The performance and dependability of a new Cat® dipper, which has a completely new, patent-pending design, without increasing the demands on the Cat 7495 HF Electric Rope Shovel’s hoist and crowd capabilities. are improved in severe digging applications in the Canadian Oil Sands.
Shimming and insert improvements by themselves are anticipated to boost uptime by up to 0.25%, which could result in large increases in production. The revised design reduces heel wear dramatically by optimizing the lip cutting angle. The ground engagement tools are tilted upward, resulting in less bending force and uniform tooth wear from top to bottom, improving stiffness and digging performance.
The new design, which is about 7% lighter than the 45.9 m3 latching dipper now in use, provides more cutting force that is readily available for more consistent fill factors and higher production in challenging digging situations. Engineers lowered the weight of the dipper using finite element analysis and virtual validation ᴍᴇᴛʜods, which resulted in less stress on the machine as well as longer life and enhanced dependability for vital parts of the shovel’s front end.
The dipper has a brand-new vertical latch system that improves system performance while requiring less frequent part maintenance, thus cutting operating expenses. The latch’s tapered-end shape raises the insert surfaces apart instead of allowing them to slide.
The design increases wear life while cutting down on service time, and increasing uptime. The latch guide plate has a quick-change design, which further cuts down on expenses and maintenance time.
The new single wet-disk snubber’s optimized connection decreases the rotational kinetic energy of the door by more than 40% on shutting and by 75% while opening, extending the door’s service life. In order to analyze performance data and create stress plots and pile plots for the models, Caterpillar experts examined more than 300 dipper combinations and shapes in over 900 simulations.
The correctness of the virtual machine, operator, and pile was verified using real machine data by Caterpillar subject matter specialists. The simulations demonstrated that customers may obtain greater penetration and fills per pass with the improved dipper geometry.
Let’s see a new cat dipper for Cat 7495 HF electric rope shovels improves uptime and digging performance in the amazing video below.
Video resource: Caterpillar Mining