Title: A simulation analysis model of bucket wheel excavator-conveyor belt system for oil sand extraction and material handling

Authors: Abhineet Sharma, Jozef Szymanski, Ajoy Anand

Addresses: School of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, University of Alberta, 6-051 Markin/CNRL Natural Resources Engineering Facility, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2W2 Canada. ' School of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, University of Alberta, 3-047 Markin/CNRL Natural Resources Engineering Facility, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2W2 Canada. ' School of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, University of Alberta, L1-008 Markin/CNRL Natural Resources Engineering Facility, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2W2 Canada

Abstract: In this paper, simulation model of |At Face Slurrying| system is discussed, using a commercial simulation software package Visual SLAM, which involves a Bucket Wheel Excavator-Belt Conveyor-Digester system feeding a slurrification unit. The results show that the BWEs and the apron feeder significantly affected the productivity and surge bin capacity more than the other system components. The optimum capacity of surge bin is found to be around 22,000 tonnes when the BWEs run at 115-120% capacities. The time for which the system can run is found to be around 3-6 h when one or both of the BWEs operates.

Keywords: AFS; at face slurrying; BWE; bucket wheel excavators; conveyor belt; simulation analysis; oil sands; AweSim; materials handling; oil sand extraction; productivity; surge bin capacity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMME.2009.027257

International Journal of Mining and Mineral Engineering, 2009 Vol.1 No.3, pp.278 - 291

Published online: 18 Jul 2009 *

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