MechChem Africa November-December 2021

Quality, custom rubber hoses fromAlrode facility Weir Minerals Africa is a leading South African producer of high-quality rubber hoses that designs and builds mining hoses for customers, from 50 to 1 000 mm nominal bore and up to 10 m in length with up to 1 100 mm bends. A decade of investment and experience ensures high levels of manufacturing consistency in its custom-engineered products.

A s a leading South African producer of high-quality rubber hoses, Weir Minerals Africa designs and builds mining hoses for customers from 50 to 1 000 mm nominal bore, up to 10 m in length and with bends up to 1 100 mm. “Our state-of-the-artmanufacturing facil- ity in Alrode, Gauteng, comprises advanced semi-automated processes to produce hard wall hoses, soft wall hoses and bends,” says Yatheen Budhu, product manager for rubber products, hoses and spools at Weir Minerals Africa. “With a decade of investment in semi-automated building equipment and training, we can ensure high levels of safety, manufacturing consistency and quality in our

custom-engineered products. “The safety of our people is our number one priority, and the investment included system improvements in the hose building process to protect our employees from harm at all times,” he says. These hoses are designed to the specifica - tions of customers around the world, using an option of Linatex ® , Linard ® , Linagard ® and Linacure ® abrasion-resistant internal wear liners. The hard wall mining hose is built for suction and discharge applications, with a heavy spring steel wire helix to cater for high dynamic loads. For discharge applications withno vacuumor suction that could collapse the hose, the soft wall mining hose is usually

Yatheen Budhu, Weir Minerals product manager for rubber products, hose and spools.

used as it allows for ease of movement and flexibility. “Among the innovations we have intro- duced is a wear-indicator system, for critical applications where unexpected hose failure carries an unacceptable level of risk,” says Budhu. “The wear-indicator system gives op- erators earlywarning ofwear on the liner and allows proactive replacement to be planned and conducted.”WeirMinerals Africa’sworld class local manufacturing capability gives a number of benefits to mining companies, he

The Weir Minerals state-of-the-art automated hose manufacturing facility in Alrode.

8 ¦ MechChem Africa • November-December 2021