Crushers

Introduction

Crushers play an important role in the material handling process for underground mine operations. There are two possible locations for an underground crusher: near the shaft and under the ore body. The location is mainly determined by the steepness and shape of the ore body, the depth of the ore body and the production schedule of the mine. For underground crushing, three stages of material handling are defined: pre-crushing, crushing, and post-crushing. The pre-crushing stage prepares the material for the crusher, the crushing stage reduces the size of the material, the post-crushing stage transports the material to surface for further processing. The main types of crushers are the gyratory crusher, the jaw crusher and the impact crusher. Each of these types uses a different technique to reduce the size of the material. The costs for crushers are divided in the capital costs and the operating costs. The capital costs include the crusher cost, the installation cost and a couple of other costs like the cost of the motor. Crushers produce fine material that will become airborne when air movement is present. Dust can be a health and safety hazard and therefore needs to be controlled. Two ways of dust control are wet dust suppression and airborne dust capture.