Carborough Downs’ electrical superintendent Colin Barton believes the Sensor Guard saved the majority of the 1050mm-wide belt, which transports coal 4 kilometres overland from the stockpile to the coal handling preparation plant.

“Sensor Guard was commissioned for the first time on the new overland conveyor system on a Friday and the belt was damaged the following Tuesday,” he said.

In 2008 Vale issued a contract to Veyance Belting to supply all the conveyor belting for the mine, which is being developed near Moranbah. The steel cord belts for the drift conveyor and the overland conveyor are incorporated with Goodyear Sensor Guard rip detection systems.

Barton advised the Veyance team that the rip had occurred in two locations about 200mm in from each belt edge.

“The rip started 15 metres before a sensor loop passed the tail detection and the total belt rip was restricted to only 140 metres,” he said.

Sensor Guard detected the rip and shut down the overland conveyor system. Electronic detection spared the vast majority of the 8300m of steel cord belt, minimised downtime and saved the mine thousands of dollars.

Active sensor loops pass by the detectors and transmit pulses to an electronic monitoring system which is hard-wired to the conveyor control system. A damaged or broken loop automatically shuts down the conveyor belt, minimising damage.