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Exploring New Drill Rig Technology

Challenges

Engineers at AustEx design drill rig equipment for mining exploration to meet customer’s specific technical & safety requirements. Next-generation drill rigs are moving towards equipment that is ‘hands-free’ with significant levels of autonomy. Engineers constantly strive to reduce costs by reducing weight whilst compressing design timelines & reducing the number of physical prototypes required to produce validated designs.

 

Solution

Ansys simulations help AustEx engineers to check the structural designs of all drill rig equipment, including platforms, lifting equipment and rig steelwork. FE simulation results help identify the relative stiffness of key areas and the corresponding levels of stress and deformation in each component, which can then be used to systematically add or remove material to produce an optimal design with high factors of safety.

 

Ansys Advantage

“Recently we used Ansys Mechanical to investigate high stress levels in a weld along the base of a rig. After changing the design to remove the offending plate connection and weld, we were able to reduce the stress in this region by a factor of 5 as well as save the cost of the plate and four associated welds.

The expert training in Ansys from LEAP has helped us develop an optimal FEA process which has saved us many working days on each design, so we can now use FEA faster, more often and analyse each design with a greater level of complexity to properly test our equipment prior to manufacture”. – Matthew McLeod, Mechanical Engineer, AUSTEX