The Oil Sands of Canada are located in some of the harshest environmental conditions in mining, so when a customer was in need of a new set of sideframes for their 495HF shovel, L&H’s newly upgraded and engineered design was the best for the job.
Designed for durability
These new sideframes include thicker plate to mitigate high stress areas where cracking occurs in OEM designs. The plates increased yield strength reduces the stress range by nearly 50%. Additionally, a final drive modification was included to ease maintenance and downtime by removing the need to realign the motor, change out the final drive shaft, bearings or tumblers; collectively eliminating 8 hours or more to complete this process. By maintaining complete OEM compatibility, customers have flexibility in parts and services. Altogether, the customer would receive two new side frames complete with L&H straddle mount idlers, an final drive shaft, lower rollers and the L&H guide rail assemblies.
Proven results
Today L&H has over 130 undercarriages working around the world, and our design has been proven to last 30% longer than the OEMs. The engineered undercarriage reduces maintenance downtime and lowers the total cost of ownership for a mine, creating increased production and fleet optimization. L&H’s fully dressed side frames save the customer installation time on rebuilds. Adding additional lifting lugs, which facilitate both handling in the shop as well as field installation, make L&H’s technique much smoother. The skirt plates on the bottom side of the frames run the full length of the side frames, providing more adequate protection and reliability. L&H’s increased plate thickness yields a considerable drop in the stress and provides a longer service life. These frames were built to receive the upgraded L&H Final Drive Shaft Assembly which allows for the shaft to be removed / installed from the outboard side of the machine reducing time and adding value. The front adjustment window for the idlers system has been opened up to allow for more adjustment of the tracks, while the front nose has also been re-profiled to eliminate wear on the structure as the roller path beings to wear on shoes. This frame, as well as others, have a pin on style of sliders. The field service engineer on the job, Jamie Meinen noted,
“The life on these sliders is greatly improved over the OEM system and the customer has been extremely pleased with the performance of this system.”
The straddle mounted front idler have proved to double the expected life of competitors. Our system, with proper maintenance a wear item change out, should have no trouble running to the entire life of the undercarriage.
With these upgrades and our current reputation for shovel undercarriages, L&H is optimistic for our potential to sell more of this L&H upgraded product.