Bradken WRP Undercarriage for 6090/RH400

Due to a relatively short undercarriage run-life and a higher Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), the majority of 6090/RH400 machines for the Alberta mine site were retired.

The benchmark for the standard 6090 OEM undercarriages in the Oil Sands is about 13k-15k machine hours, while machines from other OEMs achieved approximately 18K hours.

The 1,000,000 kg (2,204,600 lbs) weight of the 6090/RH400 generates high roller path contact pressures relative to its peers, resulting in higher wear rates of the roller path and cracking of shoes near the end of life.

To reduce the wear rate on the shoe roller path, Bradken redesigned the tracks to widen the shoe roller path and improve strength to support the larger machine.

This increase in roller path width, increased the contact area between the load roller wheel and the shoe roller path, reducing the contact pressure and the wear rates on the shoe roller path. The load rollers, carrier rollers, idlers and tumblers were also redesigned to suit the dimensional changes made to the shoe roller path.

Bradken’s new wide path undercarriage was installed in February 2022. The wear life of this new installation has been tracked against a standard undercarriage and is showing wear rates in line with the expected performance improvement of 30%.

After one year of service the roller path is approximately 40% worn, in comparison to the standard undercarriage having a wear of 67% performing in the same conditions.

Wear on all UC components has been assessed and based on this the projected life of the wide path undercarriage is 18,000 hrs.