CA2499840C - Self clearing crusher flowsheet - Google Patents
Self clearing crusher flowsheet Download PDFInfo
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- CA2499840C CA2499840C CA002499840A CA2499840A CA2499840C CA 2499840 C CA2499840 C CA 2499840C CA 002499840 A CA002499840 A CA 002499840A CA 2499840 A CA2499840 A CA 2499840A CA 2499840 C CA2499840 C CA 2499840C
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- oil
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- sand
- slurry preparation
- ore
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- 239000003027 oil sand Substances 0.000 claims abstract description 64
- 239000002002 slurry Substances 0.000 claims abstract description 54
- 238000002360 preparation method Methods 0.000 claims abstract description 47
- 238000000034 method Methods 0.000 claims abstract description 31
- XLYOFNOQVPJJNP-UHFFFAOYSA-N water Substances O XLYOFNOQVPJJNP-UHFFFAOYSA-N 0.000 claims abstract description 17
- 239000000203 mixture Substances 0.000 claims abstract description 14
- 230000002441 reversible effect Effects 0.000 claims abstract description 12
- 238000002156 mixing Methods 0.000 claims abstract description 6
- 230000008569 process Effects 0.000 claims description 16
- 238000012545 processing Methods 0.000 claims description 7
- 229910000831 Steel Inorganic materials 0.000 claims description 6
- 239000010959 steel Substances 0.000 claims description 6
- 238000007599 discharging Methods 0.000 abstract 2
- 238000013461 design Methods 0.000 description 9
- 238000005065 mining Methods 0.000 description 9
- 239000000463 material Substances 0.000 description 6
- 238000012216 screening Methods 0.000 description 6
- 238000005086 pumping Methods 0.000 description 5
- 230000005484 gravity Effects 0.000 description 4
- 238000011143 downstream manufacturing Methods 0.000 description 3
- 239000004576 sand Substances 0.000 description 3
- 230000009471 action Effects 0.000 description 2
- 239000010426 asphalt Substances 0.000 description 2
- 238000005516 engineering process Methods 0.000 description 2
- 230000006872 improvement Effects 0.000 description 2
- 238000005007 materials handling Methods 0.000 description 2
- 230000004224 protection Effects 0.000 description 2
- 239000011435 rock Substances 0.000 description 2
- 239000007787 solid Substances 0.000 description 2
- 239000002699 waste material Substances 0.000 description 2
- 238000009825 accumulation Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000009286 beneficial effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000003339 best practice Methods 0.000 description 1
- 239000004927 clay Substances 0.000 description 1
- 238000010276 construction Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000002950 deficient Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000003111 delayed effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000008030 elimination Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000003379 elimination reaction Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000007613 environmental effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000006870 function Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000000227 grinding Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000012423 maintenance Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000004519 manufacturing process Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000003913 materials processing Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000003801 milling Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000008450 motivation Effects 0.000 description 1
- 239000002245 particle Substances 0.000 description 1
- 230000003134 recirculating effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000009467 reduction Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000012546 transfer Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000005303 weighing Methods 0.000 description 1
Classifications
-
- B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
- B02—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING; PREPARATORY TREATMENT OF GRAIN FOR MILLING
- B02C—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING IN GENERAL; MILLING GRAIN
- B02C23/00—Auxiliary methods or auxiliary devices or accessories specially adapted for crushing or disintegrating not provided for in preceding groups or not specially adapted to apparatus covered by a single preceding group
- B02C23/08—Separating or sorting of material, associated with crushing or disintegrating
-
- B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
- B02—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING; PREPARATORY TREATMENT OF GRAIN FOR MILLING
- B02C—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING IN GENERAL; MILLING GRAIN
- B02C19/00—Other disintegrating devices or methods
- B02C19/0006—Crushing by endless flexible members
-
- B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
- B02—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING; PREPARATORY TREATMENT OF GRAIN FOR MILLING
- B02C—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING IN GENERAL; MILLING GRAIN
- B02C4/00—Crushing or disintegrating by roller mills
- B02C4/10—Crushing or disintegrating by roller mills with a roller co-operating with a stationary member
-
- B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
- B03—SEPARATION OF SOLID MATERIALS USING LIQUIDS OR USING PNEUMATIC TABLES OR JIGS; MAGNETIC OR ELECTROSTATIC SEPARATION OF SOLID MATERIALS FROM SOLID MATERIALS OR FLUIDS; SEPARATION BY HIGH-VOLTAGE ELECTRIC FIELDS
- B03B—SEPARATING SOLID MATERIALS USING LIQUIDS OR USING PNEUMATIC TABLES OR JIGS
- B03B9/00—General arrangement of separating plant, e.g. flow sheets
- B03B9/02—General arrangement of separating plant, e.g. flow sheets specially adapted for oil-sand, oil-chalk, oil-shales, ozokerite, bitumen, or the like
Landscapes
- Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
- Food Science & Technology (AREA)
- Life Sciences & Earth Sciences (AREA)
- Chemical & Material Sciences (AREA)
- Geology (AREA)
- Oil, Petroleum & Natural Gas (AREA)
- Crushing And Grinding (AREA)
Abstract
In a slurry preparation process for preparing uncrushed oil-sand ore to become suitable for subsequent slurry transportation, a step-wise series of process steps comprising receiving the uncrushed ore and water into a mixing hopper to create a mixture of ore and water; discharging the mixture onto a screen deck to separate oversize and undersize fractions; allowing the undersize fraction to discharge into a slurry preparation vessel; discharging the oversize fraction to a self-clearing crusher which comprises a receiving hopper and a driven crushing roll working in conjunction with an endless crushing conveyor chain, each driven by a reversible drive means. Forward motion of the crushing conveyor forcibly conveys the ore into a gap space set between the crushing roll and the crushing conveyor and crushed ore is discharged into the slurry preparation vessel. In the case of an uncrushable object entering the crusher gap and being detected by high load on the crushing roll drive or the crushing conveyor drive, the endless crushing conveyor is motivated in a reverse direction to discard the uncrushable object to a rejects pile outside of the slurry preparation vessel.
Description
Self Clearing Crusher Flowsheet
2
3 Oil-sand mining and processing equipment technology is unique to the deposits
4 found in Northem Alberta, Canada, in terms of the evolution of process equipment suitable for mining and processing the oil-sand ore. In the oil-sand mine, equipment 6 used to excavate and transport the run-of-mine (ROM) oil-sand ore is as large in scale 7 as at any world-wide mining operations, typically using electric-hydraulic shovels of up to 8 62 cubic metre capacity buckets loading into haulage trucks of up to 400 tons capacity to 9 transport the ROM oil-sand ore to a centralized oil-sand slurry preparation facility.
Due to the massive scale of the mining equipment and the characteristics of the 11 oil-sand itself, the ore mined typically contains a very large range of lump sizes spanning 12 from 3,500 mm weighing up to 30 tonnes, down to clay particles of a less than one 13 millimeter diameter. The ROM oil-sand ore typically contains up to 15% free water, 6%
14 to 18% bitumen and 75% to 85% solids of which 95% is sand content by weight and also contains amounts of siltstone rock having an unconfined compressive strength of 165 to 16 221 MPa as a waste component.
17 The harsh environmental conditions at oil-sand operations encompass an 18 ambient temperature range from +35 degrees Celsius down to -51 degrees Celsius.
19 Materials handling properties of the ROM ore are highly variable over this temperature range. The oil-sand ore comprises frozen, highly abrasive lumps in winter but exhibits 21 sticky, cohesive behaviour in summer, largely due to the influence of the contained 22 moisture and bitumen components.
23 A slurry preparation process step is typically required to prepare all ROM
ore to 24 be suitable for long-distance transport as a water slurry to be pumped to a remote upgrading facility, at single-stream production rates which may exceed 10,000 tonnes 26 per hour of ROM oil-sand ore. Typical prerequisites for efficient slurry pumping are 27 crushing the oil-sand ore to minus 100 mm followed by the preparation of a 28 homogeneous water slurry, typically with a consistency of about 64% solids by weight at 29 a slurry specific gravity of 1.5.
All mining and slurry preparation equipment is required to function with 31 unhindered effectiveness and productivity under these extreme ambient conditions.
32 Current practice for oil-sand slurry preparation in the industry requires the use of 33 multiple series-wise equipment processing steps to accomplish controlled ore feeding, 34 screening and crushing prior to slurry pipelining. Designers and equipment vendors are Self Clearing Crusher Flowsheet 1 challenged to create a processing facility containing multipie items of equipment, 2 typically having intermediary gravity feed and conveying transfer stages.
The oil-sand 3 slurry preparation equipment, for example, is typically housed within large, structural 4 steel modules located within the active oil-sand mining area. These modules must be constructed suitably for re-location on a typical frequency of 1 to 3 years per operating 6 location.
7 Disadvantages of the prior art for oil-sand slurry preparation arise largely from 8 adapting conventional process equipment and conventional process flowsheet logic to 9 the Canadian oil-sand context, including the primary constraint of requiring a screening process step to ensure control of the maximum size of lumps, with the corollary 11 requirement of adding one or more oil-sand re-handling process steps and the creation 12 and accumulation of a "rejects" waste pile adjacent to the slurry preparation facility.
13 Maintenance effort is also high due to the large quantity of equipment used to implement 14 the required flowsheet. The prior art can therefore be characterized as "process flowsheet deficient" with respect to inherent limitations in meeting modern oil-sand 16 mining plant requirements in a practical and efficient manner.
17 A preferred embodiment of this invention comprises an improved oil-sand process 18 flowsheet logic utilizing unique, enabling, materials handling and processing equipment 19 innovations. These improvements include minimizing all crushing and screening steps and eliminating oil sand re-handling process steps, primariiy by introducing unique a 21 single-pass crushing process step. This process flowsheet improvement beneficially 22 impacts the design of the slurry preparation plant and also facilitates design for 23 portability or mobility of the slurry preparation plant facility.
24 The need for controlling oil-sand lump size lies in the requirements of the slurry transportation step, in which the minimum slurry pumping velocity is strongly dictated by 26 maximum lump size and density of contained lumps. For example, if foreign material 27 such as pieces of steel, often found in oil-sand mining ore delivered for slurry 28 preparation, is allowed by the process flowsheet to enter the sluny preparation tank 29 along with typical cnished oil-sand, the resulting mixture is difficult to pump successfully due to a density range of at least 3 to 1 between steel, rocks and oil-sand ore. Besides 31 the risks of plugging the slurry tank, pipeline valves, the pump itself or the pipeline, 32 damage to pumping and other downstream equipment may result. For this reason the 33 process flowsheet for an oil-sand slurry preparation plant must incorporate positive 34 rejection of pieces of steel and any other uncrushable material so as to protect the Self Clearing Crusher Flowsheet 1 integrity of the downstream processes. Prior art flowsheets thus incorporating these 2 protections suffer many compromises and complications in comparison to the improved 3 flowsheet described in this patent application.
With reference to the Figures:
6 Figure 1 is a conventional oii-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet 7 illustrating best practices of the prior art.
8 Figure 2 is an improved oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet 9 incorporating preferred embodiments of the invention.
Figure 3 is an improved, self clearing crusher featuring a single crushing roll 11 working in combination with a reversible endless chain of flat connected crushing plates, 12 this crusher having unique design features so as to positively reject uncrushable objects 13 and to positively eliminate the passage of oversize objects into the downstream process.
14 Figure 4 is an improved, self clearing crusher featuring a single jaw crushing assembly working in combination with a reversible chain of flat connected crushing 16 plates, this crusher being designed to positively reject uncrushable objects and to 17 eliminate the passage of oversize objects into the downstream process.
19 In prior-art Figure 1 oil-sand ore is delivered from a prior process step by conveyor 1 to ore-preparation gravity mix box 2, which may comprise any suitable 21 intemal configuration for mixing oil-sand ore 3 with recirculated slurry stream 4 and 22 make-up water stream 5 using intemai baffles or the like known in the art, the details of 23 which are not shown. Mixture stream 6 discharges to primary screen 7 through which 24 the undersize fraction 8 falls into primary pump box 9 and the oversize fraction 10 discharges to the secondary crusher 11, shown in this figure as a single crushing roll 12 26 operating in conjunction with a pressure-relievable concave surface 13.
Crusher 27 discharge stream 14 passes onto secondary screen 15 through which the undersize 28 fraction 16 falls into the secondary pump box 17 and the oversize fraction 18 passes to 29 rejects pile 19. From the secondary pump box 17, secondary slurry pump 20 pumps recircuiation stream 4 to mix box 2 from which mixture 6 passes through primary screen 31 7 to report to primary pump box 9 or be again rejected as oversize stream 10 returning 32 to secondary crusher 11, thus illustrating the possibility in the known art of continuously 33 recirculating uncrushable and over-size lumps.
Self Clearing Crusher Flowsheet I Oil-sand material stream 8 accepted at primary screen 7 enters primary pump 2 box 9 which is equipped with suitable slurry mixing means known in the art (not shown) 3 in preparation for pumping by hydro-transport pump 21 as stream 22 to a subsequent 4 process step (not shown).
In Figure 1 at least some of the undersize materials 14 passing onto secondary 6 screen 15 may be larger than desired due to the pressure-relievable action of concave 7 surface 13, which is an essential protection feature for crusher 11 against encountering 8 uncrushable objects. Crusher designers are limited, however, in the maximum 9 achievable relieving stroke distance of concave surface 13, allowing the possibility that some uncrushable objects may simply be too large to pass through either the normal or 11 the pressure-relieved crushing gap and may damage, stall or block crusher 11. In this 12 case the operation of the slurry preparation facility must be shut-down until crusher 11 13 can be repaired or the blockage removed. Other crusher designs such as the dual-roll 14 crusher are similarly provided with pressure-relieving design features, in which the concave surface 13 could be replaced by a movable crushing roll similar to and working 16 in conjunction with crusher roll 12.
17 A further prior art flowsheet compromise in Figure 1 is choosing primary screen 7 18 and secondary screen 15 to have smaller than optimum sized mesh openings so as to 19 maximize the probability of rejecting uncrushable, over-size objects to rejects pile 19.
The practical result of this compromise selection may be to reject significant amounts of 21 valuable oil-sand lump material to rejects pile 19 which could otherwise have been 22 suitably accepted at primary screen 7 or prepared to pumpable specifications by once 23 more passing through the recycle loop 4 and secondary crusher 11.
24 In the improved flowsheet of Figure 2 typical oii-sand ore 23 is delivered from a prior process step by conveyor 24 to ore-preparation gravity mix box 25, which may 26 comprise any suitable intemal configuration for mixing oil-sand ore 23 with make-up 27 water stream 26 using internal baffles or the like known in the art, the details of which 28 are not shown. Mixture stream 27 discharges to screen 28 through which the undersize 29 fraction 29 falls into pump box 30 and oversize fraction 31 discharges to the self-clearing crusher 32, shown in this figure as a single fixed crushing roll 33 operating in conjunction 31 with a horizontal, flat crushing surface 34 which is configured as an endless conveyor 32 chain having head pulley 35 and tail pulley 36. Crusher discharge stream 37 passes into 33 primary pump box 30 to be mixed with screen undersize fraction 29 and prepared for Self Clearing Crusher Flowsheet 1 pumping by hydro-transport pump 37 as stream 38 to a subsequent process step (not 2 shown).
3 Self-clearing crusher 32 is equipped with a reversible drive for endless conveyor 4 34 for the purpose of handling uncrushable objects. Unlike prior art crushers, neither crushing roll 33 nor flat crushing surface 34 has a pressure-relieving design feature such 6 as the design feature of crusher 11 in Figure 1. Rather, self-clearing crusher 32 is 7 controlled to reverse the direction of conveyor 34 when an uncrushable object is 8 encountered, causing the uncrushable object and some accompanying portion of normal 9 oil-sand ore to be discharged as rejects stream 39 to rejects pile 40.
Normal oversize fraction crushing operation can be resumed immediately after the crusher clears itself by 11 this means.
12 Figure 3 illustrates features of the self-clearing crusher 32 of Figure 2 in greater 13 detail including the single crushing roll 33, the reversible endless chain of flat connected 14 crushing plates 34 forming an endless conveyor with longitudinal extent defined by head pulley 41 and tail pulley 42 and arranged with gap 43 defining a crushing zone set 16 between crushing roll 33 and flat crushing plates 34. In operation the crushing plates 34 17 forming a conveyor can be motivated to draw lumpy material 44 into gap 43 producing 18 crushed ore stream 45 which falls into slurry preparation vessel 46. If an uncrushable 19 object is encountered, the motivation of the crushing plates 34 forming a conveyor can be reversed so as to convey the uncrushable object away from the crushing zone 21 defined by gap 43 to be discharged as stream 47 to rejects pile 48. By this means the 22 uncrushable object, which may be a piece of steel, is prevented from entering the slurry 23 preparation process step and the crushing operation need only be delayed for several 24 seconds to ailow the clearing action to take place.
Figure 4 illustrates an aitemate arrangement of the self-clearing crusher 32 of 26 Figure 2 in which a single jaw 49 is substituted for crusher roll 33, all other elements of 27 the crusher and its operation remaining the same between Figures 3 and 4.
28 The primary enabling technology of the improved process flowsheet of Figure 29 being the beneficial use of self-clearing crushing means as described herein.
Due to the massive scale of the mining equipment and the characteristics of the 11 oil-sand itself, the ore mined typically contains a very large range of lump sizes spanning 12 from 3,500 mm weighing up to 30 tonnes, down to clay particles of a less than one 13 millimeter diameter. The ROM oil-sand ore typically contains up to 15% free water, 6%
14 to 18% bitumen and 75% to 85% solids of which 95% is sand content by weight and also contains amounts of siltstone rock having an unconfined compressive strength of 165 to 16 221 MPa as a waste component.
17 The harsh environmental conditions at oil-sand operations encompass an 18 ambient temperature range from +35 degrees Celsius down to -51 degrees Celsius.
19 Materials handling properties of the ROM ore are highly variable over this temperature range. The oil-sand ore comprises frozen, highly abrasive lumps in winter but exhibits 21 sticky, cohesive behaviour in summer, largely due to the influence of the contained 22 moisture and bitumen components.
23 A slurry preparation process step is typically required to prepare all ROM
ore to 24 be suitable for long-distance transport as a water slurry to be pumped to a remote upgrading facility, at single-stream production rates which may exceed 10,000 tonnes 26 per hour of ROM oil-sand ore. Typical prerequisites for efficient slurry pumping are 27 crushing the oil-sand ore to minus 100 mm followed by the preparation of a 28 homogeneous water slurry, typically with a consistency of about 64% solids by weight at 29 a slurry specific gravity of 1.5.
All mining and slurry preparation equipment is required to function with 31 unhindered effectiveness and productivity under these extreme ambient conditions.
32 Current practice for oil-sand slurry preparation in the industry requires the use of 33 multiple series-wise equipment processing steps to accomplish controlled ore feeding, 34 screening and crushing prior to slurry pipelining. Designers and equipment vendors are Self Clearing Crusher Flowsheet 1 challenged to create a processing facility containing multipie items of equipment, 2 typically having intermediary gravity feed and conveying transfer stages.
The oil-sand 3 slurry preparation equipment, for example, is typically housed within large, structural 4 steel modules located within the active oil-sand mining area. These modules must be constructed suitably for re-location on a typical frequency of 1 to 3 years per operating 6 location.
7 Disadvantages of the prior art for oil-sand slurry preparation arise largely from 8 adapting conventional process equipment and conventional process flowsheet logic to 9 the Canadian oil-sand context, including the primary constraint of requiring a screening process step to ensure control of the maximum size of lumps, with the corollary 11 requirement of adding one or more oil-sand re-handling process steps and the creation 12 and accumulation of a "rejects" waste pile adjacent to the slurry preparation facility.
13 Maintenance effort is also high due to the large quantity of equipment used to implement 14 the required flowsheet. The prior art can therefore be characterized as "process flowsheet deficient" with respect to inherent limitations in meeting modern oil-sand 16 mining plant requirements in a practical and efficient manner.
17 A preferred embodiment of this invention comprises an improved oil-sand process 18 flowsheet logic utilizing unique, enabling, materials handling and processing equipment 19 innovations. These improvements include minimizing all crushing and screening steps and eliminating oil sand re-handling process steps, primariiy by introducing unique a 21 single-pass crushing process step. This process flowsheet improvement beneficially 22 impacts the design of the slurry preparation plant and also facilitates design for 23 portability or mobility of the slurry preparation plant facility.
24 The need for controlling oil-sand lump size lies in the requirements of the slurry transportation step, in which the minimum slurry pumping velocity is strongly dictated by 26 maximum lump size and density of contained lumps. For example, if foreign material 27 such as pieces of steel, often found in oil-sand mining ore delivered for slurry 28 preparation, is allowed by the process flowsheet to enter the sluny preparation tank 29 along with typical cnished oil-sand, the resulting mixture is difficult to pump successfully due to a density range of at least 3 to 1 between steel, rocks and oil-sand ore. Besides 31 the risks of plugging the slurry tank, pipeline valves, the pump itself or the pipeline, 32 damage to pumping and other downstream equipment may result. For this reason the 33 process flowsheet for an oil-sand slurry preparation plant must incorporate positive 34 rejection of pieces of steel and any other uncrushable material so as to protect the Self Clearing Crusher Flowsheet 1 integrity of the downstream processes. Prior art flowsheets thus incorporating these 2 protections suffer many compromises and complications in comparison to the improved 3 flowsheet described in this patent application.
With reference to the Figures:
6 Figure 1 is a conventional oii-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet 7 illustrating best practices of the prior art.
8 Figure 2 is an improved oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet 9 incorporating preferred embodiments of the invention.
Figure 3 is an improved, self clearing crusher featuring a single crushing roll 11 working in combination with a reversible endless chain of flat connected crushing plates, 12 this crusher having unique design features so as to positively reject uncrushable objects 13 and to positively eliminate the passage of oversize objects into the downstream process.
14 Figure 4 is an improved, self clearing crusher featuring a single jaw crushing assembly working in combination with a reversible chain of flat connected crushing 16 plates, this crusher being designed to positively reject uncrushable objects and to 17 eliminate the passage of oversize objects into the downstream process.
19 In prior-art Figure 1 oil-sand ore is delivered from a prior process step by conveyor 1 to ore-preparation gravity mix box 2, which may comprise any suitable 21 intemal configuration for mixing oil-sand ore 3 with recirculated slurry stream 4 and 22 make-up water stream 5 using intemai baffles or the like known in the art, the details of 23 which are not shown. Mixture stream 6 discharges to primary screen 7 through which 24 the undersize fraction 8 falls into primary pump box 9 and the oversize fraction 10 discharges to the secondary crusher 11, shown in this figure as a single crushing roll 12 26 operating in conjunction with a pressure-relievable concave surface 13.
Crusher 27 discharge stream 14 passes onto secondary screen 15 through which the undersize 28 fraction 16 falls into the secondary pump box 17 and the oversize fraction 18 passes to 29 rejects pile 19. From the secondary pump box 17, secondary slurry pump 20 pumps recircuiation stream 4 to mix box 2 from which mixture 6 passes through primary screen 31 7 to report to primary pump box 9 or be again rejected as oversize stream 10 returning 32 to secondary crusher 11, thus illustrating the possibility in the known art of continuously 33 recirculating uncrushable and over-size lumps.
Self Clearing Crusher Flowsheet I Oil-sand material stream 8 accepted at primary screen 7 enters primary pump 2 box 9 which is equipped with suitable slurry mixing means known in the art (not shown) 3 in preparation for pumping by hydro-transport pump 21 as stream 22 to a subsequent 4 process step (not shown).
In Figure 1 at least some of the undersize materials 14 passing onto secondary 6 screen 15 may be larger than desired due to the pressure-relievable action of concave 7 surface 13, which is an essential protection feature for crusher 11 against encountering 8 uncrushable objects. Crusher designers are limited, however, in the maximum 9 achievable relieving stroke distance of concave surface 13, allowing the possibility that some uncrushable objects may simply be too large to pass through either the normal or 11 the pressure-relieved crushing gap and may damage, stall or block crusher 11. In this 12 case the operation of the slurry preparation facility must be shut-down until crusher 11 13 can be repaired or the blockage removed. Other crusher designs such as the dual-roll 14 crusher are similarly provided with pressure-relieving design features, in which the concave surface 13 could be replaced by a movable crushing roll similar to and working 16 in conjunction with crusher roll 12.
17 A further prior art flowsheet compromise in Figure 1 is choosing primary screen 7 18 and secondary screen 15 to have smaller than optimum sized mesh openings so as to 19 maximize the probability of rejecting uncrushable, over-size objects to rejects pile 19.
The practical result of this compromise selection may be to reject significant amounts of 21 valuable oil-sand lump material to rejects pile 19 which could otherwise have been 22 suitably accepted at primary screen 7 or prepared to pumpable specifications by once 23 more passing through the recycle loop 4 and secondary crusher 11.
24 In the improved flowsheet of Figure 2 typical oii-sand ore 23 is delivered from a prior process step by conveyor 24 to ore-preparation gravity mix box 25, which may 26 comprise any suitable intemal configuration for mixing oil-sand ore 23 with make-up 27 water stream 26 using internal baffles or the like known in the art, the details of which 28 are not shown. Mixture stream 27 discharges to screen 28 through which the undersize 29 fraction 29 falls into pump box 30 and oversize fraction 31 discharges to the self-clearing crusher 32, shown in this figure as a single fixed crushing roll 33 operating in conjunction 31 with a horizontal, flat crushing surface 34 which is configured as an endless conveyor 32 chain having head pulley 35 and tail pulley 36. Crusher discharge stream 37 passes into 33 primary pump box 30 to be mixed with screen undersize fraction 29 and prepared for Self Clearing Crusher Flowsheet 1 pumping by hydro-transport pump 37 as stream 38 to a subsequent process step (not 2 shown).
3 Self-clearing crusher 32 is equipped with a reversible drive for endless conveyor 4 34 for the purpose of handling uncrushable objects. Unlike prior art crushers, neither crushing roll 33 nor flat crushing surface 34 has a pressure-relieving design feature such 6 as the design feature of crusher 11 in Figure 1. Rather, self-clearing crusher 32 is 7 controlled to reverse the direction of conveyor 34 when an uncrushable object is 8 encountered, causing the uncrushable object and some accompanying portion of normal 9 oil-sand ore to be discharged as rejects stream 39 to rejects pile 40.
Normal oversize fraction crushing operation can be resumed immediately after the crusher clears itself by 11 this means.
12 Figure 3 illustrates features of the self-clearing crusher 32 of Figure 2 in greater 13 detail including the single crushing roll 33, the reversible endless chain of flat connected 14 crushing plates 34 forming an endless conveyor with longitudinal extent defined by head pulley 41 and tail pulley 42 and arranged with gap 43 defining a crushing zone set 16 between crushing roll 33 and flat crushing plates 34. In operation the crushing plates 34 17 forming a conveyor can be motivated to draw lumpy material 44 into gap 43 producing 18 crushed ore stream 45 which falls into slurry preparation vessel 46. If an uncrushable 19 object is encountered, the motivation of the crushing plates 34 forming a conveyor can be reversed so as to convey the uncrushable object away from the crushing zone 21 defined by gap 43 to be discharged as stream 47 to rejects pile 48. By this means the 22 uncrushable object, which may be a piece of steel, is prevented from entering the slurry 23 preparation process step and the crushing operation need only be delayed for several 24 seconds to ailow the clearing action to take place.
Figure 4 illustrates an aitemate arrangement of the self-clearing crusher 32 of 26 Figure 2 in which a single jaw 49 is substituted for crusher roll 33, all other elements of 27 the crusher and its operation remaining the same between Figures 3 and 4.
28 The primary enabling technology of the improved process flowsheet of Figure 29 being the beneficial use of self-clearing crushing means as described herein.
5/9 Self Clearing Crusher Flowsheet 1 The prior art oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet of Figure 1 is 2 clearly more complex containing additional process steps and processing equipment 3 than the improved oil-sand slurry preparation plant process flowsheet of Figure 2 using 4 the self-clearing crusher designs of Figures 3 or 4. In particular the secondary screen 7, the secondary pump box 17 and the oil-sand re-circulation pump 20 of the prior art
6 flowsheet of Figure 1 are not required in the improved flowsheet of Figure 2..
7 In this patent disclosure the oil-sand slurry preparation circuits beginning at tank
8 30 of Figure 2 could also represent any "subsequent process step" of any ore
9 preparation plant whether or not it involves the preparation of a slurry. An alternate subsequent process step, for example, may be a milling and grinding process step in 11 which lump size received from the ore preparation plant will undergo further size 12 reduction.
13 It will be clear to one practiced in the art that the elimination of a screening step, 14 secondary slurry preparation tank and re-circulation pump equipment in the improved process flowsheet makes the design and construction of plant equipment modules to be 16 more suitable for portability or mobility, enabling more efficient relocation of the oil-sand 17 slurry preparation plant within the mining areas.
18 It will be readily appreciated by one practiced in the art that although the 19 flowsheet illustrates water being introduced prior to screening, water could be introduced later in the process after the screening step. Also, the quoting of specific capacity or 21 dimensional data for equipment or process steps of the oil-sands operations is not 22 intended to limit the use of other capacities and dimensions when such use falls within 23 the spirit of the invention.
13 It will be clear to one practiced in the art that the elimination of a screening step, 14 secondary slurry preparation tank and re-circulation pump equipment in the improved process flowsheet makes the design and construction of plant equipment modules to be 16 more suitable for portability or mobility, enabling more efficient relocation of the oil-sand 17 slurry preparation plant within the mining areas.
18 It will be readily appreciated by one practiced in the art that although the 19 flowsheet illustrates water being introduced prior to screening, water could be introduced later in the process after the screening step. Also, the quoting of specific capacity or 21 dimensional data for equipment or process steps of the oil-sands operations is not 22 intended to limit the use of other capacities and dimensions when such use falls within 23 the spirit of the invention.
Claims (8)
1. In a slurry preparation process for converting, uncrushed oil-sand ore into a uniform mixture of water with crushed oil-sand ore so as to be suitable for subsequent slurry transportation, a step-wise series of process steps comprising:
receiving said uncrushed oil-sand ore from an ore transportation means and water from a pipe means into an initial mixing hopper means to create an oil-sand and water mixture and feeding said oil-sand and water mixture onto a screen deck surface means so as to separate the oversize oil-sand fraction for further processing while allowing the undersize oil-sand fraction to enter a slurry preparation tank means and feeding said oversize oil-sand fraction into the receiving hopper of a crusher means comprising a crushing conveyor means working in conjunction with a crushing roll means to forcibly convey said oversize oil-sand fraction into a gap space set between said crushing roll means and said crushing conveyor means, thereby to create crushed oil-sand and to convey and discharge said crushed oil-sand into said slurry preparation tank means and said crushing conveyor means being arranged with selectable reversible drive means to reverse its conveying direction in the case of the drive means of said crushing roll means or said crushing conveyor means becoming overloaded for any reason, said reversing of said crushing conveyor means being maintained for a preset time duration, said reversing being cancelled after said preset time duration has elapsed and said crushing conveyor means being arranged to convey and discharge said uncrushed oil-sand ore to a location outside of said slurry preparation tank means when operating in said reversing direction.
receiving said uncrushed oil-sand ore from an ore transportation means and water from a pipe means into an initial mixing hopper means to create an oil-sand and water mixture and feeding said oil-sand and water mixture onto a screen deck surface means so as to separate the oversize oil-sand fraction for further processing while allowing the undersize oil-sand fraction to enter a slurry preparation tank means and feeding said oversize oil-sand fraction into the receiving hopper of a crusher means comprising a crushing conveyor means working in conjunction with a crushing roll means to forcibly convey said oversize oil-sand fraction into a gap space set between said crushing roll means and said crushing conveyor means, thereby to create crushed oil-sand and to convey and discharge said crushed oil-sand into said slurry preparation tank means and said crushing conveyor means being arranged with selectable reversible drive means to reverse its conveying direction in the case of the drive means of said crushing roll means or said crushing conveyor means becoming overloaded for any reason, said reversing of said crushing conveyor means being maintained for a preset time duration, said reversing being cancelled after said preset time duration has elapsed and said crushing conveyor means being arranged to convey and discharge said uncrushed oil-sand ore to a location outside of said slurry preparation tank means when operating in said reversing direction.
2. In a slurry preparation plant for converting, uncrushed oil-sand ore into a uniform mixture of water with crushed oil-sand ore which will be suitable for subsequent slurry transportation, a step-wise series of process equipment comprising:
receiving said uncrushed oil-sand ore from an ore transportation means and water from a pipe means into an initial mixing hopper means to create an oil-sand and water mixture and feeding said oil-sand and water mixture onto a screen deck surface means so as to separate the oversize oil-sand fraction for further processing while allowing the undersize oil-sand fraction to enter a slurry preparation tank means and feeding said oversize oil-sand fraction into the receiving hopper of a crusher means comprising a crushing conveyor means working in conjunction with a crushing roll means to forcibly convey said oversize oil-sand fraction into a gap space set between said crushing roll means and said crushing conveyor means, thereby to create crushed oil-sand and to convey and discharge said crushed oil-sand into said slurry preparation tank means and said crushing conveyor means being arranged with selectable reversible drive means to reverse its conveying direction in the case of the drive means of said crushing roll means or said crushing conveyor means becoming overloaded for any reason, said reversing of said crushing conveyor means being maintained for a preset time duration, said reversing being cancelled after said preset time duration has elapsed and said crushing conveyor means being arranged to convey and discharge said uncrushed oil-sand ore to a location outside of said slurry preparation tank means when operating in said reversing direction.
receiving said uncrushed oil-sand ore from an ore transportation means and water from a pipe means into an initial mixing hopper means to create an oil-sand and water mixture and feeding said oil-sand and water mixture onto a screen deck surface means so as to separate the oversize oil-sand fraction for further processing while allowing the undersize oil-sand fraction to enter a slurry preparation tank means and feeding said oversize oil-sand fraction into the receiving hopper of a crusher means comprising a crushing conveyor means working in conjunction with a crushing roll means to forcibly convey said oversize oil-sand fraction into a gap space set between said crushing roll means and said crushing conveyor means, thereby to create crushed oil-sand and to convey and discharge said crushed oil-sand into said slurry preparation tank means and said crushing conveyor means being arranged with selectable reversible drive means to reverse its conveying direction in the case of the drive means of said crushing roll means or said crushing conveyor means becoming overloaded for any reason, said reversing of said crushing conveyor means being maintained for a preset time duration, said reversing being cancelled after said preset time duration has elapsed and said crushing conveyor means being arranged to convey and discharge said uncrushed oil-sand ore to a location outside of said slurry preparation tank means when operating in said reversing direction.
3. A slurry preparation plant as in Claim 2 in which said drive means of said crushing roll can be selectably reversed in the direction of its rotation.
4. A slurry preparation plant as in Claim 2 in which said drive means for said crushing roll means or said crushing conveyor means are electric motors and said overloading of said drive means is detected by measuring amperage draw of said electric motors.
5. A slurry preparation plant as in Claim 2 in which said drive means for said crushing roll means or said crushing conveyor means are hydraulic motors and said overloading of said drive means is detected by measuring operating pressure of said hydraulic motors.
6. A slurry preparation plant as in Claim 4 in which said reversal of said drive means of said crushing conveyor means is pre-programmed to occur whenever said amperage draw exceeds a preset value.
7. A slurry preparation plant as in Claim 5 in which said reversal of said drive means of said crushing conveyor means is pre-programmed to occur whenever said operating pressure exceeds a preset value.
8. A slurry preparation plant as in Claim 2 in which said reversible crushing conveyor means is a steel pan conveyor means arranged to forcibly convey said oversize oil-sand fraction into said gap space set between said crushing roll means and said crushing conveyor means.
Priority Applications (1)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA002499840A CA2499840C (en) | 2005-03-16 | 2005-03-16 | Self clearing crusher flowsheet |
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| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA002499840A CA2499840C (en) | 2005-03-16 | 2005-03-16 | Self clearing crusher flowsheet |
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| CA2499840A1 CA2499840A1 (en) | 2006-09-16 |
| CA2499840C true CA2499840C (en) | 2009-07-14 |
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| CA002499840A Active CA2499840C (en) | 2005-03-16 | 2005-03-16 | Self clearing crusher flowsheet |
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| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US8025341B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2011-09-27 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Mobile oil sands mining system |
| US8136672B2 (en) | 2004-07-30 | 2012-03-20 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Sizing roller screen ore processing apparatus |
| US8328126B2 (en) | 2008-09-18 | 2012-12-11 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Method and apparatus for processing an ore feed |
| US8393561B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2013-03-12 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Method and apparatus for creating a slurry |
| US8646615B2 (en) | 2009-07-24 | 2014-02-11 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Screening disk, roller, and roller screen for screening an ore feed |
| US9016799B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2015-04-28 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Mobile oil sands mining system |
| CN110841763A (en) * | 2019-11-18 | 2020-02-28 | 枣庄鑫金山智能机械股份有限公司 | Hierarchical breaker |
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| CN108212314B (en) * | 2018-01-15 | 2023-10-27 | 吉林大学 | Western medicine reducing mechanism is used in medical treatment |
| CN109569787A (en) * | 2018-11-23 | 2019-04-05 | 湖北沛丰生物科技股份有限公司 | A kind of Rice producing equipment |
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Cited By (9)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US8136672B2 (en) | 2004-07-30 | 2012-03-20 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Sizing roller screen ore processing apparatus |
| US8851293B2 (en) | 2004-07-30 | 2014-10-07 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Sizing roller screen ore processing apparatus |
| US8025341B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2011-09-27 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Mobile oil sands mining system |
| US8393561B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2013-03-12 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Method and apparatus for creating a slurry |
| US9016799B2 (en) | 2005-11-09 | 2015-04-28 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Mobile oil sands mining system |
| US8328126B2 (en) | 2008-09-18 | 2012-12-11 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Method and apparatus for processing an ore feed |
| US8622326B2 (en) | 2008-09-18 | 2014-01-07 | Suncor Energy, Inc. | Method and apparatus for processing an ore feed |
| US8646615B2 (en) | 2009-07-24 | 2014-02-11 | Suncor Energy Inc. | Screening disk, roller, and roller screen for screening an ore feed |
| CN110841763A (en) * | 2019-11-18 | 2020-02-28 | 枣庄鑫金山智能机械股份有限公司 | Hierarchical breaker |
Also Published As
| Publication number | Publication date |
|---|---|
| CA2499840A1 (en) | 2006-09-16 |
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