Your questions requires a lot more information from you for this project.

You should really direct your question to a conveyor supplier in all honesty if you wish to pursue this.

Every thing has its opportunity cost.

So here we go again.

I will offer my insight and I am sure my well respected friends on the board will offer theirs.

For instance:

What is it you wish to convey from point A to point B?

what are the annual weather weather conditions as this will figure directly in this.

what is the material size? run of mine ore or finished?, wet or dry?, you will need belt covers for the entire length to control dust.

What is the skill level of the local labor force?

What is the desired annual tonnage?

Will the conveyor run around the clock?

Will the conveyor be in a populated area?, are you willing to install 65 Kilometers of belt guarding fences?

Will you be using mechanical splices or vulcanized splices?

Will you be using steel supported conveyor belt or cable supported conveyor belt?

Are you going to use a gravity take up system or hydraulic take up system at every drive unit?

Are you willing to build thirty five plus kilometers of access roads?

You will need 4000 volt electricity for the entire route and regulating transformers to eliminate line drop.

The distance you want to traverse will require PLC control at a minimum.

your project will require at a minimum:

35 miles of conveyor belting or 370 rolls of five hundred foot each

200 convential mechanical splices at a minimum

35 miles of 3/4 inch wire rope cable for cable supported belts

35 miles of steel belt stands for a steel supported belt

8000 cable belt stands

1056 troughing idlers per mile

528 return idlers per mile

one training idler for every ten troughing idlers

18,000 plus idler wedge locks

one return training idler for every ten return idlers

one hundred fourty kilometers of emergency stop cables.

one hundred fourty kilometers of emergency stop wiring.

4600 emergency stop switches.

62 sets PLC controls -one at every transfer point plus a master control center somewhere preferably at both ends of the system.

Using a three thousand foot model for a twenty four or thirty six inch conveyor belt.

You will need a minimum of 62 drive units and tranfer points

with tail pulleys and foundations for the drive units and tail pulleys.

You have not even told us what size of conveyor you wish use and that will affect everything exponentially.

This does not even begin to address the issue of spare parts, bearings, spare pulleys, lagging, spare idlers, electric motors,

hydraulic power units, elelctric motors etc.

As a side issue:

A capsule pipeline to move your material will cost typically 2 cents per ton mile to operate.

a capsule pipeline requires less time and labor to install than a belt conveyor or railroad.

A twenty four inch capsule pipeline can move a lot of material in both directions. not possible with a belt conveyor.

A capsule pipeline will only requiire only one employee per million tons of material moved.

Your projects length is very well suited for a capsule pipeline as

the minimum economical distance is 2 kilometers distance. and one hundred thousand tons annually.

The capsule pipeline uses low pressure of from one to five psi air to move capsule trains in a pipe at 25 miles per hour or faster unaffected by weather and will run around the clock with very little maintenance and it is self cleaning.

Using a single pipe capsule pipeline is the simplest method to move material from A to B and back to A.

A single tube will allow you to fill and transport as many capsule trains or individual cars as you wish and allow you to store and stock pile the empy ones at the other end and return them empty as a whole set of unit trains or if you have something to send back in the other direction you can do that with air pressure of one to five PSI.

On the return trip electricity can be generated and fed back into the grid by using synchronus electric motors.

A capule pipeline uses none of the equpment or maintenance required for a conveyor belt or railroad.

www.pnuetrans.net A Canadian capsule pipeline manufacturer.

www. capsu.org -this site will direct you to a an actual capsule pipeline in operation in Japan that replaced a railroad and is delivering limestone ore from a quarry to a cement plant

If you would like more information contact me off the board

my two cents

lzaharis@lightlink.com ■

In my opinion, yes, a dynamic analysis should be done for such a system, that will better realize your diligence and estimate accuracy.

I also believe that the question posed leaves too much doubt about other factors, which will have a major impact on your estimate.

Partial optimization, for reasonable estimating accuracy, should be made at the feasibility/budget control level. How do you know that you have made such an accurate estimate? I claim, that typical published tools most often used, will not bring you to the best fit-for-purpose cost estimate. Dynamics is one issue. Rubber rheology is another. There are many cost and technical factors including the trade-off between civil and mechanical costs, between capital and operating optimization of total life cycle cost.

What if your cost estimate is out by more than 30% against others in the practice of doing this type of analysis and design? How do you know? Will it condemn the project approval? What is the cost to get it right?

Unless you have competed and succeeded to win turnkey projects, in this technical/commercial league, how can you tell management that your in-house methods are to an acceptable technical and commercial accuracy? ■

I can say we have made cost estimates between rail, conventional conveyors, and cable belt conveyors for long overland systems up to +140 km.

My comments above are very generic and cannot address the true complexity, without details of the concept proposed, and without knowledge of the latitudes that may be available. ■

In general, the rail system cannot compete with a belt conveyor for dedicated long haulage on a cost per ton basis. This includes HAZOPS and other risk analysis cost penalties.

Over a thirty year life of operation, a rail will cost multiples of the conveyor's total-life-cycle cost.

A rail system has the advantage of being used for other purposes than one dedicated bulk/granular product. It also allows for infrastructure building along the route. ■

Do you think he will ever tell us what he wants to move from point A to Point B Larry? ■

for coal transfer at that rate you will need a 48 inch belt or 36 inch capsule pipeline.

The problem with grades and conveyors is you need a back stops or hydraulic drives with piston motors.

please contact me off the board, I sincerely hope did not offend you with my posting and if I did I offer an apology to you

lzaharis@lightlink.com

happy New Yyear ■

Dear Izaharis,

Skyline mine, in Utah, has a downhill pipe conveyor. I was the Utah Fuels prefeasibility engineer many years ago. I proposed, to the client, that we study/investigate the pneumatic capsule, along with the Coal-Log, pipe conveyor with man-riding maintenance cart, and conventional conveyor. The terrain was very complex.

The installation is placed on a mountainside with 11000 ft length and a 600 ft drop (by memory). It has many sharp vertical and horizontal curves.

The pneumatic capsule conveyor people came to walk the site, and made a quote along with defense-of-concept discussions. The cost was over double a normal system. They were also worried about many factors including reliability when the discussions on performance/warranty were tabled.

The pipe conveyor, with maintenance cart, was installed. Many new details were learned about the pipe conveyor as well. A consultant to the Contractor proposed a 500 hp drive. The belt supplier proposed 800 hp, which was installed. CDI argued the motors were not sufficient. During startup in cold weather, over +2100 hp of equivalent full-belt-speed torque was required of the drives, even though the downhill slope was about –5.5 %. Normally, this would regenerate power above 2% down slope. Luckily, the DC drives could, for a short period, provide about 200% or 2400 hp of equivalent full speed torque. Idlers began to fail and had to be rebuilt due to high belt forces. The pipe buckled due to the high tensions. The client discussed the need for a fourth drive with the Contractor. Eventually, the belt worked in as the weather warmed and the duty cycles overcame the Mullins or Payne Effect of the initial rubber polymer characteristics.

Te maintenance cart ran-away a number of times due to icing of the brake surface.

Bottom line, the capsule conveyor was not competitive and the supplier did see risks. I note your continual advice (maybe +2 dozen forum recommendations) to use this system. Since you have such a passion for it, can you publicize an installation list with the details that are more informative on its efficacy, viability and history? This would go a long way to gaining respect for its capability and knowing there is some track record. ■

Greetings Mr. Nordell, happy new year.

I remember that we chatted about skyline a while ago.

This link still works:

<www.st.rim.or.jp/~isaoyo/index.html>

If that fails Google (karasawa mine)

and it will take you to the quarries home page.

Location: Karasawa mine



1765, Aisawa, Kuuzu Town,

Aso-Gun, Tochigi Prefecture

Distance from Kuuzu Station:

(by Tobu-Sana line) ten minutes by car



capsule pipeline delivers crushed

limestone ore to the "Tochigi Cement plant". ■

Dear Izaharis,

I do appreciate your rising to the ocassion.

You might find the year 2000 article on LIM (linear induction motor) pipe capsules compared with 1983 pneumatic pipe capsule a good read. I call you attention to page 2 of 15. This sort of sums up the major details.

The LIM is noted to be twice as efficient as the pneumatic system and they go on to claim the LIM is almost as efficient as a belt conveyor.

This article is circa 2000. We have reduced the overall ownership cost of overland belt conveyors by about 20% and 40% on power since 2000. This savings comes from superior rubber rolling efficiency technology and its applications. ■

Its getting late:

The website for the LIM verses pneumatic system is:

http://www.magplane.com/html/pdf/pipline.pdf

Remember page 2/15.

Also, your reference to using a 48 inch belt to transport 1200 mtph of coal is way off. For overlands, we would be looking at below 1000 mm including alll vertical and horizontal curves. We are doing 2500 t/h with 1200 (48 inch).

. ■

Mr. Nordell,

Thanks for the reply, I was going simply from what I new of rock salt from point a to point b.

I remember that the magplane folks put a test tube at the lake Lucy? phospate mine in Florida and I never heard any more about it after the test phase.

From what i remeber of the picture they had a continuos loop for loading and unloading a single large batch for a demeostration of the magplane.

I new a lot the surface strippers down yonder were pumping rock phospate ore from the excavations and they are using or were using draglines.

I heard that my former employer was tearing down their phosphate rock crushing and processing plant as the property they bought was finally mined out after 28 years and they are taking all the phosphate out from under the plants physical property itself.

It will be interesting to see how many cases of lukemia occur from the exposure of the phosphate rock excavations due to the backround radiation increase. I am unaware if they or any of the going concerns are reclaiming any of the mined land as good neighbor, of course I have not checked either. ■