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Preparing for the Technologically Advanced Mines of the Future BRIAN CARROLL, OPERATIONS MANAGER – PORTLAOISE BRANCH, IRELAND MANAGER OF UNDERGROUND SALES – SALES TERRITORY, NORTH WEST EUROPE In a recent article about BEV technology developments by Joseph Szczesny, he described that, according to experts participating in the annual Powertrain Conference organised by Automotive Futures, Europe and China are the now becoming the world leaders in the push for battery-electric vehicles and have moved ahead of the North American effort to develop BEVs. In the mining industry, Sandvik have been one of the leaders in this field in Europe for the further development of our BEV offering. Part of Sandvik’s developments in the past year has been the introduction of the largestcapacity battery-electric truck for underground mining. With an unrivalled 65-tonne payload capacity, the Sandvik TH665B prototype has completed its factory testing. The trial agreement has been finalised with Barminco and AngloGold Ashanti Australia and the trial is now underway at the Sunrise Dam gold mine to prove its viability in a long ramp haulage application before commercial production of Sandvik TH665B is expected to commence in late 2023. The truck is equipped with Sandvik’s patented self-swapping system, including the AutoSwap and AutoConnect functions, which enables quick and easy battery swap in a matter of minutes, and without any major infrastructure like overhead cranes or other heavy handling equipment. This unit and the existing Sandvik TH550B 50-tonne payload truck and Sandvik LH518B 18-tonne payload loader will commence field
Sandvik TH665B Truck Surface.
trials on the Sandvik AutoMine (automation) offering in the product in the coming period also. This will be the key next step for Sandvik in our technology developments, to have automated BEV equipment with easily changing battery functions without impacting the benefits of the automation features of AutoMine. As well as the launch of equipment, there has been the developments of
battery technology as BEV vehicles becomes more and more “normal” in everyday life (automobiles, road truck, farming equipment, etc). For example, in late 2021, Sandvik received a customer order for a LH518B loader with the desired specifications from the customer. Sandvik were happy and customer was happy also. However, with the continued ambition to develop our technology, by the time this loader will be delivered (Q3 2022), there will be a 30% increase in performance Sandvik LH518B Loader loading Sandvik TH665B Truck.
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