Halbach & Braun: Conveyor and Crusher Systems for the Future of Construction
Halbach & Braun places great value on tradition. At bauma 2016, the family-run company is presenting clever solutions for underground and open-cast mining. Semi-mobile crushing plants can be used to crush materials directly on site, saving many transportation routes and thus protecting both the wallet and the environment. Sounds promising.
Semi-mobile crushing plants for underground and opencast mining
Dietrich Braun: Our family company, Halbach & Braun, was founded back in 1920 by my grandfather and his friend Halbach. Halbach and my grandfather Braun were the namesakes of our company. I myself now represent the third generation of our family, and my daughter Diana, who now also works in the company, is now the fourth generation and, together with my cousin and his nephews, we have other family members who continue to drive the company forward.
Felix Rother: You come from underground mining, but these machines also work above ground? Dietrich Braun: That's right, our roots lie in underground coal mining, where we have gained experience in building compact and efficient machines and we are now transferring this know-how and experience to the surface, for example in quarries or open coal extraction plants, where we can also use the advantages of our machines that we have gained underground above ground. The chain scraper conveyor is the actual core competence of our company. We have already combined them underground with such crushing plants as so-called continuous crushing plants, which are characterized by the fact that the material is conveyed on a horizontal level and can then also break the feed. And the advantage is that you have a crusher that does not have to be fed from above. So you don't have to transport the mineral upwards first in order to crush it, but the mineral is transported and crushed on a working level and then discharged again. Felix Rother: So these inclined ramps are completely eliminated? Dietrich Braun: That's right, that's the big advantage for the operator, especially in opencast mines where alternative crushed products usually have to be fed from above, a ramp has to be built on site where it is also a big effort if the mining progress requires ever greater distances. Felix Rother: Does the ramp always have to be moved? Dietrich Braun: The ramp would have to be moved, which would mean an insane amount of work. I don't need a ramp here. I put this machine down or reposition it each time and I'm ready to go straight away.
Semi-mobile crushing plant built on crawler tracks can follow mining progress
Felix Rother: What does the whole thing cost now - as it stands here? Dietrich Braun: As the design at the trade fair stands, the costs are around 420,000 euros, which of course depends very much on the customer's individual wishes, whether the conveyor is longer or shorter, whether the crushing drum has a larger diameter, is wider, that depends on the minerals fed in and also on the size and quality of the crushed material that comes out at the end. So we have options for variation. Felix Rother: Does that mean you really respond to each individual request and focus on what is being built? Dietrich Braun: Yes, that's right. We have a modular construction method. We have standard units that we can combine in different ways, so we can offer different widths, different lengths, different installed capacities and we also say that if the customer has an individual request, then we don't refer them to some catalog and that doesn't exist, but we listen to their needs and if they can convince us that the end result is advantageous, then we will also build them this variant.
Felix Rother: Environmental protection is always an issue. Now it is probably relatively difficult to protect the environment in mining. Can this machine still do that? Dietrich Braun: Yes, you can definitely make a contribution. This crushing plant is semi-mobile. It is built on crawler tracks, which means it can follow the mining progress and do its work where it is needed. In other words, it crushes large lumps of mineral. In contrast, if you don't have this, you have fleets of trucks that always have to transport the rocks from the extraction site to a central crushing unit, which costs a lot of fuel that is burned in the process and of course pollutes the environment. Here, this alternative does the work on site and then the crushed mineral is transported to the control center via an electrically driven clean rubber belt conveyor for further treatment. Felix Rother: That means I hardly have any transport costs, hardly any transportation costs because it is simply processed directly on site? Dietrich Braun: Exactly, that is the core of this idea. In the industry, this is also referred to as in-pit crushing, so the idea is no longer entirely new, but not many people have yet dared to implement it. People still have this centralized idea and we are trying to soften it with these semi-mobile facilities. Felix Rother: Can we take a look at the whole thing now, see it in motion, even though we are here at the trade fair? Dietrich Braun: Yes, of course we can, but unfortunately only in manual mode because we don't have such a powerful electrical connection for 160 KW on the stand. Felix Rother: Then I wish you every success and good luck at the trade fair! Dietrich Braun: Thank you for your interest and please spread the good news.
