500ton trucks...

When I get home home this weekend, I'll post additional pictures of the Bingham Canyon Mine. All my photos of that pit are on my PC.

Ross said:

Ha ... Not Compact, Dry, Skate-Park Smooth surface like pictured

More like a Ploughed Field .. Rutty .. Really Test a truck out ... Should have sent one up to see Brian .. :drinkup

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Now that could have been interesting!

Mass-X said:

From the mines I’ve been in here in the U.S., the majority do run left-hand traffic. Most of the bigger scraper contractors run their scraper projects left-hand as well.

From my understanding, Bingham Canyon runs right-hand traffic because of the high amount of contractors and vendors that they have to share their haul roads with. At any given time there are two dozen or more contractor vehicles somewhere in the pit, a number of which are delivery truck drivers. In the picture I posted earlier, you can see two Komatsu or Cummin’s technician vehicles behind the 960E at the back of the line.

With some mines, the thought is that when sharing your haul roads with a very high number of outside vendors, changing to left-hand traffic will result in more accidents than it will prevent. Delivery truck drivers are usually the biggest accident concern when changing traffic patterns to something different than what some supertrucker is accustomed to on a highway.

Does every mine in Australia run left-hand traffic?

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Yep Mass X all left hand traffic down here, i like it that way with clockwise traffic out of the pit as it puts the loaded truck against the wall and not out on the edge to the next bench below.

Gavin84w said:

Yep Mass X all left hand traffic down here, i like it that way with clockwise traffic out of the pit as it puts the loaded truck against the wall and not out on the edge to the next bench below.

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We run right hand drive since it is what all of the operators are used to outside of work. It allows us to run with standard traffic rules. If we have a pit that dictates the use of left hand drive, or a soft road where left hand drive allows the trucks to stay on the harder side, we simply set up signs and the drive changes to suit.

Bingham Canyon Mine, run by Rio Tinto’s Kennecott Utah Copper Corp. The haulage fleet consists of over 70 haul trucks; mostly CAT 793D’s and Komatsu 960E’s. Ten electric shovels, all P&H 4100’s and 2800’s. One hydraulic shovel, an O&K RH200. Eight blasthole drills. I don’t know the exact count, but 5-6 24H/M’s, 8-9 16H/M’s, a couple dozen D10R/T’s and D11R/T’s, and a host of 834’s and 854’s, including a new 854K. Daily production exceeds 450,000 tons. The pit is over 5000’ feet deep (1524m), and 2.5 miles (4km) wide.

Pictures of the crushing operation, showing how they can achieve those haul roads you could skateboard on. Pictures #2 and #3/#4 were taken 21 days apart of the exact same area of the pit as part of the West Pushback 1 Project. Shows what kind of production can be achieved by the army of haulers and shovels.

This picture shows an operation cleaning up the subsidence after a slope failure on the western side of the pit. A 385C with shovel cab cutting highwall/assist, two D10T's trapping to a 4100XP loading a 793D. A 24H on the floor.

Lastly, a P&H 2800XPC under construction.

It's great to see what it looks like down there. Flew over the mine a week ago on the way south....damn clouds. Great pictures, thanks for posting, and feel free to post many more.

How many 960Es do they have? Any idea how they're working out? We had a prototype running around at one of the mines up here. They had some pretty severe problems with it, even for a prototype. Mind you, it had the Siemens drive system, not the GE like the other 960E prototypes and pretty much every other Komatsu electric truck has.

Do you know if they still have any 797s running around down there?

Thanks for Delivering on the Pictures!!!! Well Done.

How does the economics work on such a huge Hole and 240T???

Where do your "D" Trucks fall down?
Steering/Fan Pumps?
Head Joint Integrity?
Acc. Drive Shafts?
Trans. Slip Times?

Thanks for the pictour Mass X. So let me see if i got this right, they have a dedicated crushing crew that manufacture material on site to sheet the roads?

Brian, i think the 797,s went long ago from there and are in Indonesia now and as a side note Morenci,s 797,s did not work out either and the 3 of them ended up in your neck of the woods. I don,t really think there was a particular thing that ousted the trucks from either site, running costs possibly but Cat chose those sites for field follow as the sites have very good practices going on and would give an honest fingerprint during FF testing.

So let me get this straight. The further down they dig, the larger the circumference has to be of the pit to stay below allowable grade on the haul road. So they must be constantly cutting out the roadway walls to enlarge the hole and provide new roadway. I wonder how long the haul road is to get out of the pit? Some astronomical number of miles?

Epic pictures :notworthy

The only Data they will get from the 95's is rolling figures, Looks like a very predictable mine site ..

Mass-X: Just keep them pictures comming partner. I for one, Never get tired of viewing

activeorpassive said:

Don't hold your breath on this one. It is already common knowledge Cat is working on an A/C truck, but 500 tons is a stretch.
Tires have always been a limiting factor for any truck. The largest mine trucks (without payload indicators) that are spot checked for weight consistently weigh in with 400-440 ton loads, despite truck ratings of 350-380. The reason the trucks are rated lower? Tires. Tire manufacturers do not want to invest in the research and infrastructure to make tires capable of greater loads, due to the risk involved with periods of downtime in the truck industry (that's a lot of money sitting there not making tires).

The point? Larger trucks today are capable or nearly capable of handling 400+ tons. Tires are not. I do not believe the market will see a truck, electrical or mechanical, RATED for 500 tons until heavy equipment manufacturers pony up and subsidize the tire technology.

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The Siemens inverter for the 860 Komatsu is rated for and has hauled 450 tons. It is the smaller of the new generation inverters that Siemens is building.

X51

Actually, I meant to add that the problem with the tires has to do with size. They can make bigger tires, but they have no way to transporting them to the site. They'd be huge.

The new Siemens truck inverters were designed to pair with our newer shovel inverters so a truck could be filled in two scoops. I'm told no Siemens 860 inverters have gone to the U.S. or Canadian markets so I'm not sure where the 'problem' prototype unit was seen. I'm told one 960 went to Canada. That might be the one that had a pump leak, but rather than fixing it, the customer decided to let it keep on leaking. They added water instead of antifreeze so it froze up literally. You can't always go by half the story. The pumps have all been upgraded to stainless steel models.

To me though, the coolest thing was when we built the first direct drive dragline for China. Seeing the pictures of the huge ring motor for that and knowing out cabinets power it... staggering.

X51

Orders have been strong, but transitioning away from the older GTO trucks has been slow because our customers still order the older generation trucks.

Can't believe that in Canada where we put antifreeze in our our veins as well as in our equipment that anybody would use water where it would freeze!

X51 said:

Actually, I meant to add that the problem with the tires has to do with size. They can make bigger tires, but they have no way to transporting them to the site. They'd be huge.

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Actually, they can definitely transport larger tires. The issue is not that they cannot transport them, it's that once you break a certain size, there is added cost in transporting them due to different routes being needed, more permitting, and so on.

X51 said:

I'm told no Siemens 860 inverters have gone to the U.S. or Canadian markets so I'm not sure where the 'problem' prototype unit was seen. I'm told one 960 went to Canada. That might be the one that had a pump leak, but rather than fixing it, the customer decided to let it keep on leaking. They added water instead of antifreeze so it froze up literally. You can't always go by half the story. The pumps have all been upgraded to stainless steel models.

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You might want to reread the post with the comment about the "problem prototype". It says right in the post that it was a 960 that was the issue, not an 860. The issues with the drive system were the typical Siemens issues of constant inverter faults, as well as blowing all of the drive motors that were built for the truck in a matter of two months. This was in the summer time, and there was no freezing issue. So you're right, you can't always go by half the story.

alco said:

Actually, they can definitely transport larger tires. The issue is not that they cannot transport them, it's that once you break a certain size, there is added cost in transporting them due to different routes being needed, more permitting, and so on.



You might want to reread the post with the comment about the "problem prototype". It says right in the post that it was a 960 that was the issue, not an 860. The issues with the drive system were the typical Siemens issues of constant inverter faults, as well as blowing all of the drive motors that were built for the truck in a matter of two months. This was in the summer time, and there was no freezing issue. So you're right, you can't always go by half the story.

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I'll chat with the guys who designed it and see what they say. Feedback is always important. It sounds like you saw the first one ever built. Field situations are sometimes very tough to recreate with a test fixture.

And yes, the cost and logistics of getting the tires there is the drawback from what I'm told. I'm sure Siemens is prepared to make inverters for a 500 ton truck if the customers have a truck that is capable of hauling that capacity. Again, the smallest 860 inverter is rated for 450 tons.

I would love to see these things actually doing what they do. I saw the first GTO prototype being built for a mining show, so I've seen the design and evolution of the various products since the beginning.

It's hard to really imagine the amount of power these things are handling in such a compact design. When the trucks are fully loaded and braking on a downhill grade, they are releasing enough energy to power over 300 homes.

If an assembler drops a loose piece of hardware into a cabinet, the electromagnetic field created from charging it up can propel the hardware out like a projectile. The heavy cables spasm like they are alive when power is switched on or off through them.

Back on the Bingham Canyon Mine topic, not sure if anyone has seen it, but there's a program on Discovery Channel called Belly of the Beast. This particular episode is about Komatsu trucks and it shows the Komatsu factory in Peoria where the trucks are made and theres a small scene on Bingham Canyon, they go on board a 4100 XPB and load a 960e. Pretty cool :drinkup

Mass-X said:

Regarding the 795F’s, I’ve actually been lucky in that I’ve seen all the field follow units at the three U.S. operating sites.

Barrick Goldstrike has a strict enough “No Camera” policy I was unable to get any photos of the 795F’s there. But I have a couple decent pictures of the trucks at Bingham Canyon and Black Thunder.

The pictures from Bingham Canyon show 795F’s on haul roads; and yes, they are very fast trucks. They'll outpace the Komatsu 960E and 930E ES's on a grade.

The Black Thunder photo is backing onto a pitfill dump. I was never very close to where they had the 795F's operating, hence the distant picture. But it's the center truck in the photo.

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It is impossible that you would have seen three trucks at the time of your post. It is impossible for you to see three field development trucks at minesites at the time of THIS post.

Elko isn't scheduled to receive their truck until the end of this month; Wyoming will not see theirs until the end of May/early June.

Bingham Canyon has the only truck in the field, and they will be getting another within days. Goldstrike and Black Thunder will get trucks soon, but I'm telling you...they don't have any to date.

I'll post some pics of the trucks soon.

alco: How many 960Es do they have? Any idea how they're working out?

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I don’t know the number. I have a friend who works in the maintenance department at Bingham Canyon and from everything he’s told me, they’re top notch trucks. The only downside he passed along was that the operators say they’re less comfortable to operate compared to the 793D’s, but from a maintenance perspective he likes them. That’s all I know of them.

alco: Do you know if they still have any 797s running around down there?

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The last one I saw there would have been in ’06 or ’07.

CAT793: How does the economics work on such a huge Hole and 240T???

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Great topic, we could run a whole thread discussing that one. But all my time at Bingham Canyon has been from the contractor’s side or as a tourist. I can’t speak for their mine haulage economics. Since this thread has been hijacked a few dozen times, start a new post and we can discuss large pit/truck size economics there.

Where do your "D" Trucks fall down?

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I’m not the one to ask about that since I don’t work at Bingham Canyon. The only 793D’s I’ve been involved with directly was from the engineering/optimization standpoint and the relevant issues in that instance were actually related to suspension due to conditions (coal mine in northern climate) so I can’t add anything.

Gavin84w: So let me see if i got this right, they have a dedicated crushing crew that manufacture material on site to sheet the roads?

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Yes. That’s a pretty common practice at most all of the larger hard rock mines in the states. I figured that would be SOP in any of the larger operations like Kalgoorlie in Australia as well?

activeorpassive: Bingham Canyon has the only truck in the field

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I stand corrected. They would’ve been 240 tonners with Trinity bodies than because their profile made them stand out and look identical to the Tinaja/Bingham Canyon units.