Medatech, a Canadian provider of sustainable drive systems for the mining industry, has incorporated Akasol’s AKASystem lithium-ion battery systems into its designs for electrically powered equipment and drives.
Medatech will equip everything, from drilling and anchoring machines to heavy transport vehicles, with the systems in order to meet high performance requirements that apply to opencast and underground mines.
Emissions in underground mining are a challenge both with regard to health and in economic terms. The majority of diesel-powered drilling, anchoring and transport machines produce exhaust gases that have to be siphoned off by large ventilation units via shafts implemented specifically for that purpose. This is both laborious and cost-intensive.
One solution is to rely on high-performance, electrically powered machines, which source their electrical energy from trailing cables or high-performance batteries.
In addition to noise and heat, the use of combustion engines in underground mines produces exhaust fumes.
Electrically powered drilling machines and vehicles can significantly reduce health risks and the high costs of the protective measures required to mitigate them.Medatech experts are responsible for ensuring that the high-performance values required of these machines are reached even under harsh working conditions.
The company is now equipping its electrically operated excavation machinery and mining vehicles with high-performance battery systems made in Germany.
Medatech had strict criteria for selecting high-performance batteries for use in the mining industry. “We were looking for a liquid-cooled battery with in-built temperature management that would work consistently and reliably in a robust and safe housing,” said David F Lyon, business development manager and mechanical engineer, Medatech.
“After much discussion and extensive testing, Akasol was the only company from the pool of candidate providers that met our requirements, while scoring top marks in the process.”
Having more than 25 years of experience in the automotive industry and a broad customer base in the commercial vehicles sector was also a plus factor for the Darmstadt, Germany-based high-performance battery manufacturer.
A drilling and anchoring machine produced by MacLean is fitted with the Akasol liquid-cooled battery system, which has a storage capacity of 30.6kWh at a nominal voltage level of 666V, enabling it to reach 77kW on average (peak: 406 kW/10 s). It is fully operational at ambient temperatures of between -25°C and 45°C and comes equipped with an intrinsically safe overload and overvoltage element.
The Akasol battery system also allows emergency operation features to be implemented. AKASystem, Akasol’s lithium-ion battery system, meets the highest safety standards and protection provisions set out in USABC, IEC, SAE, UN 38.3 and IP 6K9K (IEC 61508 and EN 12663; modular subsystems are checked in accordance with EN 61373, EN 50121, EN 60529 and UN 38.3).
August 25, 2017
