Becker Mining South Africa and verope mining team up to supply mine winding ropes.

Becker Mining South Africa and verope mining are the first OEM’s to partner and supply the full package of rope attachments, with high-performance mining winder ropes, to the South African mining sector, as well as neighbouring states. Becker Mining – a leading provider of custom-made, quality mining rope attachments – in a joint venture with verope mining, now offers the latest steel wire rope design suited for both drum and friction winders.

“Through our collaboration with global specialists in steel mine winder ropes, verope mining, we have introduced an unmatched cost-to-performance ratio product into the South African market,” explains Tom Searle, Senior General Manager: Capital, Becker Mining South Africa (Pty) Ltd. “This advanced rope attachment system, which meets stringent quality and safety standards, is custom-designed to suit the specific winding requirements of each mine.”

The verodeep 8 is an eight-strand full steel rope, with an extruded plastic layer between the outer strands and the rope core. Compared to a conventional winder rope construction, the verodeep 8 has important benefits in performance and safety. The eight compacted outer strands provide a larger contact area in the sheave wheels and in the cross-over section on the multi-layer drum, which decreases the localised pressure and significantly increases wear resistance.

The full-steel rope construction, in conjunction with the plastic layer, ensures a stable rope structure for improved spooling behaviour for high-speed applications, as well as in high lateral-pressure multi-layer hoists. In addition, corkscrew deformation, or sunken strands, especially in deep winding operations, are significantly reduced.

Besides the support of the structural stability, the plastic layer also keeps the lubricant locked within the rope and prevents the infiltration of water, dust, or any other particles, which can impact the rope’s lifetime or cause internal corrosion and wear. The plastic layer prevents steel-to-steel contact between the single wires to avoid internal wire breaks. verodeep 8 also has plastic between the outer strands to prevent valley breaks between strands.

With an eight strand construction, the core size is bigger compared to a conventional winder rope construction. A rope core acts as a counterpart to the outer strands. The bigger the core, the better the balance within the rope, which improves rope safety, rope lifetime, and rotational behavior. The greater number of single wires making up the verodeep 8 allows for more wire breaks before discard criteria of the rope is reached. verope mining, which is part of the verope group, was established to focus on mining wire ropes and has proven its performance capabilities, whilst maintaining an effective cost/performance ratio at mines all over the world, including in South Africa.

Becker Mining has state-of-the art facilities to design and manufacture rope attachments required for any type of mine winder. All equipment is proof load tested to two and a half times the safe working loads it will be subjected to in service. Both the rope attachment and mine winding rope offerings fully comply with South African and international standards.

Becker Mining’s specialist services to the mining sector include energy distribution, communications and automation solutions, mechanical and transportation systems, steel arch roof supports and as the exclusive distributors of verope’s special mining wire ropes. Every system is fully supported by the highly-experienced Becker Mining and verope mining team, which is able to provide on the ground product support.