Lifting technology ensures greater maintenance safety at EroBrasil Caraíba, with 30% reduction in downtime

EroBrasil Caraíba, a copper mine and processing plant complex in the backlands of Bahia, Pilar district in the municipality of Jaguarari, Brazil, has optimized its annual primary crusher maintenance stoppage in terms of time and safety processes. The mining company reduced the time to change the concave liners of the primary crusher equipment from 15 to 11 days. The process was achieved by adopting Metso's PG concave carousel device, a kind of "frame" that allows the pre-assembly of the trunnions outside the crusher. With this solution, it is possible to lift the concaves only once, reducing the operators' exposure to risks during assembly and making the change-out considerably faster.

Safety first

With a culture of zero-accident maintenance shutdowns, the mining company's main concern is that its employees perform their services in accordance with the rules, using the correct personal protective equipment (PPE), and adopting tools that optimize the work in the field. With the device developed together with Metso, the changeover can be performed within 48 hours, ensuring that the company's metrics are met.

"The maintenance stop has the function of maintaining the primary crusher safely, while ensuring quality," explains Ubirajara Ramos, Maintenance Engineer at the EroBrasil Caraíba plant. According to him, the previous replacement procedure took more time, because the concaves were formed by 32 parts, replaced one by one.

With the use of optimized concaves, together with the new carousel system, the maintenance team can transport the pre-assembled assembly, eliminating the plate-to-plate installation of the previous process. The gain in safety is immediate and the increase in productivity can be calculated based on hours of equipment availability. To Ubirajara, it is now possible to release the crusher for start-up four days earlier than with the previous process.

An added bonus – longer wear life

Another improvement for the customer was the optimization of the profile and alloys used in the manufacturing of the concaves. In Ubirajara's evaluation, the changes should bring an average increase in lifetime between 25% and 30%. With this, the parts replacement cycle will be extended, which also provides an improvement in safety, with the reduction of human intervention and exposure to accidents.

"The partnership we have with Metso, from the beginning of planning to the execution of the services, is what we can highlight in the implementation of improvements in our processes," Ramos explains.

Luciano Lima, Metso Account Manager, highlights that the partnership with EroBrasil Caraíba resulted from a technical-commercial demand: the primary gyratory crusher is of Sino-Brazilian manufacture and was activated in 1978 in the mining plant. The entry of Metso into the picture, resulted in the replacement of the older supplier and an improvement of the process, including a consultancy leading to the the synchronization of the lining change with the crusher's annual stoppage, which in turn also involves the change-out of other components.

Regarding the carousel, Lima explains that it is a tool already adopted by other Metso  customers, but that needs to be customized. The "skeleton" used by EroBrasil Caraíba meets the configurations of the primary crusher that the mining company has kept active for more than 45 years. The initiative also reinforces Metso´s expertise in also meeting demands for equipment that is not of its own manufacture.

"The partnership involved several initiatives, including the use of technologies such as scanning of previously used profiles and the generation of point clouds for analysis and software simulation," explains Marcelo Capucho, Manager Technical Sales Support at Metso. With this preliminary study, Metso was able to estimate to EroBrasil Caraíba that the previous coatings would support the operation for longer, until the scheduled stoppage in January 2023, thus avoiding a preventive maintenance stoppage in the middle of 2022.

The study also allowed the improvement of wear parts for the customer's application, i.e., the new concaves, with a more suitable configuration to better support the type of ore being crushed at EroBrasil Caraíba.

Bruno Tardelli, Product Support Engineer at Metso, followed the entire process of changing the concaves and highlights that the ease that the carousel offers for the change of liners brings important gains in safety, because the operator has less time of exposure during the movement of the load.

Sustainability in action

Tardelli also highlights the sustainability and circular economy benefits to the business. "After the concaves are used, as well as blankets and other castings, Metso repurchases these materials, returning them to our foundry, where they are reused to create new parts."

Metso's Chamber Optimization service is dedicated exclusively to the development of customized wear parts for each customer for both Metso and third-party crushers, aimed at increasing equipment life and performance. The program is part of their global strategy of sustainability actions in the mining market.

About EroBrasil Caraíba:

The unit has fully integrated mining operations and processing facilities, including the Pilar and Vermelhos underground mines and the Surubim open pit mine. Ore is processed by conventional crushing and flotation at the Caraíba Plant, located next to the Pilar underground mine. A clean, high-grade concentrate containing approximately 35% copper is sold to domestic and international markets through the Port of Salvador.

The company is controlled by Canada's Ero Copper, headquartered in Vancouver. In Brazil, the group also owns the EroBrasil Tucumã units, for copper exploration in Pará, and EroBrasil Xavantina, a gold and silver mine in operation in Mato Grosso.