The recent increased use in large industries (airplane design, advanced ship building, consumer goods) has led to the cost for manufacture reducing. How do these products reach the industry? An industry where reliable products pay for themselves very quickly!
This creates a huge potential for reliability engineers in the mining industry. Composite materials could be used for many options increasing durability, component life or reducing servicing requirements. These could include gaskets, guards, covers or even entire components. Many components on mobile mining equipment, such as Dozers, experience high levels at vibration at the top of the machine. This scenario leads to cracking of the components when made of metal strucutres (commonly steel or aluminium).
The hardest step to take is through research and development of potential options. Reliability engineer's focus is mostly directed towards defect elimination and RCA, as these have the most obvious impact on the fleet. There is a large opportunity in the mining industry for composite manufacturers to develop good relationships with reliability engineers to identify potential applications. This could be a larger opportunity if the work can be developed with OEMs to develop class leading machines for the next generation. An example of this is how Airbus have developed composite materials for their A380 with researchers.
Please feel free to leave any comments or email us about your thoughts or ideas of composites in the mining industry.
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