Memorandum

Raw Mill 2 limestone weigher (W-20) investigation

1. Problem
Indicated raw mill 2 production is ±330 tph which is ±30% above the guarantee capacity of 250
tph @ 10% residue on 90 µm screen. For the current financial year the actual raw meal
production (total to CF silo) is 13.5% lower than indicated by the raw mill weighers (determined
by month end stock reconciliation).

2. Investigation
2.1 Product fineness
The current product fineness is typically 13% residue on a 90 µm screen, which means that the
corrected mill guarantee capacity is 266 tph. This is however still significantly lower (24%) than
the current indicated production rate.

2.2 Product Elevator current

The current drawn by the product elevator (E-011) gives a good indication of the amount of
product from raw mill 2. The table below shows the comparison between two different time
periods, 1 year apart.
2014/02 2013/02
E-011 Current (A) 121.2 121.3
Mill Feed (tph) 330 293
E-011 Current when empty (A) 77.4 77.4

The results clearly indicate that a change occurred between the two timeframes, but does not
accurately quantify the true error.

2.3 Weigher calibration

A weigher calibration was performed and a total error of ±4% was corrected for. The results
indicated in the section above are however after this calibration, showing that these values were
still suspect.

2.4 Theoretical limestone belt mass flow

The theoretical mass flow of the limestone belt was determined to be 273 tph by roughly
estimating the profile and belt speed. The rate indicated by the weigher was 13% higher at 309
tph. The belt load was calculated to be 237 kg/m vs. the Schenk indication of 281 kg/m. The
large error indicated that further investigation is required.

350 mm
250 mm

3
Density 1.55 t/m
Speed 0.32 m/s

870 mm

W-20 Investigation Nardus Laubscher February 2014

2.5 Belt speed and load verification
On 28 January 2014 a belt cut was performed where two 1 meter sections of material was
removed and weighed. The sections were removed adjacent to one another in order to minimize
the error due to “borderlines”. The average mass load on the belt was determined to be 226
kg/m while the average belt load for the 10 minutes preceding the stop was 283 kg/m (25%
error).

One thing worth noting is that upon stopping of the belt, the load dropped to 269 kg/m, possibly
due to the load cells being close to the discharge point of the belt.

The speed was measured by tachometer and stopwatch and an average error of -3.5% was
calculated. The total mass flow error for the belt cut exercise is therefore 20.9%.

3. Actions
A. Determine root cause of large error on belt load indication even after using normal
calibration methods.
B. Correct belt mass flow indication by performing either multiple belt cuts, or one large
sample of entire belt (6m) to minimise error.
C. Confirm speed of belt with tachometer when belt is empty and constant speed set point
is given.
D. Repeat for all weighers at raw mill 2 and also raw mill 1 to minimise error at month end.

W-20 Investigation Nardus Laubscher February 2014