Case Study: Devcon Megawear Fixed Plant Maintenance

Location: North QLD

Application: Gold Mine, Wet Abrasion and Impact, Milling and Grinding

Product: Devcon Megawear

Problem

The customer operates a mine with aging assets and seeks to extend the mine's lifecycle without replacing existing equipment. Instead, the focus is on protecting the current processing equipment, specifically chutes and milling assets, which are subject to abrasive and erosive wear caused by the processing of wet fine slurry, with occasional lump ore.

The customer had been utilising a competitor's wear-resistant product that deteriorated rapidly, necessitating excessive product usage. Additionally, the reliance on imported products raised concerns about supply continuity, further complicating maintenance planning.

Associated Impacts

• Elevated costs due to excessive product consumption.

• Accelerated wear leading to non-optimal preventive maintenance schedules.

• Supply chain disruptions affecting maintenance scheduling and planning.

Solution

The ITW team proposed Devcon Megawear as a superior optimised solution to address these challenges.

Key benefits include:

• Enhanced impact and abrasion resistance.

• Reduced cure time, with a faster curing process of three hours.

• Micro alumina bead formulation, tailored for fine particle slurry applications.

• Locally manufactured in Australia, ensuring a more reliable and stable supply chain

Situation & Process

Asset: Mills & Chutes

Outcomes Achieved

• A site visit and review was completed post the customers transition to the use of Devcon Megawear, with the customer reporting they were pleased with the outcomes and performance of the product.

• The customer shared the previous wear resistant product barely lasted the 6-week cycle period while also experiencing issues, including stoppages required in the milling area, blowout on critical equipment distributing ore to the SAG and Ball mills, and an issue with the under pan on the cyclone process separating fine and coarse ore.

• The customer confirmed that since making the change to Megawear these issues have stopped, and the run period prior to shutdown has been able to be extended from 6 weeks to 12 weeks providing a considerable increase in uptime and productivity.