for Tahmoor, with long benefits in
improved reliability of the critical drift
wire ropes but also significant cost
savings. Staff no longer dread the
regular rope lubrication process as the
Viper WRLmakes it easy and safe.
Coal export facility in
Queensland
Amajor coal export facility in
Queensland, Australia, was interested in
understanding how the Viper WRL
systemworked, the benefits it could
provide and if it could be applied to the
facility's specific requirements to
lubricate luffing ropes on a number of
large shiploaders at the facility.
This particular port operates 24/7,
365 days a year, loading up to
65 million t of coal from Queenland’s
Bowen Basin into large vessels for export
across the world.
Each of the three shiploaders is a
critical component of the port facility,
with any downtime – planned or
unplanned – a major issue for the
operation of the site. Maintenance staff
are focused on improving the overall
reliability of the plant with best-practice
lubrication a key component of their
plan.
As with many sites where wire ropes
are critical assets, lubrication is part of
the routine maintenance regime but this
is usually completed in a haphazard
method – typically via manual
lubrication with either gloved hands
wiping lubricant on or possibly through
the use of brushes.
Neither method is effective, with a
large volume of the applied lubricant
often falling off, parts of the rope not
being coated with lubricant at all and
virtually no penetration into the internal
wires due to the lack of pressure used.
The manual lubrication process is
also risky with broken wire strands
potentially causing serious injury to the
maintenance staff involved in the
process.
All of these issues led the port
authority maintenance team to look for
alternative methods, with the Viper
WRL package selected as the most likely
option to provide the end result that the
site was looking to achieve.
Before using the Viper WRL package,
the luffing rope lubrication process on
the shiploaders involved:
n
n
Time frame:
§
§
Two people x 6 hr every three
months per shiploaders.
§
§
Approximately 144 hr/yr for
three shiploaders.
n
n
Estimated cost:
§
§
US$720 per shiploaders, four
times per year = US$2880/yr.
§
§
Three shiploaders in total =
US$8640/yr for labour.
n
n
Product: used an oil, which was
manually brushed and sprayed onto
the rope. The process was extremely
messy with potential contamination
risk to the surrounding marine
environment.
Having taken the decision to use the
Viper Mid MKII WRL system to
lubricate the ropes, the maintenance
team, with the assistance of Lubrication
Engineers’ staff, set up a Viper Mid
MKII on the first of the two luffing
ropes.
The Viper Mid was secured in place
using the supplied retaining straps to a
slide way that allowed lateral movement
of the Viper collar in line with the rope
as it moved across the winch drum.
As with many rope lubrication
processes, the old lubricant and
associated environmental
contamination was stuck to the rope,
which needed to be removed before the
next lubrication cycle. AViper Rope
Cleaner, matched to the specific rope,
was installed before the Viper collar,
which effectively cleaned the rope
before it was lubricated.
The lubrication process was
completed on the first rope, with the
Viper Mid then moved over to the
second rope and the process repeated.
With the completion of the first
shiploaders, the port authority
maintenance team reviewed the process,
with the following outcome:
n
n
Time frame:
§
§
Two people x 2 hr per
shiploaders, every eight to nine
months per shiploaders.
§
§
Approximately 18 hr/yr for
three shiploaders.
n
n
Estimated cost:
§
§
US$240 per shiploaders 1.5 times
per year = US$360/yr.
§
§
Three shiploaders in total =
US$1080/yr.
The above time savings and
associated process improvements have
led to the customer acknowledging the
following improvement:
n
n
Major saving in equipment
downtime.
n
n
Much less mess and waste.
n
n
Safer for the workers.
n
n
Safer for the environment.
n
n
Annual cost saving of US$7560/yr.
Use of the Viper Wire Rope
Lubricator at this coal export terminal
has helped the maintenance teams to
reduce the time spent lubricating
shiploaders wire ropes by 120 hr/yr (ten
fewer hours of lubrication per month) –
representing a massive 83% reduction in
lubrication time.
The Viper Mid WRL in service on the shiploader luffing rope.
26
|
World Coal
|
December 2015
