Mining and construction engineering group Sandvik Construction unveiled its Sandvik CH550 cone crusher, the Sandvik DH350 surface drill rig and a complete modular crushing plant at the bauma Africa trade fair last month. This was the first time these were launched on the continent.

Sandvik Construction also showcased its core line of products, which include crushing and screening equipment and drilling and tunnelling equipment.

Sandvik sub-Saharan Africa construction VP Glenn Schoeman tells Mining Weekly that bauma Africa presented an opportunity for the company to meet its African customers and to introduce the Sandvik products and service offering to companies and individuals lacking familiarity with the products.

“The trade fair is important for us as our company has been associated for many years with the international bauma event held in Munich, Germany, and with the regional events held in China and India, so this was the next logical step for the company,” says Schoeman.

Another reason for Sandvik Construction’s presence at the event is to ensure that the com-pany’s brand is present at an international event. “This is something that the bauma trade fair ensures,” he points out.

“Our aim for the inaugural bauma Africa trade fair was, therefore, to bolster our presence in our core market, which is South Africa, and make our presence known to our key focus market – sub-Saharan Africa,” says Schoeman.

Sandvik crushing and screening and sys-tems global sales and marketing VP Hakan Karlsson unveiled the Sandvik CH550 cone crusher unit at the company’s press conference, held at bauma Africa on September 19.

The new-generation compact CH550 cone crusher, which has been developed in response to customer demands, provides customers with improved performance and a good cubical shape, while ensuring the lowest operating cost per ton for a wide range of materials and applications.

The CH550 is based on the company’s proven and patented Hydrocone design, which provides the cone crusher unit with the ability to produce well-shaped products in fewer crushing stages. “This feature makes the CH550 adaptable to ever-changing customer requirements,” notes Karlsson.

The CH550 crusher also has the ability to be configured for either secondary or tertiary crusher applications.

Further, to safely improve operational uptime. the CH550 comes standard with Sandvik’s Automatic Setting System (ASRi). The ASRi enables the crusher to run at high performance levels and adjusts automatically to the variations in feed conditions for an ideal final product, explains Karlsson.

Meanwhile, the new Sandvik DH350 crawler-mounted down-the-hole drill rig, unveiled by Schoeman at the company’s press conference, is suited to conditions in sub-Saharan Africa.

The semihydraulic diesel-powered DH350 is designed for drilling with 3-inch, 4-inch and 5-inch hammers in a 89 mm to 152 mm hole range, notes Schoeman, adding that the rig can be used for civil engineering applications in aggregate, cement and limestone quarries as well as openpit mines.

The DH350 features a rigid fixed-boom and feed design, as well as an efficient hydraulics system for boom positioning, feed, rotation, tramming and track oscillation, making the rig exceptionally accurate and productive.

Operation productivity, hole accuracy and drilling smoothness are further enhanced by a heavy-duty rotary head that supplies a very high torque of 2 530 Nm.

The rig’s fuel costs are reduced, owing to two separate power sources – an on-board 43 kW diesel engine for drilling and ancillary oper-ations and an external compressor (which is sold separately), which provides compressed air for the hammer and hole flushing and is powered by an independent engine.

The rig is also equipped with a primary cyclone. The rig’s dry dust collector reduces the amount of dust produced while drilling, which, in turn, ensures a long engine life and a clear view to the drilling spot.

All drilling functions in the DH350 are centralised in one control panel with convenient controls. For improved safety, a separate tram-ming control station is placed at the back of the rig, side by side with an operator transportation platform.

Meanwhile, Sandvik Sub Saharan Africa mobile equipment product line manager Willem du Plooy unveiled the modular crushing plant, which forms part of the Sandvik modular range of equipment.

The modular crushing plant, which is constructed from only Sandvik components, consists of a Sandvik MFB20 modular feed bin with a Sandvik SP0818 pan feeder, Sandvik MBC750-15 15 m modular belt conveyors, a Sandvik MBC750-7 7 m modular belt conveyor, and a Sandvik MCH430 modular cone crusher with a Sandvik CH430 cone.