Australian Certified Winches (ACW) has used Hydraulink to provide and install hydraulic hoses and fittings optimised by expert hydraulic engineering required for an innovative new underground winch developed for major mining leader BHP.
BHP tasked ACW with designing a winch that could haul double the capacity, 100 tons, within the same physical space as its previous 50-ton winch, for one of its major Australian underground mining operations.
“The solution was to integrate two 350,000Nm wheel drives inside the winch drum,” said Grant Barrett, Director of ACW, who has more than 25 years’ experience in designing and building industrial winches. “The winch is to be used to remove longwall machines once the longwall is finished and being moved to another seam. Current methods involve the use of hydraulic cylinders, but these can be limited in stroke length, meaning a lot more time re-rigging the haul rope. The winch has 300m of rope, allowing for a continuous haul.”
ACW focuses particularly on ensuring winches are suited to the particular task, and have the correct documentation and certification to operate under any appropriate regulations.
“The new winch has an onboard closed loop hydraulic system that is driven by the underground emulsion fluid, so we needed expert hydraulics assistance in engineering the winch for underground use,” said Barrett. “So we contacted Hydraulink, and their team ensured all hydraulic hoses and fittings were MDG-41 (Mechanical Design Guideline 41) compliant – including all testing and reporting – which is a requirement for any machinery being used in underground mining applications.”
MDG-41 outlines safe working practices for the manufacture and assembly of high-pressure hoses and fittings, including hazard identification, assessment, elimination and reviewing of risk. As a leading hydraulic hose, fittings and service specialist with more than 400 service points across Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, Hydraulink regularly supplies hydraulic components that comply with local standards.
“The service from Hydraulink was fantastic,” said Barrett. “They were responsive, practical-minded, safety-oriented and worked well with my team. I’ll be looking to them for any future Hydraulic hose, fittings, adaptors or service needs.”
Adrian Burgess, Area Sales Manager – Queensland at Hydraulink, was delighted to help ACW on this innovative project: “I was impressed with ACW’s standards and safety compliance focus, and the solution they came up with for this new winch was an outstanding piece of engineering. We were happy to be part of this project and to work side by side with another company that values safety as highly as we do.”
“To make service and maintenance simpler in the future, we’ve set up all the hoses and parts used in this winch with individual part numbers in our system. If ACW need to replace a part in the future, we’ll have all the specifications on file, ready to go.”
The new winch has now been factory tested using a 150-ton load cell and shackles, where it pulled 120 tons with ease.