Australia’s Mining Industry
A tough life for an air conditioning plant
Mining has made a significant contribution to the Australian economy since the 19th Century, with each state and territory active in a vast range of mineral extraction activities. Mines are typically found in harsh, isolated environments that need reliable and robust air conditioning equipment capable of withstanding extreme conditions.
The challenges associated with cooling mines includes providing comfort to hundreds of on-site employees; and ensuring the mine’s process equipment and electrical switch rooms are kept at sufficently low temperatures. This is critical as the process equipment and switch rooms are the nerve centre of a mine’s operations.
For over 50 years Temperzone has established itself as a world class manufacturer of commercial and industrial air conditioning equipment designed for temperature ranges from a scorching +45C to a chilly -10C. This has enabled Temperzone to establish itself as a trustworthy partner to Australia’s booming mining industry.
Temperzone also has a high ambient range of equipment, selected at a 45 degree ambient and designed to provide cooling at 52 degrees, a range of units covering 40, 60, 80 & 100kw.
Where mines have harsh corrosive conditions, Temperzone has anti-corrosion treatments for pipework and coils and we even build stainless steel cabinets where required.
When asked what the mining industry expected of its air conditioners, Temperzone Queensland branch manager Shane McBride offered the following list:
1. Application – handle the great range of ambient temperatures;
2. Product flexibility – high sensible cooling applications;
3. Product range to cope with different requirements, whether simple comfort cooling for the mess or process cooling of large switch rooms;
4. Reliability and product quality;
5. Corrosion protection;
6. Manufacturing flexibility to meet specific and varying individual requirements;
7. Back up, support and spare parts;
8. Equipment selection.
“When considering all the factors required by many of the mining companies and their contractors and/or consultants, it’s not just a simple case of selling a “box” or a standard unit, it’s all about understanding the mine’s requirements, the application, the location and the environment,” McBride says. “Only then can you start to select, engineer and custom-build a product to suit.”
The harsh nature of the Australian environment and the wide range of temperature variations experienced at some of these remote mine sites has forced Temperzone to look beyond its standard units’ temperature range of +43C to -10C.
“This in itself is a real challenge as the introduction of the new MEPS (Minimum Energy Performance Standard) compliance and BCA (Building Code Australia) requirements has seen the introduction of the higher pressure refrigerant HFC 410a (R410a) to meet these efficiencies. Some sites can experience +45C temperatures in summer and below zero in winter,” says McBride.
Temperzone’s manufacturing engineering teams in Auckland and Sydney have looked at ways of overcoming this through coil and fan selection and design. “Each site and application can be different,” McBride says. “It may be as simple as air conditioning the dining mess for 200 workers or it may be designing a system to cool a large switch room where the large part of the cooling load is sensible heat all-year-round at +40C and 0C. A standard plant on full cooling with an outside air temperature of zero degrees would probably fail after 20 to 30 minutes,” a scenario that would send alarm bells through the mining industry. “They want air conditioning units to operate reliably and efficiently,” not units that break down after half-an-hour’s operation.
This has led Temperzone to develop some engineered options for units, including:
• Custom evaporator and condenser coils;
• Head pressure control – modulating;
• High static condenser fans for ducted applications;
• Hot gas by-pass as a safety and coil unloading option;
• High and low pressure safety devices; and
• Low/high coil entering temperature protection devices.
“Quality control plays a crucial role in determining a unit’s suitability for the mining industry,” McBride says. “Temperzone conducts quality checks at critical stages throughout the build phase, ensuring the sheet metal is cut, punched and folded correctly before painting so that the integrity of the powder coat is not ruined. This is critical on a coal mining site where corrosion is a real problem as any exposure of raw metal could lead to corrosion and premature failure of a unit.”
Temperzone has options to address the harshness of corrosive mining environments, including:
• Powder coating of panels; • Stainless steel fixings; • Epoxy coated condenser and evaporator coils; • Powder coating of fans and scrolls; and • Units powder-coated a specific colour or electrical panel to meet various site requirements.
“We could sit here for hours and talk about the many and differing requirements of the mining industry,” McBride says. “But at the end of the day Temperzone’s experience in providing solutions for the industry is invaluable and we only use parts that are readily available throughout Australia. If a unit fails because of a faulty part the last thing a mine eletrician or fridgy needs is to be told that the spare part has to be flown in from overseas. They need the part immediately in order to get the plant back online as quickly as possible. This is why we still carry spare parts for some units that are up to 20 years old.”
McBride adds that the bottom line is all about communication, sitting down with the client, understanding their specific requirements and determining what Temperzone can offer. “Temperzone makes this simple because everything is done in Australia – design, development, engineering, manufacturing, selling, parts and service – you can’t go wrong. It’s easy to deal with people who know what they are talking about. At Temperzone we know air conditioning because it’s all we do.”
