Canning supplies two new conveyor systems for Hanson Shardlow
Owned and operated by Hanson Quarry Products, Shardlow is a sand and gravel quarry located between the villages of Shardlow and Aston-upon-Trent, Derbyshire.
Shardlow Quarry is well known in archeological circles as in 1998 workmen spotted what appeared to be a hollowed-out tree trunk with stone inside which was identified as an ancient logboat. The logboat, at over 10 metres in length, was too long and heavy to be removed in one piece, so it was decided to cut it into smaller sections. The boat was kept damp until all the sections could be lifted out of the gravel layers and stored in underwater tanks to stop the fragile and degraded materials from shrinking and collapsing as they dried out. After 18 months the sections were loaded into a large freeze-drier unit to remove the remaining water, which took about 10 weeks to complete. Once treated and dry, and with all the pieces re-assembled, the sections were despatched to Derby Museum and put on display.
Recently there have been two new conveyor systems installed at the quarry. Designed and manufactured by Canning Conveyor of Worksop the new systems have been located in an existing concrete culvert.
Recently commissioned by Canning the first system, essentially a landfill conveyor supplies backfill material to the working face. Canning supplied a new 40 tonne, minimum capacity heavy duty receiving hopper which has been designed to accept –200mm waste landfill material from reversing quarry dump trucks and to deliver via a belt feeder onto a new 1000mm wide belt conveyor at up to 350 tph.
This hopper which is fitted with a 200mm square aperture hinged product grid has been fabricated from 6mm thick mild steel plate stiffened as required with rolled steel sections and lined on all internal sloping surfaces with 10mm thick low friction white perplas. The hopper outlet is also fitted with a screw type guillotine gate for adjustment of material flow.
Material from the hopper is fed onto a new 900mm wide troughed belt feeder fitted with a low speed high torque shaft mounted drive unit. Featuring heavy duty steel drums, torsion type primary and secondary belt scrapers, screw take up at the tail end, full length skirt plates a 'Davis Derby' emergency stop pull wire system completes the specification.
Material is then fed onto a new 1000mm wide x 82.5m long approx troughed belt feed conveyor which runs horizontally for approximately 60 metres through an existing concrete culvert and then elevating at 15° to discharge into waiting dump trucks.
This conveyor consists of standard field conveyor sections for the horizontal section with the elevating section of substantial lattice frame construction with a 750mm wide galvanised open mesh walkway full length one side and a three sided platform around the head. This conveyor has been designed to be stop and started fully loaded, on a regular basis for speed of loading.
Canning completed the installation by modifying an existing trestle from Hanson’s Clee Hill Quarry near Ludlow to support the elevating section.
Canning Conveyor also supplied a second system for Mineral Conveying. This system, virtually identical to the first operates in the opposite direction with the new 40 tonne minimum capacity, heavy duty receiving hopper receiving 100mm ‘as dug sand and gravel’ material from reversing quarry dump trucks, which again is delivered by an identical belt feeder onto a 750mm wide belt conveyor at up to 350 tph.
The new 82.5 metres long troughed belt feed conveyor performs an identical function as in the first system, discharging into waiting dump trucks.
This conveyor was also designed to utilise existing lattice frame sections from the Clee Hill site which have been modified for the horizontal and elevating sections with new sections fabricated for the curved section and head and tail ends. Again an existing trestle from the Clee Hill site was modified to support the elevating section.
Canning successfully completed the mechanical installation, belt fitting, vulcanising and commissioning of both systems in the last quarter of 2009.