Codelco installs Honeywell Wi-Fi in copper mine
16 Aug 2010
Santiago – Copper producer Codelco has installed a wireless network system to improve a water-recovery process used in the thickener pools at its Norte mine in Chile.
Water used in mineral processing is recovered for reuse and the thickeners need to accurately gauge the levels and communicate the information from the field to the central control room.
With a huge amount of precipitation in the thickener’s pools to process recovered water and send residuals to the tailing, Codelco was unable to install wired instruments in the thickeners.
Moreover, the company could not retrieve accurate or timely water levels of both the dark (untreated) and recovered (clean treated) water in the pool – if clear water levels are too low, then not enough water is recovered. And, as there was no way to measure levels except manually, the pools were suddenly empty.
To tackle these issues, Codelco chose Honeywell’s One Wireless Network to connect new field devices in the Codelco Norte mine to the existing Honeywell TPS control system. The One Wireless network is used to connect Siemens S7 300 PLCs to the Honeywell TPS system. The PLCs are then used to manage equipment and instruments installed at each tank and pool.
The wireless system was applied to to the final part of the concentration process, where water is recovered to reuse in the process. The efficiency of this process has since improved significantly, while the company has also gained fast access to real-time data and can retrieve timely and accurate water levels of the thickener pools.
There are seven One Wireless multinodes covering the site. One gateway is used to send the Modbus data collected from the PLC to the Honeywell TPS. With the installation of One Wireless, operators in the control room can call information from the PLCs under the Honeywell TPS control system. This information can be fed into the Profit Controller application to optimise process control of the facility.
After the implementation of the network to support PLCs, Codelco decided to install Honeywell XYR 6000 high-level analogue input transmitters to monitor the level of the clear and dark water using ultrasonic transmitters. The information is automatically transmitted to operators who can make sure water levels are accurate.
Control-room operators now call information remotely from PLCs, while information fed into Honeywell Profit Controller provides more accurate decision making at Codelco, which is drawing plans to to add further Wi-Fi devices and industrial I/O devices to its system.
Since installing the One Wireless solution, the use of water is much more efficient because Codelco can accurately gauge the level of water in the thickeners, according to Guillermo Cortés, concentrators’ automation leader, Codelco.
“The former inability of gauging online and the high cost of maintaining the wired traditional network [frequently broken by heavy trucks and machinery] caused very low availability of measurement,” said Cortés.
The wireless system has proved reliable at the site, said Cortés, noting that: “Our desert zone has many challenges, including topography, the long distance between the thickeners and control room, and the extreme environment conditions of radiation, wind and temperatures.”
Santiago-based Codelco generates around 1.8Mt or 15% of the world’s total copper output per year. The Chilean state-owned copper-mining company owns the world’s largest-known copper reserves and resources.
