Mining and Metals
In 2011, Logitech Engineering commissioned the only DC Arc furnace in the world that is connected to Gas Turbines which are not connected to the power grid. This is significant since the DC Arc requires 18MW of instantaneous power to create the Arc, and also dumps this power instantly whenever the Arc is lost. We designed and commissioned a large 11kV / 2.4MW load bank and a very large reactor and capacitor bank to create a system that worked reliably, without tripping the Gas Turbines.
This 38 megawatt stand-alone gas-fired power station was built specifically for the Windimurra Vanadium Mine located near Mount Magnet in Western Australia.
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The photo above shows the very first Ferro-Vanadium metal pour from the furnace. The DC bus bars for the Arc Furnace were also water-cooled due to the extremely high current flows.
Vanadium Mining
To extract metals from an ore body, there are many steps involved:
The photo above shows a three-stage crushing and screening plant. The photo below shows the first crushed ore dumped to the stockpile from the crushing and screening circuit.
Magnetic Separation
Logitech Engineering joined forces with Atlantic Minerals, PINC Group, and EC&M to complete the structural, piping & electrical works for the Windimurra Vanadium Mine near Mt Magnet. The crushing and beneficiation circuits proved to be undersized, which eventually led to the temporary closure of the mine. The remaining systems worked very well and the first ever Ferro-Vanadium metal pour was conducted in late 2011. The control system was Citect, with a mixture of GE, Siemens and Allen Bradley PLCs.
Vanadium has the potential to be used for Energy Storage applications, since Vanadium batteries have very high energy concentration, are extremely light weight and have very low charge cycle memory.
