Vale’s iron ore pelletising plant in the port of Sohar, Oman, produces up to10 Mt/y of iron-ore pellets. It is now supplying the steel industry in the Middle East with iron-ore pellets. The plant uses a lot of Aumund conveying technology – four deep-drawn pan conveyors, drag chain conveyors and bucket-elevators.They were designed and assembled by Aumund’s Metallurgy Division for the specific requirements in Sohar and have now been successfully commissioned.The order encompassed two packages. The first package comprised four identical deep-drawn pan conveyors(KZB 2000/350/6) and four identical drag chain conveyors (TKF 800/2). The deep-drawn pan conveyors with an axis distance of 64 m receive around 760 t/h of the hot pellet material from vibratory troughs at up to 300°C. The conveyors are designed for a capacity of up to 1,125 t/h. At a conveyor speed of 0.24 m/s the pellets are conveyed to a grizzly feeder for further processing. Below the deep-drawn pan conveyors the drag chains run concurrently (axis distance 47 m). They accept potential free-flowing material and thus permit almost maintenance-free operation.
The second package comprises two belt bucket-elevators or chain bucket-elevators each (BWG 630/360orBWZ-L 400/250). The belt-bucket elevators have an axis distance of 23.5 m and a conveying capacity of up to 800 t/h. They are employed for iron ore transport. Both the chain bucket-elevators are employed for the transport of pellets with a grain size of up to16 mm and a temperature up to 400°C. They have a conveying capacity of between 10 and 50 t/h.
An important point in favour of the contract award was Aumund’s many years’ experiencein conveying hot and abrasive materials. Similar recent projects were successfully commissioned in Bahrain (GIIC) and in Iran (Ardakan Pelletizing).
Aumund hot-material transport solutions are employed particularly where special emphasis is put on continuously high quality of the conveyed material.The conveyors from Rheinberg can convey solid material at a temperature of up to 1,100°C. For cooling of hot material the company supplies cooling belts with air or evaporative cooling or a combination of the two.
