Industrial mining equipment manufacturer Komatsu has commissioned the first Tier 4 Final version of its 930E-5 ultra-class mining truck in Australia.
Jason Arthur, Komatsu’s National Product Manager – Mining, said this latest factory-designed emission control technology solution, which meets the most stringent North American and EU emissions regulations, has been adopted by Komatsu Australia to meet a client’s specific operational needs.
“Komatsu has a strong commitment to environmental best practice, with a continuous focus on reducing our environmental impacts and our carbon footprint,” Mr Arthur added.
“Our ongoing research and development efforts include developing new products that significantly reduce fuel consumption as well as greenhouse gas emissions.”
The truck features an on-board after-treatment system that significantly reduces the Scope 1 emissions produced during the haulage process at mines.
These emissions, said Arthur, are an unavoidable by-product of the high temperature combustion process in the diesel engines that power most mining equipment,
“This emission reduction technology is an option that now can be incorporated into Komatsu’s class leading 930E-5 model,” he continued.
“To achieve this, Komatsu worked with our large horsepower engine partner Cummins to provide a simple, low maintenance solution to meet Tier 4 Final emissions requirements.”
Mr Arthur said that in addition to meeting the technology challenges in developing a Tier 4 Final compliant version of the 930E-5, the customer also requested Komatsu provide a truck with significantly lower noise emission levels.
“Our US-based Komatsu Engineering team became intimately involved and created a factory-engineered sound suppression solution that would meet our customer’s requirements,” Arthur said.
“These factory-designed sound treatments more than halved the standard truck’s emitted sound power levels, resulting in a target sound power level of less than 113 dBA.
“Successfully achieving these sound levels was a very challenging undertaking for a large mining truck powered by an engine with an output of 2700 hp (2014 kW),” he concluded.
