AUTOMATION: Robots could now be in charge of mill reline process

CHILE – MIRS, the Chilean subsidiary of HighService Corp., launched a robotic solution for the reline of SAG and ball mills this week. The external mill maintenance robot or EMMR is considered to be the world’s first fully automated system that performs this operation autonomously and without any human intervention. The MIRS automated system replaces manual labour by the collaborative action of robots of up to six-tonne capacity that operate in parallel at a speed that reaches up to two metres per second, reducing the total reline time by about 40%. “A 100-hour detention with a conventional system will decrease to 60 hours with the use of EMMR and IMMR,” Igor Elías, MIRS mill reline business area manager, said in a media statement. In detail, the robots are able to remove nuts and washers, remove bolts, clean and lubricate the threads of the bolts, install new bolts, simultaneously torque two nuts, clean the shell and nuts, and normalize the mill for operation. Besides the EMMR, the company presented a complementary technology called Internal mill maintenance robot (IMMR), the first fully automatic prototype of a robotic mill reline machine. “Designed to operate in parallel with the EMMR, it automates the removal of liners and bolts from the inside, as well as their subsequent installation, and will perform other activities such as the automatic liner oxy-fuel cutting and high pressure washing,” Elías said. The entire solution was showcased at an event presided by the Minister of Mining, Baldo Prokurica, and executives from some 40 mining and engineering companies from Chile and Peru. This story first appeared on www.Mining.com.