| March 2007
About three years ago Colliery Dust
Control (CDC) was approached by one of its customers to see if it could
solve an ongoing problem it was having with the methane monitoring heads on
its continuous miners.
CDC soon established that many underground collieries using that particular
brand of methane monitor were experiencing similar problems with the
product. “These mines were replacing methane monitoring heads on a weekly
basis and sometimes up to six times a month,” commented Doug Hutson, CDC’s
managing director.
“This was at a cost of R5 000 each and one mine was carrying stock of 70
methane heads valued at R350 000 in order to ensure continuity of supply and
the least disruption to production.”
The customer in question was seeking development of a new product with the
same level of reliability as the Aquaguard pressure and flow transducers
supplied by CDC’ s specialist monitoring systems partner, Monitech Mining
Monitoring Systems.
Monitech immediately got to work to solve the problem and within a short
time came up with a monitor incorporating all relevant monitoring functions,
including methane monitoring, in a single unit. This is its 8-channel
monitor, which, in addition to water pressure and flow and methane (two
monitors), also monitors coolant pressure and flow (two monitors each).
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The Monitech
eight-channel logger’s various components, each of which is mounted
separately onto different parts of the continuous miner. The units
shown are (top, from left): Water box for left hand water flow
monitoring, methane detector, water box for centre water flow
monitoring, water box for right hand water flow monitoring. Bottom,
from left: Flameproof enclosure for power supply, 8-channel logger
display unit, water box for high pressure, water flow & pressure
monitoring.
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“In contrast to the previous system
used, the methane monitoring system incorporated in the 8-channel logger is
extremely reliable, as well as being very responsive and accurate,” said
Hutson.
The first unit was installed three years ago and since then only two methane
sensor heads have been replaced on that unit.
“A total of 23 units have now been installed over the 36-month period and an
analysis of the running costs of the units for those that have been running
for more than 12 months shows that costs are of the order of R1 000 per
month. This compares to up to R40 000 per month for the units supplied by
the previous supplier.
“The project has been a huge success story for customers, CDC and Monitech,
with enhanced safety and greatly reduced costs,” he concluded.
Springs-based CDC and Benoni-based Monitech have a co-operation agreement to
promote and sell Monitech monitoring equipment to the coal mining industry.
This has worked to the benefit of both companies in winning new business.
CDC is the largest supplier of dust suppression systems for continuous
miners in Southern Africa. It first attained leadership in this market in
the mid-90’s through gaining the bulk of the market’s acceptance of its
three-fold dust suppression system, comprising the unique CDC wet fan
scrubber box, a spray fan system and water-powered air movers operating in
complementary fashion to achieve high dust suppression efficiency.
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