Electrical contractors Gordyn & Palmer recently completed one of its largest projects: the design and installation of a quarry plant in Point Wilson, Melbourne. Kate Jordan reports on a job well done.  

Gordyn & Palmer has been in the industrial automation and electrical space for 35 years. In that time, the company has installed quarry and feed mill plants in every state of Australia, as well as overseas in locations such as Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, China and the United States. Even with this experience behind them, the design and installation of a fully automated, 600 tonnes per hour (tph) crushing and processing plant over a 20 month time frame was still a large and involved job.

The plant is located at Mountain View Quarries’ Point Wilson site and produces aggregate in a range of sizes from 40mm down to dust.

The site already featured a 30-year-old plant that was nearing the end of its life. The new plant was built adjacent to the old site and required its own HV lines and switchboards to keep the old plant operational as long as possible. From the old plant, only three crushers were bought across to the new site, with the rest of the development being built from scratch.

The client was Barro Group, which Gordyn & Palmer had worked with recently on a smaller project and with which it had a good working relationship. Gordyn & Palmer received the contract for all four sections of the plant, which included: electrical engineering and supply of switchboards; HV design and installation; electrical installation and commissioning; and supply, programming and commissioning of the control system.

From this job, three aspects stand out as worthy of attention:

Crusher Management System

The new plant required a new control system that could incorporate the three Terex Jaques cone crushers from the old plant and offer the operator flexibility and ease of use.

“Gordyn & Palmer created an algorithm to estimate the wear ratio on the crusher mantle and automatically adjust the close side setting to compensate for this wear over time, resulting in superior accuracy while crushing,” the company explains in a NECA Excellence Award submission – an award it was ultimately successful in winning.

To give the operator full control over and diagnostics from all three crushers, Gordyn & Palmer also designed a customised SCADA screen. The operator can easily see key parameters such as close side setting, mantle position, pressure and power consumption, and make process changes, if required. All auxiliary motors, alarms and performance data are also displayed on the same page to ensure the operator can make informed decisions and react quickly to any problems that arise. The operator can also calibrate each crusher via the SCADA screen.

Allen Bradley Smart Overloads

The new control system uses the new Allen Bradley electronic overload relay, which allows motors to be accessed and configured remotely via both the plant network and a web interface. Previously the system had to be manually tested and configured. The units offered a new level of diagnostics; rather than monitoring just the large crusher motors, every motor across the site (approximately 132 motors ranging in size from 1kW up to 300kW) is connected via the plant network.

“Traditionally you would monitor parameters of the larger motors only. But these units allow you to do that on even the very smallest motor on the site, monitoring things like motor currents and earth fault levels,” Gordyn & Palmer managing director Terry Hickey says.

The increased monitoring offers significant improvements in efficiencies.

“When you have a plant with this much automation included, it allows you to identify where the under-performing parts are and then you can modify those. For example, this plant might be rated at 600tph. If one conveyor was maximising on the amount of current it can have because it’s overloaded, we can increase the size of the conveyor or speed it up and easily achieve more tonnes per hour. The only way you can do that is by measuring how each of the parts of the plant is performing using smart technology.”

Intelligent Wiring

Gordyn & Palmer designed and installed wiring that is both functional and tidy. The main switchroom contains a DBX, two main switchboards, three motor control centres, six crusher starter panels and two 500kVAr power factor correction units. A second smaller switchroom includes a DBX, main switchboard and motor control centre.

The main switchroom and control room were planned in conjunction with the architects to have a cableway underneath with enough room to stand and work with ease. This additional room reduces installation time, improves tidiness and provides plenty of opportunity for future expansion.

For plant isolation there are four zones – primary crushing, secondary/tertiary crushing, wash plant and blending – that are identified by colour-coding. Every switchroom has an equipment list and flow chart illustrating the zones by their colours. Each zone has a single isolation point, increasing safety, eliminating the need for field isolators and resulting in a simple, user friendly operation. When a zone is isolated, the other non-affected zones of the plant can continue to run.

The Gordyn & Palmer Team

Nearly all of the work for the plant design and installation at Mountain View Quarries was completed in-house by Gordyn & Palmer. The only specialist personnel brought in were CCTV programming specialists. At the height of the project, Gordyn & Palmer had 12 staff on site, six in the workshop and another three software engineers in the office. With its own sheet metal shop, the company designed and built all its own switchboards.

“We did the whole lot from go to woah, including training the operators. We can do everything from the HV work all the way through to the software at the end. With everything in-house, there’s only one port of call,” Terry says.

When asked what the challenges were during the project, Terry finds it difficult to answer. Not because there weren’t challenges, but because the challenges had been identified, met and resolved so well by his team that they no longer seem like challenges. The weather was windy, but that’s just Geelong. There were truck movements to take into consideration, but those were accounted for. The new software had some hiccups (as new software does), but that was planned around and resolved smoothly.

“I think the main challenge was the tight timeframe. We took some of their existing crushers and put them into the new plant, so it was a very tight time frame in the changeover from the old plant to the new plant and get into full production as soon as possible,” Terry says.

Gordyn & Palmer’s execution of this job was recognised in this year’s NECA Excellence Awards, as it received the award for Medium Industrial Project in the Victoria region. Terry’s pretty modest about this award and credits it to the work of his team.

“It’s great for the staff; it’s recognition of the hard work they’ve put in. I believe these awards really represent the passion that people have for what they do. You only have to walk around this site and see there’s care been taken in putting everything together. They’ve got some pride about how they built the plant.”