Mineral Technologies

Gravity spiral separators are commonly used in the mineral processing sector to separate heavy and often valuable minerals (such as gold, coal and iron ore) from their lighter counterparts. These separators, which are constructed from materials such as polyurethane or fibreglass and matched to the specific properties of the ore bodies they’re designed to separate, are used at mining sites around the world. 

For mineral processing equipment company Mineral Technologies, spiral separators are a vital component of their product offering, but they come with significant limitations. These include a time- consuming and costly open moulding fabrication process, which limits the company’s capacity to produce customised separators and to respond quickly to large orders to the tooling they have available. Production takes place at a dedicated facility on the Gold Coast; the separators, which are up to 12 metres in height, are then shipped at significant expense to client sites. 

Innovation delivered

For Mineral Technologies, Rapido’s specific expertise in 3D printing was the drawcard for what became a five-year, $9.3 million cash and in-kind research collaboration that was partially funded by the Innovative Manufacturing CRC.

The Rapido team investigated opportunities to build a bespoke 3D printing prototype with the capability to custom-print gravity spirals of up to 3 metres tall. The project commenced with a feasibility study to confirm 3D printing as the preferred manufacturing process and to determine the optimal printer configuration for printing the target part.

One of the key objectives was to print without support material, thereby minimising material costs and manufacturing time. The solution developed by the Rapido team leveraged non-planar 3D printing to achieve this with a bespoke machine configuration paired with a purpose-built custom slicing algorithm optimised for the creation of the target parts.

Subsequent investigative work involved:

• validating the suitability of the printed materials
• assessing abrasion resistance and creep performance developing and testing several prototype printer versions
• exploring opportunities to embed Internet of Things sensors to the 3D-printed structure to predict wear and tear in the field.