial sizes, it will go nowhere.

My recent experience is as a representative of a very large mining company looking to design/source feasible infrastructure to get some massive copper mines established. If a solution to the materials handling requirements can be achieved using readily available technology at a reasonable price, then that is what the decision will be. Conventional conveyors and hoists will win almost every time.

For one of our projects, the earthworks and geotechnical risk associated with our overland conveyor meant that the conventional option was hugely expensive. We studied alternatives and found a novel solution fitted the bill. The actual decision to adopt that technology was made after a huge program of work by both the supplier and the Owner's team to prove to ourselves that it would work, be reliable and actually cost what the supplier was saying. Without the very strong engineering and manufacturing resources available to the supplier and the fact that the supplier was able to take us to existing installations we would never have selected this technology.

The supplier for our selected technology has invested years of research and millions of Euro into designing the system, the software to design it, the construction techniques etc. Until Pneutrans does this no large mining house will touch it.

Smaller firms with projects that are unviable any other way are your target. Look at Simbiri Gold mine where a novel conveyor system was installed that allows for access in very rugged terrain. There's a project that appears would have been very expensive to do any other way. There's a mining company that is small and dynamic enough to have a go and take a risk on something. It's paying off for them. The thing is that system was the 6th by that supplier and they'd done a bigger one already. Has Pneutrans got a system people can see & touch?

Best of luck with the development of your system. Be prepared for a long road ahead.

M ■

The twin pipe system at the Karasawa Limestone Mine has been

in operation since 1980 and has transported sixty two million tons

of broken limestone to the cement plant that is fed by the quarries

limestone ore output since its installation in 1980.

I hope this clarifies things again. ■

Mr. Wolton please find below the paper submitted

by Dr. Kosugi and Dr. Liu which in proving once

again the validity and high efficiency of the P.C.P.

for both mining and tunneling.

lzaharis

Western Mountain Mining and Tunneling Machinery

Western Mountain Aggregate and Mineral Transportation Machinery

Attachments

prague_conference_paper (PDF)

■

I had been in the bulk handling business for many years before I realised that I was regularly employed in solving problems that had been created by incompetent selection of equipment. That was particularly true when mineral transport was involved. Owners, Contractors, Consultants, Whatever were often universally unable to recognise the implications of their quest. Pneumatic capsules for mineral transport are rare. Mining is a fundamentally unstable geotechnical activity. Capsules will surely demand low clearance levels along most of their route for most of their life. Maintaining such clearances might promise to compromise OPEX.

In a world where mineral requirements can disappear at the whim of national import demand, or restriction, it does seem questionable to transport minerals in any specialised form of equipment. When a proposed operation is discussed the financiers want to see minimum CAPEX. Transport is nowadays recognised as a major operation where the CAPEX for fixed equipment can be very conveniently transferred into OPEX. When a site is threatened the OPEX heavy trucks can be taken to the docks, borders: anywhere safe in a storm. This is the major bargaining tool to reinstate the mine operation: especially if the trucks are robots. Capsules, like trucks, handle discrete cargoes and also need service access. In a turbulent world trucks win every time.

A maxim for bulk handling could be 'Don't put in what you can't get out.' ■