I n 2009, the Jellinbah Group bought a fleet of 11 haul trucks to haul overburden at its Jellinbah coal mine in Australia’s Bowen Basin. The company matched those trucks with bodies from ESCO Corp., which had recently established a new regional headquarters in Queensland. Three years later, in 2012, the engineering

and performance of the truck bodies had been such that, when time came to replace a second fleet of truck bodies, ESCO again won the contract.

Jellinbah already has five of the trucks in operation and another two will come online later this year. A third party evaluation confirmed that ESCO’s truck bodies are meeting

performance specifications required by Jellinbah.Paul Heaphy, a regional product manager for truck bodies in Australia, attributes the successful bid to

solid performance of the truck bodies coupled with ESCO’s manufacturing

The right body forPaul Heaphy, ESCO Corp. Australia, discusses the selection of truck bodies at the Jellinbah coal mine.

ESCO’s truck bodies help the Jellinbah mine produce 4.6 million tpa of coal for customers in Asia, South America and Europe.

THE JOB

March 2013 | Reprinted from World Coal

and service facilities in Kingaroy and Mackay. The service element is particularly critical for Jellinbah, given that the mine has a reputation for meeting its annual production targets. Heaphy said the mine’s focus is to reduce maintenance costs. ESCO’s ability to keep Jellinbah’s truck bodies working is critical to the company’s success: “We work very closely with Jellinbah and our other customers,” Heaphy said. “Our account manager is on the ground at Jellinbah at least once a week.”

Understanding the requirementsThose weekly visits helped ESCO better understand the demands of the Jellinbah mine. Located on the Tropic of Capricorn, the Jellinbah mine began production in 1989 and is a truck‑and‑excavator operation. The coal mined is predominantly used for pulverised coal injection in the steelmaking process.

The 4.6 million tpa that is produced is hauled almost 300 km east to the Port of Gladstone where some of it is shipped to customers in Asia, South America and Europe.

The ESCO truck bodies that arrived in 2009 were paired with two different trucks: six Mark III bodies were mounted on Terex MT3700 trucks to haul rocky and abrasive overburden, while another five bodies were installed on Komatsu HD1500‑7 trucks to move coal and some overburden.

Jellinbah mine maintenance managers said the design of the ESCO truck bodies allows for high productivity and less wear. According to Heaphy, there are two primary design elements that allow ESCO’s truck bodies to meet these

demands. The first critical detail is the curved tail that creates a two‑stage dumping process. As the body rises, the top part of the load slides out, leaving behind a sliver of material that follows once the body hits the right angle. Heaphy said the last bit of material is lighter than the full load, creating less friction on the body’s bed. Less weight and friction means the bed lasts longer. It does not need a liner and the life of the body is extended. The curved tail also allows material to leave the body at a fast rate, so it spills over the top of berms rather than falling short and potentially damaging the truck or body.

The second feature is the curved walls inside the truck body, which reduce the amount of material that does not get dumped and is carried back to the loader. In some cases, a truck body can retain up to 25% of its load. The curvature results in significant gains in efficiency and a reduction in operating costs over time for mine operators.

The new orderESCO has recently expanded the truck body offering, distributing it globally and providing a broader range of configurations that are available for all current large OEM haul trucks. In addition, ESCO can custom‑engineer the body to suit a variety of site‑specific material conditions and capacity requirements to maximise productivity.

The performance and ability to customise helped ESCO when Jellinbah was in the market for a new fleet of trucks to work with a new Hitachi EX5600 excavator. Jellinbah chose to replace its fleet of CAT 793D trucks with the new 793F. The mine needed to find a

body design to pair with the trucks and work efficiently with the excavator.

“They wanted a target nominal payload of 232 t for the truck body and a truck that was pass‑matched with the excavator,” Heaphy said. Jellinbah also wanted an extended canopy on the bodies.

On top of Jellinbah’s requirements, ESCO also needed to meet Caterpillar’s 10‑10‑20 truck loading policy. The rule states that a truck can be loaded only 10% of the time above 110% of its nominal payload and that no load ever exceeds 120% of the nominal payload, Heaphy explained. Violating that rule jeopardises the integrity of the truck: “A poorly‑sized truck body that does not meet that criteria and is not matched with the bucket creates overload problems for the chassis, tyres, everything.”

ESCO’s engineers were able to make the right calculations to design the truck bodies to meet Jellinbah and Caterpillar’s requirements, allowing the company to win the bid. Retaining Jellinbah’s business was a symbolic win for ESCO, Heaphy said.

Making a success of a new enterpriseESCO is not new to the Australian mining market. The company’s ground‑engaging tools have been a staple for mine operators. But the truck body market was a new enterprise. The second fleet of truck bodies for Jellinbah was manufactured by ESCO at its Mackay location. “The Jellinbah deal demonstrated to the market that ESCO has the capabilities to support large capital products,” Heaphy said.

Reprinted from World Coal | March 2013