Technical Information

Falconbridge Limited, Kidd Operations (now owned by Xstrata Copper), Ontario (Canada),  have decided on an access to further ore reserves by a sub-vertical shaft which is designated Shaft No 4. Ore is transferred by a conveyor system to an older surface shaft.

Shaft No 4 is developed in two phases:

• At stage 1, a hoisting depth of 1,429 m is reached;
• At stage 2, the depth is 1,818 m.

The shaft is equipped with a double-skip hoisting system for production and a cage/counterweight system for material transport and men-riding. Further, a single drum hoist is provided for auxiliary cage hoisting.

SIEMAG TECBERG delivered the two identical 5.5 m diameter double-drum winders for the production and service hoist duty. The nominal hoisting capacity of 2.4 million tons/year is realised by using two skips of nearly 17 t payload operating at a speed of 16 m/s. At stage 2, the skip capacity is reduced to 12 t payload. The main cage with a footprint of some 5.3 x 2.2 m has got 2 decks for transporting up to 142 men at once. The payload of the cage is 15 t at stage 1 and 12 t at stage 2, respectively, and it is operated at a speed of 10 m/s. The auxiliary cage is designed to transport 31 men or a max. payload of 3.25 t at 5 m/s, down to a depth of 1,863 m.

As the service hoist was designated for shaft sinking, its installation and commissioning were on the critical path of the project.

The project was executed by SIEMAG TECBERG Inc., Milwaukee (USA), in close cooperation with the client and supported, in a proven manner, by an experienced project team of SIEMAG TECBERG in Germany. The two double-drum winders were built in Germany. From a technical point of view these winders are in line with a number of double-drum and Blair winders built over decades in Australia, South Africa, and Europe with the SIEMAG TECBERG expertise.
The winders received disc brakes with a 4-channel fully closed-loop emergency brake system developed by SIEMAG TECBERG. Since 1988, this brake system successfully operates at the 6.1 m diameter double-drum hoist at Neves Corvo Mine (Portugal) and the 5.1 m diameter Blair hoist at Ibbenbüren Mine (Germany). SIEMAG TECBERG‘s fully closed-loop controlled braking systems are in operation in more than 50 mine winders worldwide.

These Kidd Creek winders are another convincing proof of the high performance and reliability demonstrated by SIEMAG TECBERG in this project.