Wirtgen Group Mineral Technology Days Event

The new generation of jaw crushers to be developed. Overall focus would be towards promoting mobile track mounted crushing solutions
P. P. Basistha

Wirtgen's recent customers' and dealers' meet from across the world held at its picturesque plant in Windhagen, Germany, 12-13 September 2012, saw major congregation with an entourage of Indian customers primarily from the mining sector. The event saw live technical presentations through its Wirtgen brand of surface miners and Kleeman range of crushers.

Windhagen, is the Wirtgen group's headquarters and the Wirtgen brand main plant in Germany which manufactures a whole range of Surface miners, Milling machines, Recyclers and Concrete Pavers.

The mineral technology days event was a mega Event by the German family owned company which included technical presentations and live demonstration of the equipment highlighting the utilities of the various operational features to further promote the machineries among over 1400 invited, existing and potential customers from the Mining sector. Highlighting the purpose of the event, Mr. Stefan Wirtgen, Managing Partner of Wirtgen Group says, "Our business strategies have always been to remain close to our customers by maintaining constant interaction with them. This event is an initiative towards the right direction. The new mineral deposits are being explored globally led by the requirements of various mineral based industries. However, the successful exploration of the deposits leading to proper utilization of the mineral output will have to be supported by economical mining solutions. The initiative of the event is also towards the same, as it demonstrates our highly reliable, cost effective mining solutions featuring advanced technologies created on the backdrop of long experience in mining."

Mr. Wirtgen claimed that led by the rising demand potential, they are expanding the production capacity of the Kleemann crushing units. The reputed crushing brand has procured an encouraging acceptance globally with 361 units working in Brazil, US, Europe, Middle East, Australia with good number of enquiries from Africa." He further says, "taking note of newer requirements of the aggregate sector, we will develop new generation of jaw crushers with overall product development thrust being in developing mobile crushing solutions based on the emerging requirements of the road construction sector, which asks for lower operating costs in getting the aggregates and flexibility in operation."

Speaking to NBM&CW on the eve of the event and presentations, Mr. Stefan Wirtgen and Mr. Jurgen Wirtgen say, "India remains a very potential market for us. The market has big appetite for mining products led by the expansion of mineral based industry especially coal and aggregate sector." On being asked that when the company intends to launch its Kleeman brand of crushers in the Indian market; the Wirtgen brothers said that initially they will introduce Kleeman screens in the Indian crushing sector followed by their entire range of Mobirex crushing solutions supported by adequate service back up. They have hired experienced personnel to render effective service support and also to promote the crushing business in India. They will target special projects through their Kleeman brand of crushing equipment."


On the strategy of the company for its indigenously manufactured road construction equipment being rolled out from its newly commissioned Pune plant; Mr. Stefan Wirtgen says, "the strategy is an ongoing process to localize the road construction equipment. We hope to launch our entirely localized asphalt compactors for the Indian market by 2013 and our Vogele brand of small pavers by 2014."

The event was marked by well planned elaborate technical presentations of Wirtgen surface miners and Kleeman crushers. Delivering technical presentations, Wirtgen officials said that optimum productivity in surface miners is ensured through its cutting tools and cutting drums, which is the most integral and critical components of equipment. Wirtgen has designed new variant of cutting tools H-15, an advancement from the earlier H-14 one. The H-15 cutting tools have minimum change over time and less prone to damage. They informed, "for high uptime of the surface miners, Wirtgen is well positioned to offer complete technical support by rebuilding the surface miners through its service support locations."

Among the surface miners demonstrated for various minerals exploration applications were the company's 2200 Surface miner for coal. The 2200 SM is compatible to work with 120 ton heavy haul articulated tipper trucks. Wirtgen officials said that good numbers of machines are working at various open cast coal mines and lime stone mines in India. Demonstration was also provided on the Wirtgen's largest 4200 surface miners for iron ore application. The machine which has varied compressive cutting depths is primarily used in iron ore, coal, bauxite, limestone, phosphate, hard rock, and other special mining application with 240 ton articulated tipper trucks. It can mine and process minerals @ 2000 to 3000 tph, making it suitable for heavy mining applications.

Explaining the utility of surface miners, officials said that the machine is a compact entity in itself. It is able to provide economical solutions as it cuts down on traditional drilling, blasting and primary crushing methods requiring additional tools to perform the same. Most importantly, it minimizes the requirements of wheel loaders at the mining site for hauling the blasted material to the processing site.

Elaborate live demonstrations were made on Kleeman range of mobile tracked crushers based on primary, secondary and tertiary crushing solutions. The mobile units come with lesser owning and operating costs, as because they cut down on the requirement of long conveying and hauling as the units can be taken to the processing site itself. Kleeman crushers can be adapted to various requirements as required with mobility being the fundamental feature of the equipment that minimizes cost of operation of the crushers.