Since its official introduction earlier this year, the Weir Modular Wheeled Plant (WMWP) has generated a lot of interest amongst customers in southern Africa. This was particularly apparent at Electra Mining Africa, where the first commercial unit on display was one of the major attractions on the company’s stand.

From inception, the introduction of the WMWP concept was aimed at addressing specific customer needs in the market. Based on Weir’s feedback collection, the most relevant and useful aspects of the design were always going to be mobility and ease of deployment – parameters of paramount significance to contractors who seek to easily move their plants on and between production sites.

“Given that the design of the WMWP concept addresses these specific customer needs, we have seen immediate acceptance in the marketplace. In addition to mobility and ease of deployment, the concept offers the flexibility of a mobile plant and the productivity of a static plant. From an economic point of view, customers can also enjoy the mobility of the plant without the complexity associated with additional maintenance obligations for components such as diesel engines and tracks related to mobile tracked units,” says Hakan Karlsson, Director Crushing and Screening at Weir.

Weir used Electra Mining Africa to showcase its first commercial unit, the Weir Modular Cone/Screen  WMWSC36-5162, a combination of a TRIO® TC36 cone crusher and a TRIO® TIO 5162 double-deck screen on a single trailer. The plant can be operated as a standalone unit or as part of an existing plant. It can also be integrated as a fully mobile solution, highlighting the versatility of Weir’s wheeled modular plant offering.

Jaco Kotzé, Team Leader Comminution Design at Weir, says the first unit is a culmination of customer interfacing and learnings from the market. “Following the customer launch event we have had good customer inputs and insights which, to a great extent, informed the design of the first commercial unit. We embraced the feedback and finetuned the plant accordingly,” says Kotzé, adding that the first unit will be deployed at a gold dump reprocessing and aggregate production operation in Gauteng, South Africa.

While Weir displayed a cone/screen combination at Electra Mining Africa, the company’s wheeled plant concept will soon be available in various configurations, starting from primary crushing solutions comprising a hopper, a vibrating grizzly feeder and a jaw crusher to secondary crushing and stations which consist of a vibrating screen and a cone crusher. To combine these solutions, customers can use Weir Modular Conveyors to configure a plant that is capable of producing aggregates for various end-use requirements. The tonnage range for the WMWP is from 100 to 350 tonnes per hour.

Weir Minerals Africa