Helping prevent haul road overwatering and underwatering, the new Cat® 789D Autonomous Water Truck (AWT) enhances productivity by enabling mine operations to digitally track water consumption and reduce waste. Fully integrating into the mine site’s Cat Command autonomous haulage fleet to control haul road dust, the market’s first commercially available AWT is built on the field-proven 789D mining truck chassis and integrates the truck, tank and Cat Water Delivery System (WDS), connected with Cat MineStar™ technology.
Highlights
- Automates both truck and water delivery to help optimise the complete haul road watering process
- Fully integrated Cat® Water Delivery System connected with Cat MineStar™ to manage water application
- Designed to reduce overwatering and underwatering, allowing sites to enhance safety while lowering water consumption
Featuring Command for hauling, the new machine offers the same potential for greater utilisation than staffed equipment. The fully autonomous truck reduces shift changes, meal breaks and other operational delays to improve efficiency. Complying with watering plans, the water truck seamlessly interacts with other autonomous equipment and integrates with customer mining processes and systems managed by MineStar.
This is the largest Cat water truck product offering that can accommodate up to 165 000l (43 588gal), depending on tank configuration. The AWT senses when the water tank is running low and can be programmed to integrate with the water refill station to fully automate the water refill process. The auto shutoff feature prevents tank overfilling.
“To meet customer requirements for dust control, the company implemented a MineStar-integrated watering model based on many years of site watering studies and Cat WDS performance data. This model allows the truck to monitor traffic, weather and road conditions, prioritise what areas need watered, when the areas need watering, and how many passes it should take to apply the correct amount of water saturation, for the given conditions,” says Corey Wurtzbacher general manager and vice president, Technology and Global Sales Support at the company.
The 789D AWT helps customers conserve water, a scarce resource at many mining locations around the world.
When truck speed drops below the minimum watering speed setting, determined by site operations, the system halts water delivery to help prevent overwatering, poor traction and damage to haul road intersections and other stopping areas. When truck speed exceeds the minimum watering speed setting, the system begins depositing the specified amount of water commanded by MineStar. Cat WDS actively monitors water level and automatically turns off watering once the tank is empty. To reduce potential damage, the system has multiple safeguards in place to prevent the water pump from running dry. This feature helps prolong water pump life and extends service intervals.
The automated system’s flat, controlled spray pattern delivers optimal litres-per-square-metre (gallons-per-square-foot) coverage across the haul road. Larger, heavier droplets designed to reach the ground aids in reducing spray loss to wind and evaporation.
Reducing health hazards associated with airborne particles, automated water delivery supports the reduction of dust that limits operator visibility for staffed equipment to enhance overall site safety. Remote tank fill control, complete with auto shut off to prevent overfilling, eliminates the need for a worker to be involved in the refilling process, reducing the potential of slips and falls.
Mines can quickly switch the flexible 789D AWT from autonomous mode to staffed mode as necessary for tasks like front water cannon operation. The cannon has a capacity of distributing up to 2 839l/min (759gal/min) with a spray distance reaching 60m (200ft). Even with staffed operation, Auto Mode water delivery automates the watering process to leverage variable water flow and automatic determination of the correct amount of water needed to control dust.
Scalable technology
Cat Water Solutions integrates the 789D truck chassis with the proven Cat WDS and innovative MineStar technology. If the site is not yet ready for a fully autonomous water truck, MineStar has cloud-based solutions that will work in the interim and allow customers to utilise, track, and measure the productivity of the machine before it is put into autonomous operation. Options include a basic or premium package.
The basic package allows sites to track their asset and see, when, where and how it is performing:
- Location of truck
- Water level
- Fuel level
- Watering mode
- Truck speed
- Truck refills
- Water dispersed
- Truck utilisation per shift
Premium will allow sites to track how their water trucks are tending to the site’s watering needs:
- Overall watering heat map to show the age of water currently put down by all trucks in a shift
- Watering heat map by truck to show where each truck watered and what mode was utilised
- Utilisation of fill spots by each truck
- Replay of truck watering activity for up to 8 previous weeks of data, depending on how many assets are tracked
- Suggested area to water based on age of water and traffic utilisation
When the site is ready for full autonomous mode, the water truck can be integrated into the MineStar ecosystem to work alongside the rest of the mining fleet.
More information on the new Cat 789D Autonomous Water Truck can be found by contacting a Cat dealer or visiting cat.com/watersolutions.
Source: supplied by Caterpillar