Linatex Wear Resistant Rubber Lining Cuts Costs at Sentinel

Weir Minerals’ Linatex® Premium Rubber and Linard® 60 have significantly improved wear life at Kalumbila Minerals Limited’s Sentinel mine in Zambia, after the Weir Minerals Africa team was asked to provide a lining solution that would last longer than the incumbent product.

To date, the Linatex® and Linard® solution has achieved six times the life of the product previously installed at Sentinel Mine. The competitor rubber product was no match for the high impact and abrasive nature of the 4,500 tph of slurry being fed to the mill discharge chute.

The competitor rubber lining was failing after two months, resulting in downtime and added costs for equipment hire and specialised personnel. The remote location of the site also made obtaining materials for repairs a challenge.

The Weir Minerals Africa team specified a double-layered rubber lining solution. A bottom layer of 30mm Linatex® Premium Rubber was selected to improve impact absorption, due to its resilient properties. Linard® 60 with a thickness of 25mm was selected for the top layer, due to its cutting and tearing resistance to the product reporting to the discharge chute.

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Weir Minerals Africa’s technical lining manager ensured the order was delivered to the customer site timeously. Together with a team from the Weir Minerals Zambia branch, the lining of the parts took place during a scheduled plant shutdown.

The combination of 30mm Linatex® Premium Rubber and Linard® 60 has lasted for one year with little to no signs of wear. This is a 250% wear life improvement when compared to the competitor product. As a result, Sentinel Mine has experienced reduced downtime and benefitted from the associated cost savings and with the increased plant availability maintenance personnel have been freed up to focus on other problematic areas in the plant.

Sentinel Mine has a longstanding relationship with Weir Minerals, with a range of Weir Minerals products installed and serviced over many years. With this in mind, the mine was confident that the team would provide an effective solution.

Linatex® Premium Rubber is a proprietary vulcanised natural gum rubber, produced through a unique liquid-phase compounding process using high quality natural latex. It exhibits outstanding strength, resilience and resistance to cutting and tearing, giving superior performance in wet abrasion conditions.