Firm Reports African Hose Bend Milestone

10th February 2012

Slurry equipment solutions provider Weir Minerals Africa has dispatched what it describes as the biggest hose bend to have been manufactured on the African continent to date – a 1,000 nominal bore (NB) hose weighing 1.4 t – to a customer in Australia, and is currently working on an enquiry for an even bigger unit of 1,100 NB.

These orders follow the successful completion in 2010 of what was then the biggest hose bend to be produced on the continent – an 855 NB unit.

“Before we entered this market segment, there were only three suppliers in the world capable of manufacturing hose bends of this magnitude. We recognised that demand was greater than supply and took a strategic decision to develop the capacity to produce these units as an additional, specialised product line.

“There is a definite trend in the mining indus- try worldwide towards hose bends with increasingly larger nominal bores and we’re now fully geared up to meet and remain abreast of this requirement,” says Linatex Alrode operations GM Grant Ramsden.

Weir Minerals Africa has integrated Linatex high-wear, super abrasion-resistant rubber into the design of the hose bend. The Weir group acquired the Linatex group in September 2010.

Ramsden says the biggest challenge at the start of this initiative was to locate an engineering company capable of producing hose mandrels of the required size.

“Tooling design has been carried out in-house by our engineering department in Isando and we have been fortunate enough to find an engineering company based in KwaZulu-Natal that could manufacture the hose mandrel and the bend former for us.”

Ramsden adds that other challenges included the physical handling of the extremely heavy hose bends and extracting the large mandrel from the cured product.

“In the end, we devised a highly innovative solution for extracting the mandrel in a very short timeframe. “In fact, manufacturing the 1 000 NB unit went smoothly, because we had trialled and debugged the system while expediting the order for the 855 NB unit last year,” he says.

“The use of Linatex-branded rubber in this application further entrenches us in this market segment, because there is no other material that compares with it. “This is clearly an excellent export opportunity for us and we have set our sights on the top end of the market.

“Backed by the Weir brand, our hose bends are world class and have come onto the international market at a significantly lower price than what has been on offer until now, even when factoring in the freight charges.

“We have created the capacity necessary to manufacture these large hose bends in volumes and, in addition to the enquiry for the 1 100 NB unit, we are already handling additional orders for the 865 NB unit,” he adds.

The Weir group continues to market the renowned Linatex rubber products.

“These products are proving to be a valuable addition to an already formidable Weir Minerals Africa product line serving the company’s key markets of mining, dewatering, energy, oil and gas, transportation, milling, processing, general industrial and water/waste management. Linatex-branded rubber works well in tandem with many of our products, as well as bringing exciting new and diverse solutions for us to offer our customers throughout all our markets,” says Ramsden.

Weir Minerals Africa delivers end-to-end solu- tions for all mining, transportation, milling, processing and waste management activities. The company specialises in delivering and supporting a wide range of slurry equipment solutions, including pumps, valves, hydrocyclones, wear-resistant linings and dewatering products.