Long Distance Sand and Gravel Aggregate Conveying Solution

An open-pit factory focuses on the mining and processing of sand and gravel aggregates (core material is limestone, particle size 5-40mm, moisture content 5%-8%, high hardness and prone to dust generation). With capacity expansion, it needs to add a long-distance conveying dedicated line from the mountainous mine crushing area to the factory's raw material storage area—this is the factory's first involvement in such a large-scale, complex terrain conveying project. Previously, it only transported raw materials via small short-haul trucks, having no experience in long distance conveying equipment selection, terrain adaptation, environmental compliance, maintenance management, etc., and even unable to clarify the basic issue of "how to match the 8617-meter mountainous route, multi-turn terrain with 2500 tons/hour capacity".

Before starting the project, the factory only clarified the core requirements: achieve direct conveying from "post-mine crushing limestone → factory raw material yard", avoiding transfers; adapt to the drastic undulations of mountainous terrain and 9 natural turns; meet a handling capacity of 2500 tons/hour, and comply with environmental requirements. However, it had no clue about key issues such as "what type of conveyor is needed, how to design the route, what auxiliary equipment is required, how to maintain later", and was even more worried about project delays, overruns, or failure to meet standards due to lack of experience. For this reason, the factory explicitly required the supplier to provide a "full-process turnkey, from demand sorting to delivery-ready" overall solution, not only providing equipment but also responsible for solution design, implementation landing, and personnel empowerment, ensuring that after project completion, the factory can operate independently.

Upon receiving the demand, ZOOMRY first dispatched a special team to deeply intervene in the factory site from "demand breakdown-scenario analysis-solution design-implementation landing-maintenance empowerment" full links, combining mountainous terrain, limestone characteristics, and the factory's zero-foundation status, creating an integrated solution covering "demand diagnosis-system design-equipment supply-installation commissioning-personnel training".

Project Core Requirements and Objectives

Considering the factory has no relevant experience, ZOOMRY first assisted it in completing demand sorting, transforming the vague "conveying demand" into implementable technical standards and project objectives, ensuring consistent understanding between both parties:

Core Requirements

1. Basic parameter information: After ZOOMRY combined with factory capacity calculations (crushing line 2500 tons/hour, annual conveying volume 20 million tons), clarified core parameters: conveying length 8617 meters, belt width 1200mm, handling capacity ≥2500 tons/hour, adapting to 9 horizontal curves (turning radius 1000 meters, maximum turning angle 36° determined after ZOOMRY survey), requiring multi-point drive to cope with mountainous heavy loads;
2. Environmental requirements: Mountainous open-air environment needs to withstand 42℃ summer high temperatures, -10℃ winter low temperatures, and multi-rain climate, equipment must have built-in dust-proof and rain-proof functions to avoid limestone damp caking or dust exceeding standards;
3. Service training: Factory has no maintenance team, ZOOMRY needs to be responsible for full-link implementation from solution design, equipment production to on-site installation, while providing "hands-on" training to ensure the factory team can independently complete daily operations and basic maintenance after project delivery;
4. Compliance requirements: ZOOMRY needs to ensure the project complies with the "Comprehensive Emission Standard of Air Pollutants" (dust ≤10mg/m³) and CEMA international standards, while avoiding risks such as ecological damage in mountainous construction and insufficient equipment adaptation.

Core Objectives

1. Delivery ready-to-use: After project completion, the conveying system can be directly put into use, handling capacity stable ≥2500 tons/hour, full 8617 meters without transfers;
2. Environmental compliance: Dust emissions controlled within 8mg/m³, no environmental complaint risks;
3. Easy maintenance: Core components life ≥50000 hours, daily maintenance operations simple, factory team can independently complete after training;
4. Risk-free: Construction process does not damage mountainous ecology, equipment adapts to mountainous terrain, no later modification hidden dangers.

Overall Solution

Targeting the factory's zero-foundation status, ZOOMRY designed a "full-chain turnkey" solution, not only providing equipment but also overseeing from "route planning, equipment selection, process design" full links on behalf of the factory, ensuring every link fits its actual capabilities and needs:

Core Conveying Equipment

Considering the factory cannot handle complex debugging and maintenance, ZOOMRY customized 1 set of long distance curve belt conveyor for it, emphasizing "high stability, easy operation, low maintenance" characteristics:

• Unmanned terrain adaptation: For 9 horizontal curves and mountainous undulations, adopting ZOOMRY's self-developed "intelligent tension control system + friction self-aligning roller group", rollers (diameter 133mm, suitable for 1200mm belt width) can automatically correct belt deviation without manual adjustment; turning radius 1000 meters, maximum turning angle 36° design is the precise calculation result after ZOOMRY's drone 3D mapping, ensuring adaptation without leveling the mountain; also adopting "segmented gradient slope" (maximum slope ≤8°), coordinated with ST2500 steel cord conveyor belt (tensile strength ≥2500N/mm, wear-resistant layer 15mm), avoiding heavy-load slippage, and the belt's 120mm overlapping seal structure can automatically block dust without manual intervention.
• Stable high quality: Adopting 4 units of 630kW variable frequency motors' "multi-point distributed drive" (total power 2520kW, protection level IP55), ZOOMRY pre-set parameters adapting to 2500 tons/hour before factory shipment, on-site only needs power-on to run; drive drums (40Cr forged, diameter 630mm) diamond-pattern rubber lagging surface (friction coefficient ≥0.45),after ultrasonic testing, life over 50000 hours, reducing later replacement frequency.
• Strong environmental adaptation: Frame hot-dip galvanized anti-rust (Zn12 grade), transparent PC rain cover (15° inclined drainage), hydraulic tension oil temperature control (-10℃~42℃ adaptive) and other designs are all protective measures pre-set by ZOOMRY combined with mountainous climate, factory daily only needs to check appearance, no complex maintenance required.

Auxiliary Equipment

To avoid process jams due to complex operations by the factory, ZOOMRY selected simple-operation, high-automation auxiliary equipment, forming seamless connection of "receiving-feeding-conveying":

• ZRLS-TU1400 wheeled truck unloader: Installed in the mine crushing area, belt width 1400mm, handling capacity 200-1000 tons/hour, adapted to the factory's existing 50-ton dump trucks. After trucks drive onto 2 hydraulic ramps (slope 6.7°), the vibration feeder device automatically adjusts speed based on conveyor status, no manual control needed; ramp bottom double-layer rubber skirts automatically seal, reducing dust, factory only needs to arrange personnel to guide trucks, no complex operations.
• ZR series hopper feeder: Located between unloader and conveyor, 12cbm enlarged hopper adapts to mountainous intermittent unloading, 37kW variable frequency motor can automatically match 2000-2500 tons/hour feed rate, avoiding overload; hopper inner wall 15mm wear-resistant ceramic liners, top dust and rain cover are all long-term designs, factory only needs periodic hopper cleaning, no frequent maintenance.

Core Components

Considering the factory has no component replacement experience, ZOOMRY selected all self-produced high-durability components:

• Rollers and drums: Straight section quiet rollers (rotation resistance ≤2N, noise ≤45dB), redirecting drums (thermal spray wear-resistant, ovality <1.5mm) all pass 1500-hour no-load tests, 72-hour immersion water ingress ≤95g, adapting to mountainous humid environments;
• Safety components: Belt deviation switch (automatic alarm shutdown when deviation >5mm), emergency rope break system (0.01s lock), overload protection device, all "no manual intervention" automatic protections, avoiding accidents due to factory operation errors.

Project Implementation

Preliminary Survey

ZOOMRY's 8-person technical team spent 18 days, not only completing drone 3D mapping of the 8617-meter route, limestone sample testing, meteorological data analysis, but also daily explaining to 2 liaisons assigned by the factory "why measure these data", "what 1000-meter turning radius means", "relationship between conveyor belt selection and moisture content", transforming professional data into information the factory can understand, while jointly determining the route plan to avoid later cognitive deviations.

Manufacturing

When all equipment is produced at ZOOMRY's Hebei factory, ZOOMRY invited 3 factory personnel to visit the plant, on-site demonstrating key links such as "drive drum static load test" and "roller sealing test", explaining qualification standards; before shipment, organized acceptance meeting, using plain language to explain compliance of various parameters, letting the factory "see with their own eyes, confirm with their own hands" equipment quality, eliminating concerns.

Installation Commissioning

12-person installation team adopted "modular splicing" (8617 meters divided into 43 pre-assembled segments), on-site only bolt connections, while arranging 1 hour daily "on-site teaching": teaching factory personnel to identify if roller rotation is normal, how to check hydraulic oil level, how to inspect rain cover; commissioning phase with three-step teaching: first demonstrate single equipment no-load operation, then teach system linkage operation, finally let factory personnel complete 72-hour full-load trial under guidance, ensuring they are familiar with every step.

Maintenance Training

• Theoretical classes use "illustrations + cases" to explain key points of daily inspection for mountainous conveyors (such as roller abnormal sound judgment, rainy season drainage check), common fault handling (how to manually correct belt deviation);
• Practical classes let everyone hands-on operate "roller replacement", "scraper adjustment", "PLC parameter viewing", and produce simple operation manual (with step diagrams);
• Finally conduct "simulated fault assessment" to ensure everyone can independently handle common issues. At the same time, ZOOMRY promises common spare parts delivered within 7 days through domestic service points, 24-hour technical hotline always answers questions, thoroughly solving the factory's worries of "afraid of problems, don't know how to solve".

Project Achievements

System Operation Compliance

Full 8617 meters without transfers, conveyor handling capacity stable at 2550 tons/hour, fully matching 2500 tons/hour capacity; dust emissions 7.8mg/m³, far below 10mg/m³ standard; limestone loss rate dropped to 0.9% from previously envisaged "possibly over 5%", rainy season caking rate 1.8%, no additional crushing needed; core components operated over 40000 hours without replacement, annual maintenance frequency only 4 times, far below factory expectations.

Factory Capability Enhancement

Factory maintenance team can now independently complete daily inspections, basic maintenance, and simple fault handling, even adjust feed rate according to the manual provided by ZOOMRY; project leader stated: "Before we didn't even know what 'multi-point drive' was, ZOOMRY from the beginning took us to see surveys, learn acceptance, practice operations, now not only the equipment is easy to use, we ourselves can manage it well. For future mine expansion, we have confidence to interface ourselves, this is all taught by ZOOMRY."

ZOOMRY's Core Advantages

1. Demand transformation capability: Transform clients' vague "need conveying" into clear technical solutions, helping zero-foundation clients avoid pitfalls of "parameter mismatch, scenario inadaptation";
2. Full-process turnkey capability: Responsible throughout from survey to training, no need for clients to understand technology, only cooperate in liaison, lowering project landing threshold;
3. Capability transfer ability: Not only deliver equipment, but through "teach while doing" let client teams learn operations, achieving dual delivery of "project compliance + personnel empowerment".